My first short-term team

Nothing gets a person's mission juices flowing like actually doing a mission project. In my correspondence with our supporting churches, I constantly remind them that we are ready to help them organize a short-term project that suits their desires and parameters. Meanwhile, I got to help with a team of high-school kids who came here recently from the most famous mission school in the world: the Black Forest Academy.

The purpose of the week was to expose these kids to orphan ministry and to partner them with the local mission school - the International Academy of St. Petersburg. Leadership from the I.A. initially contacted me for ideas about where they could serve, and I turned them on to the real experts here locally for short-term work with orphans: MIR. But then I also offered my services to do what I love to do: help people dig deeper and listen to what God is doing in a situation. And they were more than happy for my help.

My roles boiled down to two: help them get ready for their ministry, and then help them gleen meaning and purpose in and after ministry. Twelve high school students from each school spent a week here in one of the best orphanages the city has to offer: #9. The orphanage Diana and I work in is pretty nice by Russia standards, but this one is even better. The facility is clean and somewhat modern; the kids are well-attended to, and they offer lots of good programing. Of course, earthly and heavenly parents are missing, but these are incidentals, right?

I had two hours to get the two teams to bond, learn about orphan life, and gain some spiritual underpinnings for the week on the first night the kids from Germany arrived. Here is how I used the time:

1. To break the ice and start forming teams (Diana gets the credit for this idea) I brought in all kinds of dessert-potential ingredients. The kids were put into 6 teams and given the task of creating a dessert out of what was on the table. They had to negotiate with other teams for ingredients, and they had to create something that was both tasty and attractive. It was a hit.
   
2. Before the start of the week I had sent them all a document on orphans and orphanages that the director of a local ministry wrote. With this background knowledge in mind, I organized an orphanage simulation experience for them. I felt like this idea was divinely inspired, though almost no one I told about it in advance understood what I had in mind. It took a lot of time to think up all the roles and write them out, including interviewing people like a psychologist to make them somewhat realistic. The idea was to simulate a day in the life of an orphanage, giving roles to the kids from the director down to residents. Almost everyone had a specific task to complete so that they would have to interact with others, creating somewhat controlled chaos. Of course the whole thing hinged on the willingness of the kids to actually get into their roles and make something of them. It was a glorious success. In fact, some later told me they were nervous about going into the orphanage afterwards, and were pleasantly surprised to see that it was not so bad as they had feared. Afterwards we processed it, including the deaths of two people, the work of the mysterious "Spirit of Death" that I had planted in the mix, and how it felt to actually play an orphan. I'll definitely be using that one again.
3. Then I helped guide them through a series of small-group prayer time for the week ahead.
   

On two other evenings, half-way through the week, and then at the end of the ministry time, I led the processing of what they had experienced. These were questions like: what are you learning about how God has built and called you? What is happening in your heart? What could you do to be bolder? How is the Kingdom being impacted this week?

The kids seemed to respond, but I honestly expect that most of the "aha" moments will come after they get home, and even years from now. This is the ministry of seed planting.

Me, Myself, and God

I've been stuck in moving my prayer life to another level of intimacy with God. Recently, I started this spontaneous conversation with myself that I think gave me a few small breakthroughs.

Someone needs to read this, I feel. Someone else may be bored. Maybe someone needs one part of the conversation I had with myself that follows, and someone needs another part. But I felt like I needed to get this out there. Moreover, it's a good example of the power of questions to get you looking in places you need to in order to judge your heart and let God expose your attitudes for their transformation.

Journaling entry: I’ve had to face the fact that to some extent I’ve been avoiding these studies [my Ignatian prayer exercises]. I’m avoiding the frustration, the sense of failure, the feeling of pointlessness. I thought last night to myself, “Would you be better at finding time for these exercises if they were a joy and blessing?” You bet. But now, as I reflect on that, I have to respond, “So what?” Does it have to be?

[And now starts an extensive dialogue of truth telling with myself, and self coaching]

