The Russia Experience

Ok, I will have to do several blogs in order to begin to tell you how incredible my experience was on our mission trip to Russia. First, I am so thankful for God and How Mightily He shows Himself in my life and in the lives of the people he changes. Also, I want to thank the interpreters who were on our mission trip. There is no way that we could have accomplished all we did without our interpreters. They were such servants in communicating our hearts to the Russian people we were ministering too. But the coolest thing was it was their heart as well.

I will say if you have never taken a group on an international trip - make the effort to do it. There is something about going to a different culture where you don't speak their language and only through interpreters can you truly communicate with them. I also want to encourage you to do whatever it takes to have enough interpreters for your group and get ones who have a heart for the people you are ministering too.

Alrighty...

Russia, where do I begin. It was nothing like I thought and everything like I thought at the same time. On the other side of the world from where I sit today there are people who have the same dreams, emotions, struggles and pain as we do. These struggles may come out a little different than ours but they are the same. People need God, people want to be accepted, people long to understand their life and only through Christ can they find true peace and love.

To get a picture of what it looked like I encourage you to download Google Earth and type in Bryansk, Russia and then click on the pictures it has there as well. I can't describe what it looked like as much as pictures so take time to visit websites with pictures.

We went to 3 orphanages, a deaf school, 2 retirement homes, 2 Public schools (to which we were the first Americans to go to those schools), held a youth banquet for 150+ youth, and did a VBS at a church plant. And the great thing about this was we got to share the gospel at every place. Who could of thought that we would have been able to go into a public school and share the Love of Jesus with students. It was awesome.

I will share more later!