Chuck's account is quite prolific, and quite accurate due to Jean's daily letters. I really can't add much to it except that it was a great experience.
Most fun to me was working with the children--which is the reason for my going. One of my regular Sunday School kids, in Richmond, asked me in all seriousness "What are y'all converting the Russians from?" My answer then was and still would be, "We aren't going to convert them FROM anything--we're just going to show them God's love because we understand that communism did not allow them to go to church to see that."
We saw children at the orphanage and Bible School and though we found it hard to really TALK we sure communicated! Whenever we returned "home" from a tour on the bus they were waiting because they knew we would be glad to see and play ball with them. We watched little ones performing and though they sang and spoke in Russian, we knew exactly what their subject was and we knew the fun they were having. We answered questions from the interpreters, and one really wanted to know at what age we baptized children; she had no knowledge of religion in her background and had learned little before we came--obviously she was not a church goer or a Methodist! We can only hope that now she knows God's love--because she worked in our midst and knows that we came to live with them and to improve their physical surroundings. They liked participating in our worship and loved to sing our songs. And they showed us how to dance!
Chuck has newspaper accounts of the I95 traffic accident, but he couldn't tell the anguish we felt on that bus from 1:00 a.m. til 5:30 when we watched the police, firetrucks, ambulances, lights, sirens and finally just went to sleep to wait. About 5:30 police helped the driver turn around and we drove back NORTH on the road shoulder and west to Route 1 with the other millions of stranded cars. Drove at 5 mph about 15 miles to a clear route and arrived in Richmond in time for lunch. Took us about 12 hours, longer than it took to fly across the Atlantic from London. And we were in London the night before the bombing and what must have been in confusion in Heathrow airport.
We worked with the World Peace Organization, and surely God helped us show His love and peace.
1 comment:
I know a young woman who was advised not to have a second baby due to complications leading up to the birth of their son.
Her husband's parents and grandmother live here and they are from Russia. Leslie and her husband adopted a little girl from Russia.
During the time before they were to go get the baby, Leslie learned Russian from the great-grandmother. Leslie wanted to be able to talk to the baby in familiar words to lessen the baby's stress. She refered to the baby as "their Russian Princess".
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