Me 2: So God wants our relationship with Him to be boring.
Me 1: Of course not. He wants us to press in to find the true relationship.
Me 2: Feels like a lot of unnecessary work. What about, “Come to me all ye who are weary?”
Me 1: Don’t ask me. You may have to work hard to be able to look back in the end to realize you didn’t need to work at all.
Me 2: That makes a lot of sense, partner.
Me 1: Then how about this: God is strengthening you and in the yoke with you as you seek after Him.
Me 2: Nice and poetic. If he were with me in the yoke, it shouldn’t be necessary to seek Him, then would it?
Me 1: I didn’t think of that. Then maybe you are overlooking Him and He really is right there with you.
Me 2: I’ve never suggested God has abandoned me, at least not that I am aware of. I just don’t understand how to cooperate with Him in this dance. He has called me to, if I could jump metaphors.
Me 1: Brilliant. So it feels like tilling, and God wants you to see it as a dance.
Me 2: That would be great if I had a lead partner. Feels like I’m taking all the initiative.
Me 1: Then stop it immediately.
Me 2: Stop what?
Me 1: Stop doing whatever feels like you driving the agenda.
Me 2: Who’s driving the agenda in my doing these prayer exercises?
Me 1: You tell me.
Me 2: I took it as God ordaining them for me in response to the cry of my hear for intimacy with Him as I submitted to His man for the hour in my life, Bill O’Byrne.
Me 1: Don’t get it. God gave them to you, but He was “responding.” That’s not the role of a lead partner.
Me 2: Don’t confuse me. God put the thirst there, didn’t He?
Me 1: Sure.
Me 2: I don’t get credit for the thirst this much is plain to me, and for which I am very thankful, because fundamentally I have no other explanation for why it’s there, but by His initiative. So does that mean He took something away so as to give it back later when I most acutely felt the need and could appreciate it?
Me 1: I thought I was asking the questions.
Me 2: Sorry.
Me 1: I’ll turn it back into a question: Did He take it away, or did He just withhold it in the first place?
Me 2: It’s certainly not like I’ve never experience God’s love, care, forgiveness, etc., but I have this deep conviction that there’s another level of Him that I haven’t yet known or experienced. So in that sense, withheld is appropriate.
Me 1: So it sounds like we have established that God has given you a thirst for Him that He has also chosen to not yet satisfy.
Me 2: Fair enough.
Me 1: And beginning these prayer exercises was not your initiative, but God’s.
Me 2: I suppose, but the actual doing of them has become tedious and more to the point, one-sided.
Me 1: You don’t sense God’s participation in them?
Me 2: Heck, I don’t even sense my participation. Well, I take that back in part. I have tried very hard to engage the material, and even this has brought many blessings, but at the crucial point – communing spirit to Spirit with my Lord – it falls apart. There was only about one glorious moment when I felt God’s Spirit leading my meditations, and that at the very beginning a year ago now.
Me 1: All work and no play?
Me 2: Something sets me off about your use of the work “play.” Like I’m expecting a reward here.
Me 1: Well?
Me 2: I want to be as honest as possible here. It’s just that I wonder whether these exercises are built for me.
Me 1: Any evidence of that?
Me 2: Just my responses to it. Maybe it’s that there’s a missing skill in being able to slow down and focus on God and his leading, etc., that I have to learn.
Me 1: And these exercises are supposed to do what?
Me 2: Well just that I guess. But they haven’t after a year.
Me 1: Have you somehow taken the initiative away from God?
Me 2: You tell me.
Me 1: You’ve said they are work and that you are giving input with little output.
Me 2: Sounds like I have. And yet, what alternative is there?
Me 1: Who’s driving this dialogue [that we're having now]?
Me 2: God, which is ironic, given the fact that He is ostensibly not included.
Me 1: Why do you say it’s God?
Me 2: Because it feels fruitful like it has a flow of its own.
Me 1: But you’re using your brain.
Me 2: Yes and no. The conversation is passing through my brain, but I’m only trying to record what is going on up there.
Me 1: Up where?
Me 2: If I say “in my brain,” then you’ll say, then how can God be driving this conversation? And if I say “in my spirit,” then you will wonder why the confusion. How about I say, the Spirit is helping my brain get renewed and come into agreement with it?
Me 1: Sounds like a kind of left brained process the Spirit is taking, wouldn’t you say?
Me 2: A condescension to my limitations.
Me 1: How is it different from journaling when you dialog with God more directly?
Me 2: I guess not substantially. Maybe the additional advantage of freeing me up from wondering is this from God or not. What’s your point?
Me 1: You accept one as valid, so why not the other?
Me 2: It’s valid for what I’m doing today, but doesn’t magically make me able to jump into the right-brained way of relating to God.
Me 1: Meditation, visualization, letting Him guide the process.
Me 2: Precisely, I stink at that.
Me 1: So let God teach you.
Me 2: I’m all ears.
Me 1: Don’t look at me. I said let God teach you.
Me 2: Just tell me how to let Him.
Me 1: First stop taking the lead.
Me 2: Back to this. What does that look like? Didn’t we establish that doing the exercises are a given?
Me 1: So it’s how you do them. Where exactly do you trip up?
Me 2: I don’t know if it’s in quieting my spirit, being able to focus on the subject matter, or being able to let Him take the reigns in the meditation.
Me 1: You don’t know after recording over 150 of these?
Me 2: The 1st and 2nd ones are almost the same thing. I need to add another though – engaging all of my being.
Me 1: Which means?
Me 2: I sometimes have thoughts/meditations that may even be God-led, but they feel like I produce them because they are without my emotional engagement.
Me 1: What’s the difference between your mind wandering and God leading the meditation?
Me 2: Sometimes, maybe, nothing. Sometimes obvious backwash from the day. The point is I can’t control it.
Me 1: And should you?
Me 2: These are spiritual disciplines, right?
Me 1: What sort of discipline, then?
Me 2: Trick question, right? To make me a disciple, right?
Me 1: Keep going.
Me 2: And a disciple is a follower.
Me 1: Who administers discipline? The child?
Me 2: Never thought of it that way. So God is disciplining me to let go of control.
Me 1: Sounds like a winner to me.
Me 2: Except that I said I was not in control.
Me 1: Based on what you said above, wouldn’t you say your emotions are controlled?
Me 2: They are usually placid, if I can use that word. But once in a while God opens them up and I experience an acute awareness of my need or sin or of His grace and greatness.
Me 1: And are you happy with placid?
Me 2: No. I’ve long said that there is joy bottled up in me that would more regularly flow if I could find out how to unplug it.
Me 1: So the “plug” controls them.
Me 2: If you press me.
Me 1: And who controls the plug?
Me 2: Maybe Satan? Just kidding. So I have to find out why I am plugging them.
Me 1: Or let God show you.
Me 2: You know what I meant.
Me 1: Can’t be too careful about these things. Anyway, are we done for today?
Me 2: Bear with me friend. This is easier said than done.
Me 1: Oh, really?
Me 2: You want me to just ask Him?
Me 1: You never cease to amaze me.
Me 2: I guess I’m a little scared.
Me 1: Of what?
Me 2: So what if it’s not the right moment?
Me 1: So what if its not?

[Interrupted for lunch. Two days later, during the last two hours of a personal retreat:]

