We have enjoyed our time in California–resting, laughing, eating, chatting, etc. Monday morning at 6:15 we take off (literally) for MS. Please pray for our journey home. Cristy has caught a cold, so we are praying that she will not have the pain that air travel can sometimes bring with colds. We are also praying that Thomas and Isaiah will continue to stay free from any cold symptoms.
Thanks for your prayers for our time here. The Lord has blessed. When we return, we will fill you on more details of this trip and Thomas’ time at Moody Bible College.
May you have a blessed Lord’s Day tomorrow!
If you follow us on Twitter, then you might have realized that Thomas had a bit of a shock last night! Yesterday I told you that he would be leaving for Chicago tomorrow, the same day Isaiah and I head for California. Well, it seems that for about a month we’ve had the wrong day in our heads. His flight was actually this morning not tomorrow! In about 15 minutes his plane should be taking off. Thankfully we did realize this last night and not this morning.
So please pray for traveling safety for Thomas today and for us tomorrow. Thanks!
Thank you all for praying for Thomas’ preaching yesterday. We believe the Lord blessed despite Thomas not feeling 100%. But often that is the Lord’s way, isn’t it. When we are weak, He is strong.
Wednesday we are all heading to the airport, though in different directions. Isaiah and are heading to California to spend a few days with a couple of dear friends of mine from college. We are so thankful to have this extra time with them!
Thomas is heading to Chicago for Moody Bible College’s missions conference. He and a colleague from InterAct will have a table with materials from InterAct to give to students for recruitment. Thomas will also be speaking in a workshop. Please pray for recruits for Tribe 49, the summer mission trip to Russia, and for recruits for all of InterAct’s fields (Western Canada, Alaska, Russia).
Friday Thomas will be flying to Oregon to attend a fundraising banquet for InterAct. One aspect of the banquet is really exciting! Raisa Ivanovna, perhaps the first Tuvan Christian in the history of that region, will be speaking via Skype to the people in attendance. Originally we were hoping that she could attend in person, but thanks to the wonders of technology we have the next best thing. Please pray that all said technology will work properly!
Saturday Thomas will meet us in California where we will visit with Central Valley Presbyterian Church for the following week.
Please pray for smooth travels. We have more equipment then ever before to carry for Isaiah, so please pray for easy connections, helpful airline personnel and patient passengers!
Lastly, thank you for the great response to the mass email that I sent for updated email addresses. If you didn’t get such an email, that means I don’t have an address for you at all. If you would like to receive email updates, please click on “email us” in the right sidebar and email us so that we have your address. Thanks!
We have already been in the States for two months, and I think we are finally getting our “Statelegs”. Between traveling to some of our supporting churches, seeing family and spending lots of hours in Doctors’ and Therapists’ offices our minds have been swirling. Thank you for your patience with us and your faithful support despite our lack of communication.
So here’s what’s been going on:
Isaiah has made a remarkable recovery from his surgery that took place the end of August. He does have some scars, of course, but nothing has held him back or changed his loving, playful personality. He’s been working very hard in therapy and has even begun learning how to walk with a walker! (If you would like to see him in action the very first time that he walked, check out Cristy’s post here.) We thank God for the therapists and equipment specialists who have made it possible for Isaiah to do so much in such a short amount of time by rushing their requests and working weekends to make his equipment.
And now the rest of the family. I realize that you really want to know about Isaiah right away. 
Thomas has been working hard on several projects. He has preached in several churches, and he is scheduled to preach this weekend. Please pray for his preparation and faithful communication of the Word of God. He has also been planning the annual conference for InterAct’s missionaries in Russia and InterAct’s summer mission trip to Russia. He’s doing a great job, but try planning an event some 3000-5000 miles away from where you are and in another language, and you can imagine some of the headaches that he has endured. But he continues to press on and has made some great progress!
The summer trip, Tribe 49, excites us! Thomas is in the process of designing a special website for Tribe 49, but I will give you a few details here to whet your appetite. The trip will last for 8 weeks. The team will leave Atlanta, arriving in Moscow or St. Petersburg. For the first 3-4 weeks team members will get to have a little taste of learning the Russian language through an official institution, thus enabling them to learn some basic communication skills and earn some college credit. From St. Petersburg they will head to Tuva, and from Tuva they will go to Yakutia.
Tons of details are between those lines, and if you have any questions or are interested in going on the trip, please let us know!
