Monday, March 21, 2011

Settling in

Today I found a place to live!! After asking around, hoping to rent a room from a Russian lady or family or rent an apartment with a Russian girl my age, a girl from church invited me to live with her and her mother. I visited them today and was very blessed by their fellowship and felt at home in their apartment. On Wednesday I will be moving in!

Also, the process of getting medical tests done to prove I don't have a bunch of diseases (so that I can apply for my temporary residents visa) has went very smoothly. For the past week and a half I have been in four clinics, once to be tested and then again to pick up the results. I have all the results except one, that I will pick up on Wednesday. My American documents are being translated and then I will have those notarized on Friday and hopefully be on a bus to Tuva on Saturday. I don't know how long it will take me to submit all of my necessary documents for the visa once I'm down there, but I sure would appreciate prayers for this process to go very smoothly and quickly without problems that can't easily or quickly be fixed.

All in all, things are going very well! I am still tired a lot of the time but that's to be expected. Perhaps once my visa application is submitted and I am moved into the apartment I will be able to relax a bit more and catch up on rest. Thank you, thank you for your prayers!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Arrived!

I type from my friends' apartment here in Krasnoyarsk, Russia! I praise God for the safe travels and the many people that have been praying for me to quickly get over the jet lag! Also, I was able to ship all of my things from St Petersburg to here (they should arrive on Friday).

While it is good to arrive, Russia has a way of always reminding me that I have "not arrived" in Russian language and culture. I had a couple "adventures" along the way that helped keep me humble, but over all, things are going VERY well!

I am thankful for Lucas and Jamie who are letting me stay with them until I find a place of my own (you can pray that I find a good place to live while here in Krasnoyarsk, I'd like to live with a Russian). We (Lucas, Jamie, Sam, Sophie and I) were able to attend the Russian festival, "Maslenitsa", in celebration for the coming of spring and "last hooraw" before the Orthodox fast. Here's a glimpse of our afternoon (along with a picture of my personal favorite - the horses used to give kid rides...I wish I would have taken more pictures of them, this was only one of at least a dozen "beautiful" horses....)