Me 2: Obviously, that wasn’t the moment.
Me 1: The point is God will take care of those moments.
Me 2: Fair enough. I think I’m ready today.
Me 1: What are you aware of having gained from your time in prayer, silence, and listening to [the recording you got of] Graham Cooke on the way over here?
Me 2: From GC the theme was the “suddenlies” of God. God does things in our lives to call us to a whole new place of being and living, and we may have no preparation for its coming. But, he underscored, that doesn’t take away the need for process and discipline. But it reminds me that God like to intervene in our rhythms and “mess with” our thinking to get us to a new place. So I’m eager for God to do such a number on me. I prayed over these things in the park, and asked Him to do some “suddenlies” in my life, Diana’s life, [my brother] Jonathan’s life. I also thought about the Czars and their families, who are no longer who they were, owing to some national “suddenlies” back nearly 100 years ago, that when God calls us to a new place or calling, we can never be demoted, but by our own sins, and even that may not be a demotion, because God knew our hearts all along. God views me, as GC said, through future lenses, so all attempts to view external roles as a measure of God’s favor are suspect at best. There are some spiritual laws, however (this is me reflecting now, not GC), such as sowing and reaping, and that of stewarding little to get to steward more. So I’m not looking so much for a big ministry (though I sometimes do say I want to be highly leveraged) so much as I want not to miss the lesson of the hour. I want to speed up my learning curve, and I know that the key to this is my relationship with God. Now here I go again sounding like I want the relationship as a means and not an end itself.
Me 1: Where did your logic break down?
Me 2: Well asked. I don’t see that, but when I step back and analyze it, it seems to break the rules.
Me 1: When you analyze.
Me 2: Then I’m just going to shut up and let God show me when I get out of line.
Me 1: My thinking exactly.
Me 2: Can we get back to the emotional plug?
Me 1: Is that where you heart is today?
Me 2: My heart is on being where God wants me so He can do what He will do.
Me 1: Are you where God wants you to be?
Me 2: I’m remarkably at peace about the shape and direction of my ministry here. I’m not at peace about my intimacy with God.
Me 1: I didn’t ask about peace. I want to know if you are in the right place.
Me 2: And how do I know?
Me 1: Are you under conviction about being someplace else?
Me 2: You don’t know how much I want to answer that in terms of God’s work, the end result of my relationship with Him, so I see your trap. You want me to accuse God of not doing His part.
Me 1: Can’t put one over on you.
Me 2: Since I’d be happier with God, if he would hit me with some Alka-Spirit to get me over my cold, but I’m not aware of any fundamental disappointment.
Me 1: Then how do you feel towards Him?
Me 2: Confused, if honest. And I hate it when my clients use that word.
Me 1: At least it gets us started.
Me 2: The thing is, I know there is more of God for me, and I know I need it. I know He’s doing a lot of good and important work meantime to strengthen me. Ask me if I 100% trust Him to give it when I need it.
Me 1: You beat me to it.
Me 2: Well, you notice I already said I need it. So there’s a disagreement between the employee and the Employer.
Me 1: Anything you can do about that?
Me 2: The easy answer is repent and tell Him I’ll take His position from now on. GC used another term this morning that got me thinking. “It’s the kindness and mercy of God that brings you to change your way of thinking.” He’s so good at that kind of thing. That acknowledges the fact that a mere prayer of repentance does not mean a change of heart or a way or pattern of thinking. So I need some more kindness and mercy, it would seem. Any idea where to fill up on some of that?
Me 1: Can’t say as I do. Let’s re-visit…. No, wait, maybe this is a good place to ask Him Himself. what do you say?
Me 2: Gird thy loins, self.
Me 1&2: Lord, you Word promises that your kindness and mercy are what lead us to change our way of thinking. Obviously my way of thinking is wrong, since I am thinking you need to be giving me something I don’t have now. What do you want to say on this subject, Lord?
Lord: Son, your thinking is good. I love your brain, since I made it, and I have given you the ability to figure out things may never know. This one thing I ask of you: Dwell in my house, all your days, and I will show you sides of me and my nature that will amaze you.
Me: Sounds so long, Lord. Have I not been dwelling with you, even in my pitiful own ways?
Lord: Yes, you have.
Me: I feel you pulling away, even now.
Lord: No, your fear is pushing me away.
Me: Take it away, Lord. Help me trust you more. I can’t stand the thought of being estranged from you.
Lord: That’s your fear. How does that line up with my Character?
Me: Where did it come from?

At this point I got a rather direct and startling answer. It's a bit personal, so I won't share it here, but I'll be looking into it further, to say the least, to confirm or not what it's about.

Now, anyone who reads this will find a hundred things to question. I'm just trying to share with you some of my process. I'm a work in progress here; bear with me.

A psycho psychic and a psychologist

Back in November I attended a conference where I met a psychologist with whom I was eager to follow-up, as she also seemed. After several attempts on my part, she called me in January and asked if she could meet with me in February with an "unusual request." So I waited another month and finally heard from her again, most eager to meet.

From the first moment we met, Tatiana started telling me that it was a deep compulsion that had been driving her to contact me for some time, and that she had been unable to resist it. When she then asked me if I were a believer, I was sure she was coming for some personal help, maybe to get spiritual advise as one psychologist to another. Not so fast, brother. Instead, she started telling me about how her life, which had become almost meaningless, had turned around since last August when she started getting to know better her upstairs neighbor. This lady had taken her to all these monasteries and had shown her some amazing phenomenon, including the healing of some people through clearly supernatural means. Her adult son and daughter had joined and had been healed of some things themselves.

Tatiana showed me some photos her son took on her digital camera from a cave he and friends were playing in some distance from here. After a few shots, the pictures begun to have a curious haze in the middle of the frame, which, over the course of several more shots, began to concentrate closer and closer to his head, eventually looking like an honest-to-gosh halo.

She told me this lady claims to be a beleiver too, though Tatiana told me she smokes like a factory and cusses like a soldier. The gift only seems to be available, it seems, when they are together. It's not available for Tatiana's husband however. "Some people she says they won't allow her to help."

And just who are "they" I wondered. "Oh, the archangel Michael, Gabriel, several others." She finally gave a name for it all - channeling.

She pulled out her key chain with a cedar doggie on it, which she dangled and asked it whether I was believing her. I prayed fast, and it swung in different directions, giving her mixed answers. She asked me to ask it what I wanted to, but I declined. I told her I could see that she has a gift in spiritual sensitivity, but that perhaps there might be a need to investigate the source of the spiritual input she was getting.

"I quite understand your questions. I would want you to have them. But I am assured by now that they are from God. I did, after all, approach this through Jesus," she assured me. And all these places that were open to the spirit world were at Orthodox sites.
"But you also told me you now understand better than ever that all the main religions are the same at their core," I responded. "And the fact that Orthodox locations can be connected with this kind of activitity only proves that they got a foothold there, not their ultimate source."

Bottom line: this neighbor of hers felt since the moment she heard of me that she needed to help me, so she sent Tatiana to ask if I would come meet her.
"What does she want to do?" I had to ask.
"I don't know, other than that it has to do with America."

This lady not only knew nothing of me, other than that I am an American. She did, however, tell Tatiana that they would not help Diana with her injured Achilles heel (Tatiana leared about that when we were arranging a meeting time and place.)