Thank you for asking how you can specifically pray for us. I am working on making a special section on our blog for prayer requests, thanks to the suggestion of one of you! But until that section is up and running, which might take me a while considering my skills (or lack thereof) on the computer, I will endeavor to put some requests and praises in a post at least once a week.
Praise God with us…
~Isaiah’s progress after surgery; We can’t describe the feelings we have when we see him trying to walk on his own.
~Safety through our travels; Even in the one mishap, we suffered no lasting effects, and we can still drive our car!
~Times of fellowship with believers in our own language
Pray with us…
~Isaiah needs to learn a lot in the next 6 weeks. Please pray that God will open his mind and strengthen his body.
~Rest. Living in another culture is just plain exhausting. Coming home and running from one appointment to another has taken it’s toll on us as well. Please pray that we would be able to have some times of rest before going back to Russia.
~Children. We would love to have more children.
~Support. We are thankful for the faithful support that we have been receiving the past 2 1/2 years. We could not have learned Russian and done the work that we have done without you! We are in need of more support for our family. Last year we had to be on student visas, which doubled our ministry expenses and dipped into our account at InterAct. We are currently in need of an additional $1000/month of support.
~Projects. Thomas is currently working on several projects. I will list them here, and Lord willing, I will tell you more about them as they progress: Tuvan Bible Project (www.biblesfortuva.com), Tribe 49, Vans for Pastors, Native Pastor Support, Ice Cream Stand (sounds yummy, huh?)
Again, thank you for your support for us so that we can do the work that God has called us to do. Please let us know what we can do for you as well!
We have returned from a very relaxing vacation to Chattanooga, TN. I highly recommend that city for a family vacation. There are plenty of attractions to see, which of course have a price, but one can also enjoy walking around the downtown area or crossing the river on a special pedestrian bridge. Thank you for your prayers for relaxation and refreshment for us on our vacation. However, in the future, I shall also be asking for prayers for safety at the close of the vacation!
Our plan was to return home Monday evening, not too late due to appointments for Isaiah and Thomas on Tuesday morning. First I will say that we did get home Monday night, and overall we are doing quite well, especially Isaiah. Now I will tell you another reason we have for praising God:
For those of you who might not know, in order to travel from Chattanooga, TN to Clinton, MS, you must drive through mountains. And that’s what we were doing about 10:30 Monday morning in the beautiful state of Alabama, when we met one of said mountains. The stretch of highway we were driving on was being prepared for construction, so we had only one lane. Apparently a rain storm had finished about 5 minutes before we came through this area, which is most likely the reason for our tires skimming a section of road and then our car spinning around before being stopped by the mountain.
In His mercy God prevented us for hitting head on into the mountain. The front of our car skimmed the mountain face as we spun around and our trunk took the brunt of the hit. And even more mercifully, none of us were seriously injured. Thomas scraped his elbow but didn’t even require stitches. Isaiah has a very small bruise on his neck from his car seat strap (I LOVE his car seat!), but he has full range of motion in his neck with no sign of pain. Thomas and I are both really sore and stiff, but we are already enjoying improvement.
And if that was not enough of God’s evidence of His love for us, He also protected our car in such a way that we were able to finish driving home in our own vehicle that very day!
We are thankful for His protection and mercy and love for us. We still get a little nervous when we hear strange sounds on the road or when another vehicle feels really close to the passenger side of the car, but our greatest reaction is one of thankfulness and praise to God. Please praise Him with us!
Post-Op and Beyond
Published September 11, 2009 Cristy , Family News , General Update , Praise Leave a CommentThank you for your continued prayers for Isaiah’s recovery since his tendon release. He has made a great recovery! We went to his post-op visit yesterday morning, and the doctor removed the soft casts. The knee immobilizer stays on for 2 more weeks, until our next visit, but it can come off for baths and such. Isaiah seems to feel a bit more free, though he never really let his casts hold him back in the slightest.
This week has been full of activity, which is seeming to be something of a pattern for us. Isaiah returned to his physical and occupational therapy twice a week. He has already shown improvement in both areas. Thomas has been representing InterAct Ministries the past several days at Reformed Theological Seminary’s annual missions’ conference. He enjoyed meeting some students and visiting with some of our old professors.
