Ahem, We’re Still Here, I promise

Well, folks, we really are still in St. P and still working. If you follow Cristy’s blog, or receive our newsletter, then you probably believe this statement.

We have been remarkably busy since returning from the States in early February. Our business is in large part due to the fact that God is providing more and more opportunities for ministry as our language skills increase. For example, Thomas preached this past Sunday. For the first time, the majority of his sermon was NOT written out in manuscript form. He had an extensive outline, of course, but he was able to speak freely in Russian while preaching! We praise God for this progress, and we thank you for your prayers!

This week we are taking a semi-break. Neither of us have language lessons, which means no specific homework to complete this week, a nice break! We found out on Sunday, though that we are going to Novgorod on Friday morning and coming back Saturday night. I say “found out” because that’s pretty much the way it happened. Maybe 2 months ago at our small group, the idea was presented for our young people to take a trip and for us to go with them. Thomas and I forgot about the conversation because nothing further was said about it to us. Then Sunday our pastor told Thomas that “the plans are all set, and we’ll be leaving very early Friday morning.” Thomas then asked, “what are you talking about?”. Mikhail Mikhailovich reminded him of the trip to Novgorod, but then he still had to explain what in the world was going on. I heard about the trip during the announcements and looked with bewilderment to Thomas, who hadn’t had time to tell me about it before church started.

This is actually not unusual for Russia. You know the expression, “blessed are the flexible, for they shall not break”? Well, we’re learning that in new and exciting ways while living here. Sometimes we bend pretty well, but sometimes it hurts a little more. God is helping us to continue to learn how to live in this culture, and it is getting easier!

When we get back from our weekend, I’ll do my best to let you know as soon as possible how it went, but if a post isn’t up until next weekend, don’t panic, I’m sure everything is fine!

Oh, and here’s a bonus: Today is Thomas’ birthday! We’re going to attempt barbequed ribs in the the slow cooker with some homemade barbeque sauce! I’ll let you know how that turns out, too.

If you do not receive our newsletters via email or snail mail, and you would like to, please leave a comment or email us to let me know, and I’ll put you on whichever list you would like! Have a blessed day!

We Twitter Now

We stay rather busy these days, and I’m sorry to say that we’ve slacked off posting here. But we’ve found a new and fun way to hopefully keep you all up-to-date, actually up to the minute with what’s going on in our lives. Check out our “twitter” page at http://www.twitter.com/theslawsons. There we’ll post short “what we’re doing now” messages along with a link to a simple picture you can click on and view. So enjoy!

The Reason My Back Went Out

Greetings everyone. Yes I know it’s been a long time since we’ve posted here, and please forgive us. As you may or may not know my wife keeps up fairly regular posts over at cristyslawson.blogspot.com. I’ve realized as of late that I need to be better about keeping everyone updated here.

I won’t go into all of the details of the last 2 months, I simply wanted to relate a funny cultural story. About 2 weeks ago we all few out to Siberia for a conference with the other members of InterAct’s Russia team. It was a great time, and we really enjoyed the fellowship and enlightening talks and discussions. But the last night we were there I threw my back out worse than I have ever done before. We flew back to St. Petersburg the next day, and I was pretty miserable on the 5 hour flight. When we got back I was flat for almost 3 solid days.

Now here’s the funny part. Yesterday after my language lesson I walked into the kitchen at the language institute where we study. The director and several of the other ladies were all sitting around eating a late lunch. I chatted for a minute and told them what had happened with my back. Now I’m fairly certain that the mattress that we slept on when we were at the conference was the culprit, or at least got the ball rolling. I could feel the springs all the way through, it sank in the middle and offered little to no support. So I proceeded to bring this up to the ladies as we chatted. Well, you would have thought I had just said the most ignorant thing known to man because they looked at me like I had monkeys flying out of my ears. One of the ladies spoke up and said “No that can’t be the problem. A mattress can’t hurt your back.” I was speechless. I was totally at a loss for words.