The only point in the conversation when it seemed that I had opened a door to her personal doubts about this stuff was when I corrected her that the God of the universe loves everyone too much to play favorites and deny His healing to some for capricious reasons.

The ball is in my court. Do I want to meet? My question of myself is not so much "what does the Devil want with me?" but "what is God doing here?"

Coffee Chaos, or What Would Jesus Do with stupidity?

The big coffee chain here, an obvious imitation of Starbuck's, is called Coffee House, but I used to mis-read the name. In Russian it's Кофе Хаус, which is only one letter off from Кофе Хаос (Chaos) so I thought it was the latter (House isn't even a Russian word, one other reason I mis-read it.) Although I love to go there to work alone when I have a big stretch of time to fill, they earned their former name back from me the other day.

I bring this up because I left this interchange wondering how a spiritual person should have handled it. Help me think this through. I showed the waitress a coupon I had for buy one get on free coffee. I asked if I could get that deal, and she said yes. She then proposed a new mocha thing they were offering, so I said sure. When I went to get my second cup, the manager refused, saying it was not one of the coffees in the offer.
"Couldn't the waitress have pointed that out?" I asked.
"That wasn't her job."
"And whose was it?"
"Yours."
"I asked for the deal. Your job is to give me what I ask for."
"Look on the coupon. It says 'See manager for details.'"
"You're joking, right?"
silence
"Then how can you make this right for me?"
We went back and forth a bit, with me offering a mini course in the principles of a market economy that is customer oriented. She finally offered me an espresso, but I don't drink those. A cappuccino or regular coffee was out of the question.

Of course being mean is not under consideration here. Russians rebuke and correct each other and put each other in their place with abandon. Was I peeved? You bet. You see enough stupidity around here to last an American a lifetime. But I hope I didn't show it.

Forgetting about it seems too simplistic. I can hear all the American Christians saying, "turn the other cheek; overlook a sin," etc. What I wanted was to help a fellow human how to think about how to treat a fellow human, but with respect and patience, unlike the norm here.

But if felt yucky anyway.

Next year's visa and residency updates

Our last trip out of the country was at the end of October to get student visas that would allow us to stay in the country for a full year. (Of course, things are never that simple here. They really were only for three months, but they could be extended to a year. We just finished that process this month. Or, I should say, the government just finished it for us, causing us to be "illegally" here for a day in the process of waiting.) So you would think we could at least rest for a while and focus on ministry, right? Not so in Russia.

We're now working on temporary residence permits, an option that we didn't think we were eligible for last year. I met with a lawyer to discuss the details in January, and it sounded great: jump through some irritating hoops, and you get to live in peace for three full years. Here is the blow by blow, which may interest some folk as an example of their red tape.

Jan. 16. Meet the lawyer, who gave me the name and number of another American whom he helped last year to talk to for details. (2 hours)

Jan. 19. (Mon.) I go to the local office of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) at his advise to see if their list of things I had to do agreed with the one he gave me. Each section of the city has one, and ours was at least close by, so no big deal. (You think I should have just called? Don't make me laugh. That never works around here.) The waiting room was daunting: a mass of people standing around. No lines, no information desk, no signs indicating where to go. I asked someone in the gathering near one of the doors who was last in line (they don't form lines here; people just ask who's last, or either it's mob, and it's every man for himself. But here they had to answer with a question: what was I here for? I hapened to have asked at the right door, and so the guy with the same need whom I was behind identified himself. When I finally got in, I found out I was at the wrong place. I needed to go to the central office, since I need to find out if I can get in under the city's quota (the Federal government only allots each area a certain number of people from each area of the world to come in by certain routes). (1.5 hours)

I spoke with the other American (Susan) who had a wealth of knowledge, and she suggested I go to the central MFS ASAP to get in under the quota, since it's still early in the year, and they only do temporary residence permits on Mondays. (1 hour)

I arrived there that afternoon to find a mob style line. The reason there was no real line is that no one could find out where the keepers of the lists were. Keepers of the list are regular folk in line themselves who maintain a list that FMS uses to let people in - sometimes. I was too late for today, but I found out that my window next week was only from 2-4pm, and it would be a "live line" - meaning no list, at least so I understood it. (3 hours standing in the cold).

Susan disagreed. No, there is always a list. Go early in the morning. She sent a bunch of docs to read over and answered a bunch more questions (1 hour).

Jan. 20. Diana and I and two of the kids go to the U.S. Consulate to get fingerprinted for our FBI background check. Simple process (these are Americans; I just had to call ahead for an appointment.), but it was a long walk there. (2 hours)

Jan. 22. I take our passports to get translated and notarized. (1.5 hours).

Jan. 25. I pick up the passport translations (.5 hours)

Jan. 26. (Mon). I arrived again early at FMS and found the keeper - several Afgani guys who were taking turns sleeping in a car. I signed up on the list (#97) while we talked about Obama (thumbs up!) and their desire to immigrate to the West. They told me I'd have no chance of getting in today at 97, especially since there were people on a list from last week. Since they work 2 hours a week on this issue, he figured they'd get to about 40. "But come back about 3:00 just to see how it's going." (1.5 hours including transportation)

I decided not a bad idea, and when I got there, there was the familiar mob, though I didn't understand why, since there was a line, right? Nope. I'm told they "destroyed" the list - back to a live line, meaning a mob. And boy did it get pushy. With about 30 people squeezing on a porch about 4x6, it was tight. I was on the top step, getting dripped on from the overhang for a while before managing a space for myself under "shelter." (Someone tell me if you can imagine this scene at the US immigration office?) When people were let out, they had to push through the crowd like through so many matresses. 4:00 came, and we eventually found out that, since only a small number of us in my category of person were (lucky enough to be) there then, they decided to go ahead and let us all in. I was in shock. I didn't have any paperwork, except passports. I was literally the last one in. Went to the desk of the officer, who asked for my passport, and said, "You can come back on March 30th." What about my family? "Family? They are not here, so I can't help them." I explained, patiently, "first of all, I didn't know anyone else needed to come. Second, my wife is at home with our three kids. Would you please have mercy, since I do have her passport here?" Praise God, she did, and wrote all our names down in the register. I was happy, but I didn't even know what I had just been given. "Bring all the paperwork, with your wife, on that date. You are on our list now, so we will call you in by last name." And the quota? "You are in under the quota."
Victory! Thank you, Lord! (2 hours)

In another God moment, I got a call while in line asking me to help voice over a video in English for a Christian TV channel (TBN Russia). A rather odd request, but I decided to help and went there after FMS. While there, I found out one of them was going to the US this week so could same me time and a lot of money and take our FBI request with him.