Tomorrow morning we are beginning a bit of a vacation. We’ll be 3 nights in an undisclosed location seeking rest and relaxation and not checking email. Please pray for a time of rest for us so that we can return refreshed and ready for the next things God has planned for us, which include lots of traveling hither, thither and yon.
How can we pray for you? We will be checking email before we leave tomorrow and when we get back, of course, so please send us an email to let us know how we can pray for you. Oh, and speaking of email, our mailing list has become quite a mess, and I am in the process of fixing it. If you would like to receive email newsletters, please email us at theslawsons@gmail.com to make sure that I have your correct email address!
Where To Begin
Published September 4, 2009 Cristy , Family News , General Update , Praise Leave a CommentTags: General Update, isaiah, visas
Well dear friends so much has happened since our last posting, which was I realize far too long ago. But just think about how much you’ll get to know now.
As most of you know, we are in the good ol’ USofA these days. We landed August 4th in NC, and we spent 6 great days there before heading down to MS and opening the door to our new townhouse.
That’s right. God has amazingly provided a home for our family in MS. Now when we return to the States each time, we will have a “base” to come to, which is also very close to Isaiah’s doctors. And we even have a guest room, which we are hoping will get a good bit of use.
And speaking of doctors…you may or may not know that Isaiah had surgery on his legs a little over a week ago. Both legs needed what’s called a tendon release in order to give his legs the flexibility they will need for the full-leg braces that he will be fitted for in a little while. He has on soft casts right now for recoery, so we must wait for those to be removed before he can be fitted for his new braces. These new braces will give him the ability to stand and hopefully to walk with a walker. And there’s more! He has also been fitted for his very own wheelchair, which should arrive in a couple weeks. We are excited about what the Lord has provided in such a short time.
And now speaking of time…you have been faithfully praying for us regarding our visa situation. For the past year we have been living in Russia on student visas, which require us to take our language lessons through an authorized institution. This method is very expensive and very stressful. Thomas has been diligently searching for a better way for us to stay in Russia, and God has provided just such a way.
In November we will receive invitations for work visas. This type of visa will enable us to stay in Russia for up to 3 years, which is much more stable than our student visa. Thank you for your prayers for us regarding our visas!
Due to the timing of these new visas, we will be extending our stay in the States through December. This will provide more time for Thomas to fulfill some responsibilities for InterAct and for Isaiah to get lots of physical therapy to learn how to use his new equipment really well.
Thank you for your continued support for us. We are always overwhelmed with the love that we receive from so many people. We hope that while we are here we can show some love to all of you through some hospitality and face-to-face fellowship!
And to tell you how well Isaiah is doing, here he is just 4 days after surgery enjoying some MS Braves!
After much diligent preparation Thomas will be preaching today. Should you happen to read this before 7 am EST or 6 am CST or 8 pm Saturday PST (did that catch everyone? and correctly?), then please pray for him. Having not preached in Russian myself, I don’t completely understand the difficulties that Thomas faces as he prepares a sermon, but I can imagine the limitations that he feels when trying to express the beautiful truths of God’s Word in his second language. God has greatly helped him every time in the past, and we pray for His continued help today.
So that’s today, what about the days ahead?
Tuesday evening Thomas will begin a 2-week trip to Siberia. He will be meeting our field director Jim Capaldo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia before they start treking all over the place, far east of here. Please pray for his safety, health, Russian abilities, sleep, and whatever else you might think would be helpful. And please also pray for Isaiah and me as we stay behind. I’m sure that we’ll find plenty to do to keep us busy, but we will really miss Thomas!
A couple days after Thomas gets back, we will probably have a guest from Siberia with us for a few days. She is the director of InterAct Russia (which is actually not part of InterAct Ministries, but its own entity). She is planning a trip to the States this fall, therefore she must apply in person at an American consulate. There’s not an American consulate in Tuva where she lives, so she will be traveling to St. Petersburg. At least, that’s the plan for now.
July 13 we are anticipating a very special treat! Thomas’ older brother and his family (all 6 of them!) are coming for a 9 day visit! We could not be more excited! It really isn’t possible. Even now, as I think about their arrival, I feel all sorts of happy, fluttery feelings inside.
As I said, they’ll be with us for 9 nine days, during which time we’ll whisk them around the city to see all the beautiful sites and to experience what life is like for us. But we won’t make them go to a Russian lesson…I think.
