On the Ground in Russia

Dear Friends,

on Saturday we landed in Khabarovsk. After 36 hours in transit (about 20 hours on 4 planes and 16 hours in the airports) we finally arrived. A group from the church here had a surprise party waiting for us in our apartment. It is good to be back home. We're going through jet lag, disengaged from American life but not fully reentered the Russian one.

We're really grateful for the help we received from church friends in Greensboro to help us pack our things, clean the house and get to the airport. God has his people everywhere. Your prayers continue to carry us along.

The schools here are closed due to flu epidemic. But Tonya took Deanna by her old kindergarten to see her previous teacher, who was very glad to see her. We plan to enroll Deanna in the public school here for a couple years, and home school the children from third grade on up. Timothy's friends from our apartment building came to see him shortly after our arrival, and with the schools closed he's been playing outside a lot. We've all been taking walks, adjusting to the Russian weather.

Our first ministry project is find a building to purchase for the Far East Ministry Center. We believe that the Lord has a place ready, and we just need to seek. We've already started looking, but have only just started. Please pray for the Lord's guidance as we seek out what would be the best place.

I'll try to get the camera out and take some photos to send back to you with the next update.

From Russia with Love,

Cecil, Tonya, Timothy, Vera and Deanna

In the Whirlwind of Things

Dear Friends,

my short trip to Khabarovsk was successful. The biggest success was submitting the application for the resident permit, but a number of other things were accomplished as well. I had several good meetings with various folks, renewed my Russian driver's license, preached several times, put weather-stripping in some of our windows (Russian winter is coming), and started setting up my office space. Another success was getting back to the North Carolina to be with my family. For a bit I thought I might spend more time in Korea than I wanted, since my flight out of Khabarovsk was late. As I was running down a corridor in the airport in Seoul, a uniformed lady asked me where I was going. I said, "gate 47, to Chicago." She said, "please hurry" and then talked into a walkie-talkie in Korean. They held the entire Boeing 777 full of people waiting for their trans-Pacific flight just for me. I felt important, and out of breath. I hope next time I'm less important and breathing easier.

Tonya has managed the home front well, and even packed some suitcases while we were apart. Now we're already in countdown mode, with tickets purchased for the 22nd of October. So the whole family is in the midst of packing. Please pray that we are able to take care of every detail be for departure.

Deanna's broken chin is healing well, but we're not going to let her ride it a bike again until we're in Russia. I told her, "no more broken bones until we're home in Russia!" But we're also grateful that she is recovering quickly and our family's departure was only delayed two months. A couple days ago Timothy took this photo of Vera, Deana, and me while we were sitting on our front porch here in North Carolina. The weather here is warmer than in Russia.

Timothy recently received some awards with Royal Rangers (kinda like a Christian Boy Scouts).

We have a special prayer request. There is an individual who wants to help establish Bible Schools for the training of pastors by purchasing buildings for them. He has made some funds available to us to buy a building for the Bible School in Khabarovsk, but has stipulated that we make the purchase before Dec. 15th of this year. So we need to find an appropriate facility and negotiate for it by the deadline. Some workers with the national church in Khabarovsk have started looking for available properties. Please pray that the Lord would show us the place that He has in mind, and make the purchase process go smoothly.

We also have a general prayer request: that we finish up everything here that we need to so and that we would all arrive safely in the Russian Far East (with all our luggage).

From all of us,

Cecil, Tonya, Timothy, Vera and Deanna