We quickly got everything ready to go that night. (1 hour)

Jan. 27. I delivered it to the station. (1 hour of transit time)

Feb. 13th. They actually make me go to the Post Office and buy stamped envelopes. Bought them today while picking up a package.

Plus, you don't pay the application fee at the office, you pay at a bank into their account. Got that covered today when I had to pay 1) our utility bill, 2) phone bill, and 3) Lydia's art school tuition. (15 min.)

Feb. 16th. Usually calling some place, especially state institutions, is a waste of time, but going to the two hospitals I needed to check out for the sake of our medical tests is such an out-of-the-way trek that I had to try, and after many many attempts, I got one and found out that we have to go to one hospital for testing kids, and the other for me and Diana. It's likely to have to kill two full days to do this. (15 min.)

Mar. 3rd. Phone calls with the lawyer and a couple of others who have gone ahead of me (30min.)

Mar. 6th. Diana and I went today to get our battery of medical testing done to prove that we are healthy enough to live in Russia. The sad part is that they won't do the kids' testing in the same hospital. The even sadder part is that Lydia has to get a urine sample for her part, but they won't do that at the children's hospital, so she has to go on both trips. I'm beyond even reacting to such stupidity by now. We arrive at 8:30am after dropping the boys off, pay and register. The process is that you go through what they call a "commission" - a series of medical personnel in different rooms testing for different things, each with it's own line:

• room #1: the blood test (AIDS and syphilis)
  
• room #2: the skin test. We called it the naked test. Take off your shirt, drop your pants, and spin around, getting poked a few times. I bet she hates getting asked what she does for a living.
• room #3: the tinkle test
• room #4: to TB test. We had a brief scare here, as they called Diana back for a more serious x-ray after saying there was some question about her first. After getting visions of returning to the States to die from cancer, we found out it was just a function of the poor quality print-out of the photo.

Total time consumed, including transportation: 6 hours.

Mar. 10th. The kids tests were at a hospital that would have been bulldozed a hundred years ago in the States (if you think I exaggerate, read Lydia's blog about our visit here). Our house helper Tanya came along since Diana was teaching online, and after going to the wrong hospital, we figure out where to go (the other hopsital had no idea, even though it was only several blocks away). Pretty much the same battery:

• blood test - they were troopers!
• naked test - the other reason for Tanya
• mental health test, consisting of the psychologist filling out the paperwork. No questions, no testing. I guess they just looked mentally stable.
• TB test, which for kids was a skin test

Total time: 4 hours

Mar. 11th. Diana went to pick up our test results (1 hour out of the way).

Mar. 13th. We can't just go get the kids' results. We have to drag them back again to get their skin looked at. Time: looking at skin - 1 minute; waiting for them to finish the paperwork - 2 hours. Total killed: 5 hours.

Mar. 20th. Drop off the kids' birth certificates to be translated (30 min).

Mar. 24th. Pick them up (30 min)

Mar. 29th. Fill out application (1 hour) and compile our file (about an inch thick - another hour).

Mar. 30th. Our big day at the federal migration office. Since they require both me and Diana there, we got a babysitter for the boys (Lydia was at friends for a sleepover) and left shortly after 1pm. We had to be there between 2-4 and wait for them to call our names - a much more civilized process than the way you first get in. Got in fast, but we were there about an hour and a half as the officer painstakingly reviewed our documents and found more problems than we ever imagined. It was maddening:

• we had an official copy, but not the original of our registration cards
• we were missing our marriage certificates (though they had told me before not needed)
• we needed the kids' birth certificates "legalized"
• Diana's name and "Virginia" was inconsistently transliterated by the document translators
• answers on the application were incomplete ("No" is not sufficient, for example.")
  

The blessing of it all was that the officer was very patient and generous in showing us exactly how to fix all the problems. As we left, I took a step of faith and committed to a date barely two weeks out (April 14) to get everything done, the main issue being obtaining what we needed from the States. (3 hours)

Diana were going to go on a date to celebrate, but we came home instead and started working on ordering our marriage certificates and the kids' birth certificates with "apostilles" ASAP (1 hour). The good news is that the marriage certificates can be obtained in a few days. The bad news is that the birth certificates are supposed to take from 15-19 days. We need a miracle.

So far our running total hours spent is 41.

Apr. 6th. After various calls, to check on things over the last few days, I found out that God had indeed worked a small miracle: the birth certificates are done after 1 week and out to my parents (who took care of the marriage certificates).

April 7th. My parents send everything to a colleague associated with the Harbor (Alex Krutov), who has a friend at FedEx who offered to give us a break on shipping.

April 9th. For some reason they didn't get it out until today, and, what's worse, FexEx now says they can't guarantee delivery until the evening of the 14th. Not only is that late for our interview, it doesn't give me time to get everything translated in advance. Now we really need a miracle!

April 13th. After being stuck in "sorting" in Frankfurt for over two days, the package suddenly shows up in the tracking system in St. Petersburg! Rush to finalize our other paperwork, corrections, etc. (2 hours)

April 14th. I call FexEx when they open at 9, and they tell me the package is in, but they can't get it to me until evening. I can, however, come pick it up. Victory is in sight! I rush across town from dropping the boys off at school, then back across town to the translation bureau by 10:30. They finish their work by 12:30, in time for me to get to the immigration office to meet Diana in time for our appointment at 2:00. However, more errors and errands to run, and another week inbetween appointments. The good news is that they are all small enough to manage in that time, but we had hoped for a full victory today. The other assignment is totally stupid. They want some doc from the consulate to help them not worry about Diana's name change at marriage. (5 hours)