After they leave us we’ll begin getting things ready for our own trip back to planet America. Sometime around August 4 (depending on plane ticket prices) we’ll be flying the friendly skies towards NC and our traveling time around the US. Look for more details to come soon about that trip.
So that’s what’s going on with us. How are y’all doing?
The following is an update email we sent out a couple of days ago. I thought I’d post it here for those who might not be on our email list.
Greetings!
It’s been a while since we’ve sent out a general email update to everyone just filling you in on the details of our life. I (Thomas) am writing this from the Siberian city of Novisibirsk, the third largest city in Russia. Some of our InterAct team members are here, and my being here to visit them is now part of my responsibilities. As always, there is so much to tell, and so little space to tell it. On top of that, I’m sure all of you don’t just have endless hours to sit and read a miniature autobiography, so I’ll try to keep things brief, but clear.
PERSONAL LIFE:
Since January, things have been up and down for us, but our God never changes! Before we left the States in January we found out that we were expecting. But, sadly, about 9-10 weeks into the pregnancy we lost the baby. And again, about a month ago we were excited again to learn that we were expecting once more. But, sadly, we have lost this one too only about 4 weeks into the pregnancy. While this has been tough for us, I can say honestly that the Lord is using this for his glory. Russia has one of the highest abortion rates in the world. The child in the womb is a “fetus” for most people, nothing more. This has been a tremendous opportunity for us to testify to the value of human life, and the goodness of God through every trial. Aside from the above we’ve had some relatively minor sniffles and coughs. Isaiah had a mild urinary tract infection, his first in over a year and a half! This is quite significant considering he had four the first four months we were in Russia. Also, we are thankful to announce that he appears to no longer have fever seizures. As some of you might know, in the past when he had UTIs his fever would jump up and he would have seizures as a result of this. This, of course would add a lot of stress to the situation. But during this past infection his fever on several occasions went up as high as 103 and he never once had a seizure! Praise God! We are still able to get very good health care, and we have yet to encounter a doctor here for Isaiah that has not just been taken with him, treating him so kind and gentle, and bearing with us when we do not understand medical terms in Russian. Please thank God with us that he continues to keep us healthy, especially for his wonderful care of Isaiah. And please pray that he would continue to keep Isaiah healthy and well. Also, we pray that he would grant us more children in his time.
STUDIES:
Our Russian languages continue to progress by God’s grace. We still take lessons each week, and on top of that we strive to fellowship in Russian-speaking situations as much as possible. Some weeks we literally get 30+ hours of solid Russian time. It has helped us greatly. I have been able to preach on average once a month, and this has been a great blessing allowing me to improve these skills. When I started doing this at the end of last year I would always completely write out my sermon and basically read it, making very few extemporaneous comments. But, by God’s grace, in April I preached my first real extemporaneous sermon in Russia. There were, of course, some mistakes but we were greatly encouraged. For Cristy, her skills have become evident in her being able to talk more and more with her Russian friends. Also, during our most recent pregnancy we decided to try a different clinic. While they have a high standard of medicine at this clinic, the doctors do not speak English. But I watched (proud husband moment here) as Cristy talked with the doctor completely in Russian! Her skills continue to grow. Please thank God with us that he continues to open our minds to grasp this language, and please continue to pray for more and more understanding and conversational abilities.
MINISTRY:
It seems as of late that “Studies” and “Ministry” overlap more and more. While we do have actually Russian lessons, and while we do continue on a daily basis to review vocabulary, learn new grammar, and do exercises, so much of what we do in ministry gives us opportunities to practice our Russian. As I said above, I’m preaching on average once a month. Also, we have begun to more actively participate in a weekly small group meeting for the “youth” at our church (“youth” in Russia means young singles, usually 18 years and older). The group normally meets twice a month at our apartment and twice at another lady’s apartment. There is too much to say about this, but suffice it to say that the Lord has provided us with numerous opportunities to minister to young singles, almost all of who are first generation believers, not having been raised in Christian homes. On numerous occasions issues about marriage, family and child-rearing have come up, and we’ve had opportunities to comment on these things.
