We are in Russia! Yesterday, after class, our team drove to a boarding school/orphanage and started our service projects in this country. Throughout the drive, we were able to witness the colorful houses with their decorative trim. The boarding house had an extremely colorful playground and a gorgeous view of hills and trees with a bright blue lake snaking through. Everything was so peaceful and I can’t believe how blessed I am to be able to see the world!
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| Beautiful Russian houses |
The particular project that I worked on was harvesting potatoes. Isn’t that awesome?! Jessica and I worked together on our rows and traded off shoveling and searching for the potatoes in the soil. It would sometimes get discouraging going for a couple feet without discovering potatoes, but we were always excited and cried out “kartushka!” or “potatoes!” when we finally saw the yellowish, small, circular vegetables. Digging all day reminded me of a certain movie and we started singing “Dig it” (from Holes) with some other members of the team closest to our rows. Those members, Joanna and Ellie, had a crazy experience harvesting potatoes. After shoveling for a while, they struck something hard and pulled out a bone! This wasn’t just a chicken bone; it was pretty big. We were debating whether it was an animal or human bone and after they dug a little deeper, they found a sock! Umm…a little creepy. Then somebody else found a shirt! Ellie and Joanna then found the bottom of a shoe and we found a piece of glass and a broken ceramic saucer. After playing a game of Clue, we concluded that the victim was murdered with a saucer, in the potato field, at night.
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| Harvesting potatoes! |
Every Thursday night, our team has a worship service called SHOUT and it is so awesome! Before I went on this trip I thought we would not feel God’s presence until Kenya, but He has been so obviously present from the beginning and I am excited to see what else will happen! Towards the end of the service, our Russian friends joined us in our praises. It was incredible being able to worship in two different languages at the same time to the same God. The words were all different and then at the end of “How Great is Our God,” we sang the word ‘Alleluya’ over and over again and in both languages it means praise be to God!!
The next day, we went to the home of one of the members of the church and they have six children (most of who are adopted). We cooked dinner for them and just had a good time of fellowship with the family. It was awkward at first not being able to connect with the kids, but within half an hour I was not able to catch a break. When we first got there only two children were at the house. Vova is a ten year old boy with a bit of an attitude, but once you get to know him he is such a sweet kid. Anton is the cutest four year old boy you could ever see and he was the most open with us. We were still waiting for our translator, so in order to connect with the kids; I rode in on a broomstick like a horse and was able to crack a smile from the boys. We played with trains and farm animals until two of their sisters came home. I don’t remember how old they were, but Dasha looked around 12 years old and she was really shy. Sabina was around 8 and she was a spunky little chatterbox. It took some time to get to know them, but they found it hilarious when they were spraying liquid from a bug spray container at our faces and we would playfully scream. We later found out that this liquid was only water so that was a relief. Then Dasha started teaching me Russian words and the only word I remember is ‘Baug’…spider. We moved onto a new book; Snow White, where I learned Doc’s name is still Doc and a dwarf is a ‘gnomic.’ Then somebody pulled out the UNO cards. It was so cute how Anton laid out all of his cards in front of him for everyone to see Finally, our translator came with her daughter Sasha; a blonde five year old little girl, who would run away playfully whenever I looked in her direction. I pretended to fall asleep so that she would have to come up to me, and then I would suddenly wake from my slumber and from that moment on, she wouldn’t leave my side. We then played hide-and-go-seek and it was hilarious how I would hide in plain sight and they were not able to find me! But once they did find me, they would scream at the top of their lungs in excitement. What a wonderful week in Vladimir, Russia!
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| Dasha and I reading Snow White |
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| Sabina! |
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| Vavu giving me an evil eye and sitting next to Anton with all his cards laid out haha |
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| Anton! |