Now, here’s the funny part. You want to know what the REAL reason was? Cold. Yes, that’s right, cold air. You see, where we were was significantly colder than St. Petersburg, and that was the reason.

So now I know better. All you people out there spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on high quality mattresses and pillows for your back problems, you’ve got it all wrong. Go ahead, sleep on rocks, it won’t hurt you one bit. You just need to move to Florida. =)

“Home”

We’re back in St. Petersburg safe and sound. Our flight landed about 3:30PM local time yesterday, just 20 minutes behind schedule. Overall I think I’d have to say that it was one of our easiest overseas travels ever. Security lines were very short and as a result it wasn’t as stressful getting through. We had a full 3 1/2 hour layover in Paris so we didn’t fell rushed to get to our connection. So now we can tell everyone that we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in Paris! Ah the glamor of missionary life =).

Isaiah slept a lot on the plane. Cristy and I dozed a little. As soon as we got back to our apartment I ran out to get a little food. We laid Isaiah down to sleep about 7:15 and we laid down about 8. Overall we all slept well last night.

Please pray for us over the next few days as we jump straight back into our routine with very little break. Today I’m going to get us registered (S.O.P), and then tomorrow I start my lessons again. Cristy’s begin on Saturday. Please keep her in your prayers specifically as she will have to deal with a pregnancy in addition to all of her other work.

For all of you we got to see these past three weeks, it was great. For those of you we didn’t, we hope to see you the next time around.

-Thomas

Travels

We’ve come to our final week of journey on planet America.  Our travels have taken us to Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and now North Carolina.  We flew out of New Orleans bright and early yesterday morning into Charlotte, North Carolina.  The flight was uneventful which is exactly the way you want it when you fly.

Thus far our trip has been great.  Here are the highlights.

• All of Isaiah’s appointments went well.  No major concerns.  We have some things to work on as always, but nothing serious.  We’re thankful.
• We were able to catch up with a few friends while in Yazoo City.  On Sunday morning I preached at Second Presbyterian Church of Yazoo City and was able to speak with the elders and deacons afterwards about the Tuvan Bible Distribution Project (TBDP…more on that in a later post).  Sunday night I spoke to the congregation of First Presbyterian Church of Yazoo City about what we’ve been doing in our work and also about the TBDP.
• Our time in Louisiana with my family (Thomas’) was very enjoyable.  I enjoyed doing a little woodworking and I got to play a Wii for the first time.  Cristy enjoyed some visiting and shopping with the other ladies and Isaiah enjoyed being able to spend a considerable amount of time outside in the mild weather, playing with grandmaw and granddaddy and all of his cousins, aunts and uncles.
• While in Louisiana I was able to speak to Riverdale Baptist Church about the TBDP.  Interest is high and many are eager to help.
• We woke up this morning here in North Carolina to snow covering the ground.  Being the south, everything here has basically shut down, so this will probably be a slow day.  My hope is to at some point and time talk with Beacon Baptist, Cristy’s old home church, about the TBDP.  

More to come.

-Thomas

The Wonders of Jetlag

I have a love/hate relationship with jetlag. On one hand you have the dizziness, lethargy, strange eating habits and of course the falling asleep in your pudding at 5:30PM when the dinner conversation is just getting interesting. But on the other hand there are some real benefits to jetlag. First, as one who regularly has trouble sleeping at night the jetlag tiredness that hits me about 5:30PM is so intense that I’m assured of having no trouble going to sleep when my head hits the pillow at night. I’ve crossed the Atlantic ocean roundtrip 12 times in my life, meaning on 24 separate occassions I’ve had to deal with extreme 7+ hour timezone difference jetlag. On every occassion the tiredness that hits me in the evening cannot be compared to anything else I’ve ever known in my life, not hard manual labor. Jetlag tiredness is total inability to function.