My duties with InterAct are expanding, and I’ve been given a few leadership roles within the organization to help out our current Russia field director. As some of you already know there are some very exciting projects going on amongst some of the native people groups of Siberia with whom we work. This includes the Bibles for Tuva project (www.biblesfortuva.com), and other projects that involve us helping to develop indigenous church leaders amongst both the Tuvan and Yakut peoples of Siberia. Watch for more about this in the coming months. But in summary let me say that the church in these two places continues to grow and native leaders continue to be raised up. As a result InterAct’s role is gradually becoming more like a “partnership” with these native churches, having progressed from a “parenting” stage. There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done though, and the needs are many. We are by no means done! Please thank God with us that he is growing our ministry and service in his kingdom, and please pray that these opportunities would continue to grow. Please pray specifically for the Bibles for Tuva project (please visit the website listed above to read more about the project itself and the needs).
OTHER NEEDS:
-There are some good possibilities on the horizon for us to receive more permanent visas to
stay in the country. Please pray that these would come through for us, potentially as early
as this fall.
-Please pray for wisdom in regards to us purchasing a car in Russia. We are currently waiting to see if we receive a more permanent visa this fall. Currently we are able to manage with Isaiah on public transportation, but it is getting a little bit harder as time goes on. We are beginning to see that in the not too distant future we will need to get a vehicle of our own. Vehicles here are a good bit more expensive than in the U.S. Good used vehicles start at about $8000.
MISC:
So there’s a general update of what’s going on in our lives. We thank you greatly for your support and prayers. We’d love to hear from you sometime. You can, of course, email us at this address, or even call us (but please keep in mind the time difference). We have a great little system setup where you can dial a Mississippi telephone number and it reroutes to Russia, costing you nothing more than if you were calling Mississippi. If you have unlimited long distance then it’s free. That number is 601-620-4567. Also we have a
“Twitter” site. For those of you who know about Twitter, our site is found at www.twitter.com/theslawsons.
We’ll be back in the States for a few weeks starting in August. We hope to see all of you if the Lord allows.
In Christ,
The Slawsons
A Couple Weeks in Review
Published May 17, 2009 Cristy , General Update , Russian Celebrations Leave a CommentWell, I think that this is the best we’ve done in a while as far as updating posts! We’re determined to get better at updating here with more of our ministry opportunities, but we appreciate your patience.
We were able to enjoy some special family time before heading off to Novgorod together. We spent one day in Pushkin visiting Katherine the Great’s Palace, which at one point had been all but destroyed by the Nazis.
The beginning of this month we had the chance to go to Novgorod in good weather. For pictures of our first trip there, read this post on Cristy’s blog. While the trip was sort of planned for us, as you might recall from the last post, we did start to look forward to it as the time drew nearer. Two young ladies from our church and our pastor joined us early on a Friday morning to take the bus to Novgorod, thankfully a much newer bus than one we had previously ridden. Isaiah had a great time playing with Oksana and Marta, who were sweet to let Thomas and me have a little respite in our tight quarters.
We were met at the bus station by a friend of Mikhail Mikhailovich Polubaryarenov’s, who is a pastor in Novgorod. The main point of our trip was to get to know this pastor and further develop relationships between our two churches. Our host Mikhail Gregorovich (I don’t remember his family name, unfortunately) and his family were wonderful to be around! Much to Isaiah’s delight, they have 2 little boys, 5 and 3, and a little girl, 5 months, and another little one on the way! The size of their family is a ministry and a testimony to other Russians!
We spent the day seeing some sites, which we had previously seen covered in snow and ice. The day was beautiful! If you would like to see pictures, again please visit Cristy’s blog, as putting pictures on WordPress has become a pain for some reason.
Unfortunately, Cristy started getting sick late in the afternoon on Friday, which meant she couldn’t attend the service that evening, and that we had to return early on Saturday. However, Thomas was able to go to the service on Friday, and felt very encouraged! He was able to tell about InterAct and the goals that we have for missions. One of those goals is to increase in Russians the desire to minister to people in other parts of Russia.
He was encouraged at this meeting to learn that this church has an active ministry to homeless people and people who are wanting to end their drug addictions. The pastor has started a program in which he helps people find a place to live and trains them to do a job. This is the first time that we have met someone involved in this work. We know that it takes place, but it is still rare in Russia.
We look forward to continued contact with this pastor, his family and his church.
The rest of the time until now has mainly been filled with sickness, I’m afraid. Thomas and Cristy have both had bad colds, though thankfully Isaiah has been spared! We’ve pressed on and continued with language lessons. Thankfully we improved sufficiently to celebrate День Победы or VE Day in the States. We really enjoyed this holiday last year, and we were not disappointed this year as we enjoyed a wonderful day together.