April 16th. I go to the hospital that did our medical testing, because they misspelled Diana's middle name in Russian.
I run to the translation bureau to have them fix yet another of their mistakes in how they spelled Diana's first name in Russian (but I did get to witness some to the lady who was handling it for me!).
I run to the Swiss Center, which is the organization under whom we get our student visas, to leave them my registration papers which they have to take to the immigration office in their district to correct. There was a mistake in my birthday. How could we have missed it?? I'll tell you: the volume of papers. This is already the 4th or 5th mistake that one office has made! (6 hours)

April 17th. I go back to the Swiss Center to pick up my registration (1.5 hours)

April 19th. Diana and I go over all our papers with a fine-toothed comb to find mistakes. Fortunately, nothing that requires going anywhere else. (1 hour)

April 21. Our third appointment at immigration. We were most nervous about one doc they had demanded for Diana from the consulate about her name change. It was nothing more than a generic letter saying women in the US do what they want to when getting married and signing papers. But it worked, as did everything else. Our papers are now officially out of our hands! Now comes a 5 month wait for the final decision, then one month of getting registered. (3.5 hours)

Total time to date: 60 hours, not counting the blessings of others, like our parents, who helped out, and Clifford at FedEx who didn't even charge for shipping. Thank you!

August 9. Having just arrived back in the country from staff conference in Hungary, our landlord called to inform us that she had decided against allowing us to register where we live. Thus began a series of panicked calls to my lawyer, her lawyer, people who have have either traveled this road ahead of us, and trips to the local immigration office to get some holes filled in our knowledge about whether this could jeopardize our applications and what to do about it all. The long and short of it is that it is not as big a deal as we had feared, and it should not be a big deal to register ourselves with anyone who is willing. (5 hours)

August 18. Pastor Igor himself today offered to register us at their house, a tremendous blessing.

September 22. Having been told when we turned in the applications on April 21st that 5 months would be the review period, and having found out from a person in line ahead of me one day that to wait for a letter was pointless, I decided to go check for myself if our applications were done. The way it works here is that you have to go really early in the morning to sign the list that someone standing outside is holding to get you in line. I arrived at the immigration office at about 7:30 in the morning. One lone guy who had nothing else to do with his time was there ready to put me down as number 14 (already that many ahead of me!). But at least I could leave until 11pm.
I arrived at about 11:30 and learned 1) that only the first person was in line, and 2) that I was in the wrong line. I needed the consultation line, instead of the document line, so I found the lady holding the consultation line and got on #5. So I left again and came back shortly after it opened at 3pm. This went a little faster, and so before 4 I had gotten to the front, but only to learn that not only were there no docs for us, but I should have had no reason to expect any before 6 months, despite the clear word from the other immigration office where we had applied. "You can try back in 2 weeks if you want, though."
I was told to go to yet another office to find out more about the visa situation, as this news gave me cause to worry about being about to complete everything we need before our present student visas expire on Oct. 21. At the other office, I learned that I can just extend our student visas.
Called our educational center, the Swiss Center, and found out that they could just barely pull this off for us in time, as it takes 20 days for immigration to complete the application. So I quickly scrambled to complete everything they needed, nonetheless bothered by the fact that it might all be in vain (including the $100 fee) if we do still get our temporary residence approved in time. Alas! (6 hours)

October 5. Our Russian tutor called Diana this morning (while I was slumbering in bed after a two-day visit to the hospital for a disk in my back that took me totally out of commission from a conference I was attending on fatherhood) and informed her that the Swiss Center had called to inform that our temporary residence had been approved! For some reason the approval had gone to there instead of the one here where we live. But who cares. Now it only remains to find out what our next steps are to finish this all up.

October 6. I go to the immigration office (UFMS) from which our letter came, only to find out that it had indeed come to the wrong place, so they sent me back to the UFMS for our region. The only good news was that they actually arranged for us an appointment to go get our stuff, and they gave us a list of things to work on for the next steps. (3 hours)

October 8. All 5 of us show up at our appointed time, and then still wait a half hour to be seen. "Have you gotten your fingerprints done?"
"No. We thought that was to be done here."
"I don't think we can do that, certainly not this late in the day.
Nervous moment while the official checks if they can. I prayed boldly for it to work. Yes! We wait for the guy another half hour. By the time he's finished, the office is closing, so they asked me to come back tomorrow. At least the kids don't have to! (3 hours)

October 9. I go, expecting to get our passports stamped on the spot. But expectations are a dangerous thing in Russia, even when others tell you how it happened with them. No, all I got today was 2 pieces of paper in exchange for our passports, saying that we would get them back in 10 days! (1.5 hours)

Meanwhile, we work on the paperwork for getting registered and for applying for exit visas (4 hours, not counting the work others did on our behalf)

October 19. Every celebration is only the initiation of a new trial here. We got our passports back today with the official stamps: we are temporary residents! However, although we were ready to apply for registration, which is necessary to apply for exit visas (our biggest personal goal at this point), we were now told that because we wanted to change place of registration from the city to the "county," it would take 2.5 months review. This was the last straw for Diana. Poor thing just fell apart.
But wait: they offered a solution: get the Swiss Center to extend our registration with them. Well, they refused. I went to the leadership meeting at church tonight plumb exhausted and totally baffled about what to do, and how to proceed. Our registration ends in 2 days, after which we will not be legally here, and will have no basis to apply for an exit visa. (2 hours)

October 20. Pastor Igor's wife, Angela, who agreed to let us register with them, found out this morning that we could go talk to their local UFMS, so she took me there right after we each dropped off our kids at school. This office thought that our UFMS had screwed everything up, and they said I needed to go back to them and work on the visa first, which made no sense, but what could I do?
So I went all the way across the city back there to a different window that does the registration and visas, and they gave me a totally new option: just go find anyone registered in this region who will be your "receiving party" and you can get on the "migration account," which is like a 2nd class registration, as near as I can tell.
I thought of 4 people I could ask, only one of which was actually registered here, and her parents wouldn't let her do it. At this point I pretty much just decided to let go of it. I have learned by now that there are times when the work needs to be turned over to God. I thought at best I would stay up all night and pray, but I wasn't going to work the phones and try to find anyone "by hook or crook." Besides, time was running out anyway. I came home after my marathon day just in time to sit down to the computer and teach a tele-class by Skype that Igor and I am leading for coach training. While in class, a call came in from a friend of a friend who herself does barely know us, and she was willing to lend us her name. Thank you, Jesus!
So, of course, we stayed up a while longer to do the last-minute paperwork. (11.5 hours)