Another benefit of jetlag is the waking up early in the morning. Now most of you reading this might be asking “Are you crazy?” Well, perhaps, but that’s beside the point. What I mean is this; I’m not naturally a morning person. I usually force myself to be, but I prefer to see only one 5:30 per day. But at the same time I really like mornings. I like the peace and quiet of a still dark house when I get up. I like the gurgle of a brewing coffee pot as it puffs out those last bits of steam. I like grabbing a hot fresh cup of coffee, sitting in the stillness and reading. Normally, when I “force” myself to get up early I’m enjoying this time but with my eyes barely open and with me running into things. But with jetlag my eyes pop open at 4AM and I’m wide awake. No dragging, no running into walls. I wake up and get to enjoy the beauty of a still quiet morning without bodily harm. Now, again, I’m propped up against a wall drooling later in the day, but I consider it a reasonable compromise.

Another benefit is that I’ve found is that one can make the jetlag “last” a bit longer if he or she really works things right. This past summer when we flew back to Russia from the United States I “used” my jetlag to help get me on a schedule of getting to bed early and getting up early. For a little over two months we were faithfully going to bed between 9:30 and 10:00, and every morning I was getting up between 5 and 5:30. This worked fine until we had our first Bible study that went past 11PM. After that things just went down hill.

So right now at 9PM Central time I’m sitting here typing this about to fall face first onto the keyboard. I’m about to go lay down here in a few minutes and I’m looking forward to one of the few times in my life where I can lay down my head and almost assuredly be asleep within 5 minutes.

So the point of all this is two-fold. One, I thought it would be a fun way to let you know that we’re safely back in the U.S., and two, well, I forgot. But I’m sure it was something interesting. So don’t waste your jetlag.

-Thomas

Just So You Know…

We are still alive. We survived our own hectic (but greatly enjoyable) Christmas activities and the crazy Russian New Year. On Sunday we’ll be heading out to the family camp that many of you have read about. Thomas will be teaching some lessons and I will be helping with some crafts and a special activity for the girls. We’re looking forward to the 2 days that we’ll be spending with families like us–families with kids who have disabilities. Please pray for us to be an encouragement to the other parents and especially that we will point to Christ.

Tuesday morning we’ll be going to the airport to begin our trek to the States. We’re thankful to have the ability to return again so soon in order for Isaiah to see his doctors. Please pray for safe travels and good reports!

We hope to post again soon, but we also hope that you understand that with our traveling, it might be a while before we have a great big, fill you in on everything going on post. Thanks for your patience! We did recently send out a newsletter (Christmas Day, maybe?). If you didn’t receive this email, and you would like to, please leave us a comment or email us to let us know that you’d like to read our latest.

Happy New Year!

Fun with Russian

The longer we live here in Russia the more certain Russian words become permanently ingrained in our vocabulary to such a degree that we sometimes even forget the English word. Before we moved here I had heard of that happening and often thought it such a strange thing. “How could someone actually forget a common word in his or her own native tongue?” I would ask myself. Now I’m beginning to understand. Take for instance around our house. We go to the store about every other day for food, and so a grocery list is constantly being added to. Here’s a sample of what a typical list might look like.

-Milk
-Eggs
-Farsh
-Vegetables
-Smetana
-Diapers
-Slivki

Now, unless you speak Russian, I’m certain that some of those words were unfamiliar to you, particularly the words “farsh, smetana” and “slivki.” What make it even more interesting is that these words are normally written using the Russian letters, so the list actually looks like…

-Milk
-Eggs
-фарш
-Vegetables
-сметана
-Diapers
-сливки

So what are these mysterious objects? Well, they’re really nothing strange. “Farsh” (фарш) is simply ground meat. It can be any kind of ground meat like ground beef, pork or even chicken and turkey. Yet the word has become ingrained into our vocabulary to such a degree that the other day when I was talking to a friend back in the States I couldn’t think of what to call it in English. To us it’s just “Farsh.”

