Russia Trip Update

Dave and I began this latest trip last Sunday leaving in the afternoon from Portland. A young man (Marty) from Oregon left with us on his way to work at the OMS camp in Spain for the next 5 months. Since this was Marty’s first trip outside of the United States, Dave wanted to escort him personally to the camp in Spain. The short detour to Spain wasn’t far out of the way for us and it provided a good opportunity for Dave and I to visit some of the friends we had made at the camp one year ago when we stayed for two weeks to work there.

After dropping Marty off, Dave and I made our way to Moscow where we’ve been since Wednesday. The purpose of our trip to Moscow is really three-fold. First, Dave is on the board of directors for the OMS seminary in Moscow. As I sit here writing this blog, Dave is involved with his board meetings. Secondly, we are here for the seminary graduation ceremony tomorrow (Saturday). I’m unsure of the number of students graduating this year, but last year it was around 13 students if I remember correctly. The third reason we are in Russia is to visit some churches. On Sunday I am heading three hours North of Moscow to visit an ECC related church. After that I’ll be returning to Moscow on Monday.

The rest of my time in Russia next week will mainly be passing away some extra time before heading to Korea on Thursday. Dave is going to make a brief trip to India for three days while I stay behind in Russia on my own. The reason I’m not going is to save some money on the airfare. Dave is going for meetings only, so I would have just been stuck there in a Hotel for those days. The same is true for me here in Russia except that I am a bit more free to travel around on my own and at least the temperature here is well below 100 degrees which can’t be said for India.

I have uploaded some of the most recent photos of our trip so far onto my photo gallery. As the trip progresses I’ll try to keep posting some new pictures as often as I can.