October 21. Met our savior this morning and went to UFMS. Fortunately for her, they really only needed to see her passport and have her sign the docs then excuse her. I stayed there 3 hours working with the Oksana, whose name I know because I've been working with her so much, and because she is so incredibly gracious and helpful to me and everyone who comes to her. The good news, we got back on the "account" (учёт) on the last possible day.
Then came our visa applications, and even after all Oksana's help, there were still enough mistakes in to force me to go home and re-do them, largely because she herself was corrected by her supervisor on what was required. You can't even trust the bureaucrats themselves to know what you need around here. (5 hours)

October 22. I paid yet another visit to Oksana today to turn in our visa applications, and this time it worked with only a few minor corrections (she actually lets me get away with white-out, which I've never seen tolerated by the government here). One of those corrections was that she said we would have to back-date our application to yesterday, since our former visas also expired then. I don't even understand fully why that is important, but I am grateful for her doing that for us, or else we would have no basis for applying, apparently. So when can we buy tickets to leave, I asked? 20 business days was the answer. Yesterday the answer was 20 calendar days. Things change around here. Hold things very loosely, or you go crazy. Everything is in God's hands. I gave Oksana some chocolate and told her how much we appreciated her special care and treatment of us. I told her I could see her attitude was so unusual and marveled at how she did it under the circumstances. I think she was really moved, so it made my day as much as the relief of it all. She took the chocolate, but told me she wasn't supposed to. I assured her it wasn't for a bribe to do anything, just to say thanks. (1.5 hours)

So we are done with the paperwork and can finally buy tickets for the States!

October 26. But wait, there's more! Our kind Oksana called on Friday to say that they had found in the Grand Database that I have a work visa elsewhere, which of course is impossible, but I had to go to sort it out (not that they could, of course) by going to their counterpart office in the region of the city where we had our student visas registered. There they told me they were having computer problems and would sort it out and call me and the other office. (2.5 hours)

October 27. They didn't call, so I went today to Oksana, since she is closer, to see if they had called her. Nope. Go back yourself. Can't you call them, I asked. She actually told me they don't have the number of that office. I was floored. (1.5 hours)

October 29. Went back to the other office who told me there was nothing in their database about me having a visa. "Can you at least talk to the other office?" I asked.

"Give me the number." Oksana had called me on her cell phone on Friday and been so kind as to offer to have me call when I needed (truly amazing for these parts), so I started to give this lady that number. "I refuse to call a cell number." So I called Oksana myself to get the number. They finally talked and worked it out. All I have to do is go back to Oksana's office and write out a statement that I never had such a visa. So I went back, waited forever in line again, and did it. (4.5 hours). This was a total of 9 hours of work on my part that they could have resolved if the two offices actually talked to each other.

Total hours to finish all paperwork for us to stay in Russia and leave next month: 107.5

Homelessness in St. Petersburg

The following is an article from Arguments and Facts, a well-known national paper here, about some of the ways the homeless live here. It's worth reprinting in its entirety. I used the Google translation tool, so it's weak in places, even after some tidying up on my part, but you'll get the idea. As an aside, my Russian tutor, Ludmilla, introduced me to a friend of hers who runs a government homeless shelter. The lady seemed more than eager to meet me, but when I got there, she wouldn't even let me see the place, saying I had to write a request that would go through her boss (even though she is in charge). She wouldn't discuss anything about it with me, saying she wouldn't know where I came from and how I would use the information. They didn't even need volunteers, she informed me, saying they have a "different structure" than private shelters. I rarely get offended, but this peeved me pretty bad. I had walked a long way in the snow to get there, and she didn't have the courtesy to tell me or Ludmilla any of this in advance. Ludmilla was equally upset, if not more, and could only speculate that the shelter was actually making some money on the side by renting rooms to people who would pay market rates. Boy, does this society need Jesus, as you will see more of below.

How the homeless spend their winter
Eugene KOLESNIKOV
Published: January 14, 2009 11:56:46
Article from AiF number 3 of 14 January 2009 11:13:01

The middle of winter. Many homeless won't make it until spring. Our correspondent found out where and in what conditions the winter in St. Petersburg is like on the street.

Eat Seagulls!

The famous South landfill, near the cemetery for South Pulkovskimi heights. It is
the biggest in Europe. And since Soviet times, it shells and live homeless and any other questionable identity.

I fell into some primitive world. In the landfill rummage bearded men, similar to neanderthals with ... bows and arrows. They prey on gulls, which at a dump are likely invisible. They hunt for a gulls picking that pick over garbage. I was accompanied by a police officer familiar with the gun - one appears in such places is dangerous. He says: «This is a very terrible place, but many homeless from around the city want to come here. There's always food. The homeless build a hut of planks, plywood, felt, make a hole in the debris. Newbie here are not accepted. In the South there is a dump and a rigid hierarchy - even the semblance of taxes for ordinary homeless ». I note that the stench and the smoke in the air makes my head dizzy.

- But there are not only homeless here - continues the officer. - there are vagrants who do not want to work on the basis of some philosophical ideas. Some here even during Soviet times «kosili» from the army, got accustomed to it, and still live here.

Lohmatogo meet local residents. Nikolai, a bit «polomavshis», told us about his life: - Food a lot, and vodka turns up. Moreover - it happens that thousands of U.S. dollars have been found.

His fairly tattered sidekick adds: «A few times we've found guns and sniper rifles, maybe killers dumped. We sell them. In general, it's good here, a lot of food, a lot of debris, so you can burn fires in winter. So that winter, and this time normally ». Asked what the food - a typical tramp meal at South Landfill? A woman with cracked black lips and colored eyes met my eye: «There is always the bread, sausage, bones and meat; I often come across chips, chocolate, in some cases, cans with out of date red caviar. If you want fresh meat - kill seagulls, then you'll be full »...

«It was a scholarship» ...

Village Toksovo. Not far from St. Petersburg. There are elite homes, simpler houses,
and simply shacks (dachas - summer cottages). The latter are where many homeless spend their winters.