“Smetana” (сметана) is simply sour cream. Over here it tends to be a bit more soupy than typical sour cream one finds in the States, but it can be bought in different percentages, and most people prefer it in the liquidly 15% form. If one buys it in the 40% it’s basically identical to American sour cream. But again, for some reason we’ve simply come to call this substance by it’s Russian name.

Finally there’s “slivki” (сливки). This is simply cream, very similar to “half-and-half.” It is sold in different percentages of creaminess also. The 11% kind is basically identical to half-and-half, and the 44% is pretty much like heavy whipping cream. I’m still clueless as to why the smetana comes in increments of 5% creaminess and slivki in increments of 11%. I’m sure there’s a reason for this, but as a friend warned me, “Don’t ask such questions, you’ll live longer.”

There are lots more words that have entered the word bank that I could describe here if I had time. But here’s just a few more…

chai (чай) – tea (chai is simply regular tea, not the Starbucks version of chai)
shkaf (шкаф) – a closet or cabinet
syr (сыр) – cheese
yolka (ёлка) – Christmas tree
kolyaska (коляска) – baby stroller
shapka (шапка) – cap or hat
probka (пробка) – a traffic jam or blockage

So one of these days if we’re ever talking to you and suddenly a strange and unusual word slips out you’ll know why.

Missionary Isaiah

Several weeks ago Thomas asked me to write about an interaction that I had, so here goes…

We’ve begun visiting some other churches in town in order to broaden our ministry a little bit. One of the churches actually has families with young children. We were really excited to meet some other kids!

For those of you who don’t know, we keep Isaiah in the service with us. This started out as a necessity because most churches here don’t have nurseries; but now it has become our preferred habit. We really like having him sit with us in church. Because we had been taught to sit still in church by our parents, we knew that we could teach Isaiah to do the same. We didn’t know how long it would take, but it has paid off, and he (usually) sits through our church services very well! Not to compare, of course, but the other children at the church that we attended were, well, crazy. They pretty much did whatever they wanted to do during the service. The pastor just kept on preaching, though; I think that the people were fairly accustomed to the way the children acted.

After our first visit there, we started attending a Bible study with this group of believers on a semi-regular basis. At one of the small gatherings, the dad of some of the kids at the church told me that after seeing how Isaiah sat and listened during church and folded his hands for prayer, he and his wife decided that their kids could do that, too. So they started to teach them.

The next time that we were at this church, we noticed a huge difference in their children! They really did sit quietly and obey very well; and the mom and dad were “on top” of their behavior. But don’t worry, they are very loving and affectionate parents.
We were encouraged that without even specifically trying, we had been able to show this family what we had been taught from the Bible by our parents (good job, Mom and Dad x 2!). In some ways, this means that our parents are missionaries, too, you know.

Please pray for the Christian families here, they are few.  They have not had the benefit of Christian parents to teach them for generations and generations as often has happened in America.  But they are teachable, and they want their children to know God.  Please pray that we will have opportunities to help them learn what we have learned.  Please pray for the body of Christ to grow through families.

A Great Big American Thanksgiving in Russia!

On Thursday most of you will probably be eating turkey, unless of course you don’t like turkey, in which case you will have some sort of substitute for your main dish.  Last year on Thanksgiving we weren’t able to have turkey, but this year we are able!  No, we’re not going to be in the States on Thanksgiving (as the title so cleverly reveals).  Rather, we found turkey at a half-way decent price, and we’re inviting several of our Russian friends to celebrate with us.

Last year we had quite the international group with 3 countries represented, but this year we’re cutting it down to 2, just Americans and Russians.  We have some returning guests and quite a few newbies.  Specifically, we invited one set of neighbors in the hopes of beginning to build trust with them and expose them in a non-threatening way to what we believe.  Please be praying for us to be prepared and not stress over the dishes–we’ve taken on a lot this year!  And most importantly, please pray for God to be glorified!

And when you finish with your Day After Thanksgiving Sales, come check and see how everything went!

Happy Thanksgiving!