Monday I met with the President/Pastor of Moscow's Students for Christ organization, basically got his testimony and tried to see how partnering with their ministry might help. Unfortunately, not a lot of Russians are open to African students at first, but I trust God can open the doors, and I think I'm going to try to raise some money to give them some New Testaments that they can give out, and mostly, to encourage them to reach out to their classmates while they're in Russia.
Then in the evening I met up with a Russian med student who's super-smart. We walked around the city for a good three hours, and at one point we sat down and she was like "So I was talking to your friend David at the park the other day, and I didn't really understand everything he was talking about." I had brought up God a couple times earlier in the conversation, but not confrontationally. She wondered what I thought about other religions, and I was like, well, there's truth everywhere, but not everyone can be right. I affirmed Islam and Buddhism on a couple things, and talked about a couple of things I thought were incorrect. That lead into me explaining the Bible and what was in it, and then the gospel for nearly 30 minutes. I tried to give her a bible, but she wouldn't accept it. As we walked away, she commented that not many Russians believe like I believe, and that she could really tell I was passionate about it.
Tuesday I felt lead to go to the Linguistics University, although my team went to the Asian-African studies one. There, after much waiting on God, I decided to go up and talk to the quiet girl reading a book. We conversed about art and God and life and everything for the next three hours in Spanish, although we code-switched to English and Russian when we ran into a word we didn't know. She was the most seriously post-modern person I met in Moscow. But I also think that for her just talking to a stranger for three hours was a stretch, and we've been talking online since. She wants to be a translator, so I think I might try to work on some stuff with her, it'd be great to get not over-Christianized translations of some worship songs and such in Russian. :)
Wednesday I went to the Pushkin museum with a couple of girls from the crowd I met at church the first week. We met up with Alex and then Alex and I went and spent the night at the Pastor's house again. Played poker (no money involved), music, and watched a film. It was a really good time, really sweet to pray with Alex before he left, and to meet a couple other pretty awesome guys. I'm gonna miss that guy. Then I met up with Misha and Nikita and we went to where we could overlook the whole massive 20 million person city of Moscow, and then they saw me all the way to the bus station.
I feel like a person who casually dates in an unhealthy way. Like I go to Russia, connect to these people, and just move on. Short-term Missions is lot of times like that sometimes I guess...we treat people like dates, outings, experiences, projects, opportunities. We're there but not there full-time, we don't consider where we are our real world. And when you let people into your life the lines start to blur:
Did I just go on a date? Is my attraction to this person gonna distract them from God? Am I called to be a good evangelist or just a good friend? Is there a difference? How does love move on? How do I keep up with my Moscow friends without neglecting my old friends?
I feel so deeply connected to these people, I'm very heavy leaving. I've made really close friends in the short span of two weeks. I know God had me there for that time, and that almost all the times and places were from him. Being a missionary is really just being an intentional friend. There's nothing professional about it, nothing special really. Just the guts to get out there and meet new people, and the humility to either step out in faith or wait on God's timing. And the heart to keep on doing it. All this is from God.
Monday I met with the President/Pastor of Moscow's Students for Christ organization, basically got his testimony and tried to see how partnering with their ministry might help. Unfortunately, not a lot of Russians are open to African students at first, but I trust God can open the doors, and I think I'm going to try to raise some money to give them some New Testaments that they can give out, and mostly, to encourage them to reach out to their classmates while they're in Russia.
Then in the evening I met up with a Russian med student who's super-smart. We walked around the city for a good three hours, and at one point we sat down and she was like "So I was talking to your friend David at the park the other day, and I didn't really understand everything he was talking about." I had brought up God a couple times earlier in the conversation, but not confrontationally. She wondered what I thought about other religions, and I was like, well, there's truth everywhere, but not everyone can be right. I affirmed Islam and Buddhism on a couple things, and talked about a couple of things I thought were incorrect. That lead into me explaining the Bible and what was in it, and then the gospel for nearly 30 minutes. I tried to give her a bible, but she wouldn't accept it. As we walked away, she commented that not many Russians believe like I believe, and that she could really tell I was passionate about it.
Tuesday I felt lead to go to the Linguistics University, although my team went to the Asian-African studies one. There, after much waiting on God, I decided to go up and talk to the quiet girl reading a book. We conversed about art and God and life and everything for the next three hours in Spanish, although we code-switched to English and Russian when we ran into a word we didn't know. She was the most seriously post-modern person I met in Moscow. But I also think that for her just talking to a stranger for three hours was a stretch, and we've been talking online since. She wants to be a translator, so I think I might try to work on some stuff with her, it'd be great to get not over-Christianized translations of some worship songs and such in Russian. :)
Wednesday I went to the Pushkin museum with a couple of girls from the crowd I met at church the first week. We met up with Alex and then Alex and I went and spent the night at the Pastor's house again. Played poker (no money involved), music, and watched a film. It was a really good time, really sweet to pray with Alex before he left, and to meet a couple other pretty awesome guys. I'm gonna miss that guy. Then I met up with Misha and Nikita and we went to where we could overlook the whole massive 20 million person city of Moscow, and then they saw me all the way to the bus station.
I feel like a person who casually dates in an unhealthy way. Like I go to Russia, connect to these people, and just move on. Short-term Missions is lot of times like that sometimes I guess...we treat people like dates, outings, experiences, projects, opportunities. We're there but not there full-time, we don't consider where we are our real world. And when you let people into your life the lines start to blur: Did I just go on a date? Is my attraction to this person gonna distract them from God? Am I called to be a good evangelist or just a good friend? Is there a difference? How does love move on? How do I keep up with my Moscow friends without neglecting my old friends?
I feel so deeply connected to these people, I'm very heavy leaving. I've made really close friends in the short span of two weeks. I know God had me there for that time, and that almost all the times and places were from him. Being a missionary is really just being an intentional friend. There's nothing professional about it, nothing special really. Just the guts to get out there and meet new people, and the humility to either step out in faith or wait on God's timing. And the heart to keep on doing it. All this is from God.
Who was the least post-modern person you met in Moscow?
ReplyDeleteLol...probably one of my fellow Americans...but that's a much more difficult question cuz most people weren't very much so...
ReplyDelete