They arrived in Russia & God paved the way!!

This from Josh when they arrived in Moscow... they had no internet connection at the airport but Josh found this international keyboard available, so they each stood in line taking turns emailing and blogging, thus there was no time for spell check.... I'll attach below the details that Brian gave of one of the amazing things that God did for them upon their arrival in providing for their transportation for the 2 hour drive to the other airport to get their connecting flight... and for housing on the return trip through Moscow which had not been set up yet!!

Friday, March 20, 2009

Airport fever

Here i sit, amidst a bustling crowd destined to step onto a steel bird to be whisked away to far away places..i seem to be no differnt.

I am waiting for my connecting flight to NOVOKUSNETSK, Siberia. we seem to have spent more time hanging out at the airports, waitinn fo flights, than we do actually flying. I'm not complainin though, it`s kinda fun. the only hard part is that im so tired.

imagine a world where once it hits about 10 o`clock at night, it is immediately noon th next day...that's the world ive been livin in for the past few days. so needless to say, im prety tired.

the excitement never seems to stop. i ca't wait to tell you all the things that have already happened.

God has done some amazing things...and we have not yet arrived in siberia! can't wait to see what he will do next.

well, i guess i'm gonna go now..i think wearergoigto our gate to wai the next 2 hours till we board.

thank you all for yor prayers, ill see you on the other side.

JOSH

Posted by Josh at 9:23 AM 3 comments

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The longest day

After many many tiring hours, we have arrived and have started working. We have so may stories to tell already and we have only been here for one day! One thing that we have to tell you about is the minor miracle (major to us) that occurred on the way here. It happened like this. For about a month, our wonderful Russian teacher Galina has been working on getting transportation and accomodations [for overnight on the return trip] in Moscow with a Christian friend from Moscow named Nikolai. Everything was going fine until about one week before we left, she lost contact with him. Because it was too late to wait, we had to contact the church that were were going to visit in Siberia to see if they could reach Nikolai or perhaps make other plans. Well, they were not able to reach him either so they called their contact in Moscow named Victor and set up transportation for us when we were to arrive. Victor was going to pick us up at one airport and bring us to another. We were never able to contact Nikolai. We were told that Victor would meet us at the airport holding a sign with my name on it.

We arrived at the airport, we saw the man holding the sign so knew it was Victor. We went to meet him and discovered it was not Victor but we could not understand him when he told us his name. We loaded all our stuff into his large van and were off. As we were driving through Moscow traffic, we learned that his name was also Nikolai. Isn't that funny? After talking some more, which was very difficult because he knew less English than we know Russian, we learned that Victor was not able to pick us up because he had to work. Actually the only reason we were able to talk at all was because Nikolai has a lady friend who speaks English and he was able to call her on his cell phone. So, we passed the phone back and forth. Back to the story, Victor had called the church in Siberia to tell them that he had to work but that he had a friend who could help us and his name was Nikolai. Well, to make a long story short, this Nikolai was THE Nikolai that Galina had been in contact with. How's that for a miracle. We are now all set for the return trip and are very thankful for it. Here you can see us with Nikolai getting dropped off at the airport.

Here, we see Dave speaking to some children with the help of our translator. I would love to show and tell you more, but our schedule is non-stop. Keep praying.

posted by brian at 1:46 AM