Alexander came to St. Petersburg from Tula, a student here at the university. But the rental
housing money he lacks. A dormitory is not provided, since they are rented at higher prices to guest workers, who pay more even for ten people in one. Sasha has to find cover byvarious means. Sometimes sleeps in summer houses in the winter.

- I am certainly awkward about doing this to the owners, but I do not damage their property -- said the 20-year-old student. - If my scholarship were normal, the problems would be no such.

Sasha is a unique person could live with their parents in Tula, but preferred to study in St. Petersburg, manage on his own, despite the difficulties. But he, though he does not look it, is a homeless person: a specific place of residence in it does not. When I visited him, Sasha left the electric train and began to search Toksovo for a house to spend the night.

All property - books

Subway «Moscow». Every day there on a bench you can see a high greying tramp. With him a big touring backpack, in which fit all his belongings. And it's a lot ... books. This tramp looks very intelligent, but dressed in rags. He is sitting, reading, standing passengers of the subway station to the has long been accustomed to. Do not touch the old man and the police. We talk to the homeless, who introduced Vladimir. On the street he was still in the middle 1990, his tricked fraudsters from real estate, as so often happened in those times. Then Vladimir was already retired, and worked all his life engineer. He is not asking for charity, goes to social dining. Also in rummages in garbage bins.

In principle, with no special problems with food, but sleep in the winter in the basement is not easy, but cold. Therefore homeless man waiting for the closure of the subway (at the same time, you can read in warm, and read Vladimir loves most in the world).

On this day, he kept a volume of lyrics by Lermontov. «All of my books I know by heart, - said Vladimir. - I have them for several years reread, others I did not buy ... »

Where to get help

Bypass. Town not far from the «Warsaw Express». There, on cardboard and even a flaw kuchno wander the most disheveled homeless alcoholic. Many have been in this position after release from prison.

- I got a minor and an adult and was freed without shelter - husky voice tells one of them. - In the deal, what to do and where to go from I was in the trolley-bus was stolen «wolf ticket» (certificate of release. - EK). And so as a passport, I never had, then I get him nowhere. Without a passport every moment requires me fees. And where do I get registered? Only buy a to buy, I need money надыбать. Надыбать бабла nowhere - without documents, no one takes. So that's zavertelos ...

Many of the homeless do not survive until spring. Waif named Sergei says: «Well, the past winter was warmer. Although Кolyan nonetheless gave out ... This is my koresh. Yes every winter someone dies, how else?»

More on hypnosis

A reader responded to my post on helping my daughter go to sleep:

I found your experience with Tobias and the prayer to relinquish the influence of another spirit fascinating. I think I understand and agree with what you and Tobias did. My question is this - how does one identify such foreign influences in one's life? I understand that it is through the Holy Spirit, and in this case clearly Tobias was led to advise you this was not of God. But, as an example, if I had learned some relaxation techniques in college (which I did), techniques which were secular (they were) and seemingly spiritually 'neutral' (meaning not related to yoga or TM or another religious practice), then...

Do these represent another authority and spirit, or are they more along the lines of, say, learning physical exercises such as stretches to relax muscles? What if you had simply made Lydia a cup of chamomile tea, but neglected to ask God to show her how He would help her?

No and yes. No, they are not grounded in the demonic, nor are they a denial of Christ. They aren't even wrong, per se. But look how fast we jump to "remedies" before we jump into the arms of Christ. Hey, what I am saying here is convicting to me. Why are we in such a hurry to solve the problem, rather than ask Jesus why I'm having a hard time relaxing. The Bible has plenty to say about relaxing, so there is plenty of reason to consider that there MAY be a spiritual connection.

As I begin to filter more of my life through what happened with this incident, it starts to get scary how much we are controlled by "vain imaginations" that have nothing to do with God. Look at Col. 2:8.
"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." I'm going to make a conjecture about this verse, and I may even post my answer to you to see if anyone will respond (though I confess Lydia gets more online responses than I do by far!). I'm well aware that non-Christian philosophies are damaging, not only because they deny Christ and all that implies, but also because of what they affirm. They are full of lies that lead people into lives that are destructive and even dangerous. That being said, I'm not sure that's the emphasis of this passage. I think that the discussion here is about the fact that they are "empty" and "human" - as opposed to Christ-filled. They are based on "tradition" and the "elemental spirits." There is debate over what the latter term "stoicheia" means. The word means "rudiments" or "elements." I think I am on at least defensible grounds when I suggest that we are talking here about systems that propose to follow "the way things are." That is, they follow natural patterns, or they conform to natural examples, or the well-founded traditions of men. Astronomy and all the modern sciences would fall under this.

Here is where my claim may seem radical, but not so if Paul is not emphasizing their wrongness, but rather their independence from Christ. Notice that Paul starts to admonish the Collossians in verse 8 and picks up the thread in verse 16. Everything else is a theological grounding for his insistence that their radical commitment to Christ is in fact not crazy, as their world would have judged, but rather the real Truth that informs victorious living. Read verses 9-15 from the perspective of someone caught up in the thinking of verses 16-17 and 21-23. Such a person seems to have a measure of wisdom grounded in experience. If a true test for comparison is the "philosophy's" impact on the person, then we see that the approaches advocated by the world (vv. 21-23) may have the desired effect on the body (e.g., behavior), but not on the flesh (v. 23), which, of course, the world cannot touch, because the flesh (spiritual nature) is a matter of the heart, which is deceitful and wicked.

Over and over again, third world Christians tell us that the reason there are hardly any miracles in the West is because we don't need them. How do we not need them? We act like we don't because of our dependence on Science and our implicit faith in naturalistic reasoning, which is Greek philosophy. This is where we get defensive and shout, "but are you saying that modern medicine is of the Devil?" If Paul, as I argue, is not emphasizing the wrongness of philosophy, but its independence from Christ, then it helps us see the resolution. The problem comes in actually trying to imagine what medicine would really look like if it were founded wholly on Christ. I think it's better to leave it at that for imagination's sake, rather than try to attempt a description. I think this approach disarms the whole polarized discussion about science vs. faith.

The conclusion: Your question takes off the table any question about an approach's demonic origin. That's good; it's a red herring.

1. Where is your reliance? Christ or the elemental spirits?

2. What is your goal? resolution of a problem, or God's glory?