Saturday Plans

Plan A: meet with with N and celebrate her birthday at a cafe, then go visit friends outside of town, then meet with M in town

Results: N ended up going out of town for the weekend, friends out of town got sick and M texted to say she could no longer meet but I did work on wedding invitations while I waited.

Plan B: meet with V, go grocery shopping, meet with U and catch up on random things.

Results: V never answered my text and U didn't get back to me until 5 hours later but I did go get groceries.

Plan C: write a couple blogs and maybe meet with U

Results: It's 4pm and I've wrote a couple blogs and am waiting for U to show up.

I'd like to think that people aren't just avoiding me and that it's just the constant culture of change in my life and the inability to plan ahead...yeah, we'll hope it's the last one ;)

My Russian University

I am thankful that I have a visa to live here in Russia and I am thankful that the university I attend is affordable and flexible with me (they don’t seem to care too much that I skip classes to travel). The teachers are good people and I enjoy being around them. I have also come to know several Chinese, Korean and French students thanks to classes.

Yesterday at university there were a couple things that made me shake my head more than normal.

In our RUSSIAN audio-visual class we watched a clip from an AMERICAN movie in CANTONESE that our CHINESE classmates where supposed to translate for the rest of us. They were able to pick out a few details even though the “Chinese” it was in was not their “dialect”.

The same day I was amused by the long line at the coat-check. I (like most of the foreign students) don’t like to use the coat check because I have to empty out my pockets to keep things from getting stolen, stand in line to drop it off and again to pick it up. It is much easier just to carry it with you to class. But many of the teachers yell at students for this because it is “unsanitary” and “rude”. Typically there are several students working at the coat-check (or I should say 2 working and 3 sitting around watching them work). But yesterday, there was only one poor old lady working there. For whatever reason she needed to take a break at 2pm (just after classes get out) so a rather long line built up in her absence. There was nothing we students could do except wait for her return and then wait until she one by one fetched our coats. It ended up being only a 15 minute wait for me.

All in all these things are not a big deal. They’re just a couple examples of the many things in our everyday lives here that cry out “inefficiency” and “waist of time!”

Thankfully God gives little blessings to make the little frustrations a little more bearable. One of which is that my Chinese classmates invited me to come make and eat dinner with them on Sunday :) I pray that I will pay less attention to the frustrations and more attention to the opportunities that God gives me, looking at nothing that He has called me to do as a “waist of time”.

11-11-11 (this date is cool enough to merit a blog post)

Little Blessings (cont.)

Tanya, my new roomie, gives me great fellowship and cooks and cleans too ;) She’s a great sister from church!

Safe travels down to Tuva and back (even on snow packed roads)

Class was canceled today – yay, for getting caught up on a bunch of little things at home (including a blog post)

French’s Mustard and gerbera daisies

The school director of the English school I hope to work at next year is on top of things and is flexible with me and following through with her responsibilities

I’m still wearing my fall coat and not the winter one :)

I have everything I need … and then some

The Orner’s are awesome friends and family to me (and they provide me with a washing machine)

Plenty of opportunities to trust God more (especially His timing)

I have a nice apartment that is warm and homey

Parents and sister to miss (it would be a bad sign if I didn’t miss them)

God is fulfilling desires that I didn’t even know I had – yeah, He’s that good!

Little Blessings

I just want to share some of the simple blessings in my life lately - for God's glory, who gives all good things!

-Getting to sew curtains with my new sewing machine
-Having a working oven
-Getting to play ultimate frisbee (this was a blast! - despite my bug bites and soar muscles)
-Fellowship of teammates and being challenged and encouraged by what God is teaching them
-Getting to learn more about Russian history
-Sunshine and getting to ware sandles
-Getting to talk to my family on the phone
-Teaching Dutch Blitz to a bunch of Koreans
-Sweet fellowship with God
-Friends that pray with me and for me
-Leaving the bank having accomplished what I went in to do

I could go on, but I think you get the point: GOD IS GOOD AND FAITHFUL