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November
2002
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11/28/02 Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm in East Wenatchee right now spending the holiday with family. I am thankful for many things, but especially for my family. There are few people that can annoy me more than my family can (I can be just as annoying!), but there are also few who can bring me as much joy. I am so blessed to have such a large family. It is a tremendous opportunity to experience "community". I love playing with my nieces and nephews and chatting with my dad and siblings. Since I will probably be in Russia within a few months, I hope that I try to enjoy these family events as much as possible. They are gifts to be cherished. Anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful day today. May God bless you all richly today! Thank you Lord for all of your many blessings. 11/26/02 So, yesterday I received an update from Olya's church. Most of you probably know about it since I sent out an email update. Basically, there wasn't a typo in the last email I received. They really are expecting the invitation to take a month once the paperwork is turned in. Additionally, they may not even be able to turn in the paperwork this Thursday because of complications over whether my yearlong stay is for work or ministry. It is only an issue now because of the recent change in law over who issues invitations. Anyway, as you can imagine I was somewhat bummed out yesterday. This thing just keeps dragging on and on and on. Today I feel better about it. I think it's OK to be discouraged and frustrated. To ignore these feelings would be hypocritical. What is important, to me anyway, is HOW I deal with the frustration and discouragement. I choose to acknowledge it, turn it over to God, ask for His help, and thank Him for being wise and orchestrating everything to happen in the proper time. There is certainly a reason for me to wait longer. I need to learn to be patient. I need to learn to trust God more with uncertainty. I need to learn to be thankful in all situations and make the most of my time wherever I'm at. Anyway, today has been better emotionally. There is so much to do to prepare for leaving the US, so I should be greatful for a few extra weeks. Plus, it gives me the opportunity to spend extra time with my friends and family. So, praise God! He is wise and He is good! 11/22/02 No word from Olya's church today. Sigh....I don't even want to talk about it. A couple months ago my pastor said something that I hadn't thought of before. I can't remember what the sermon was about, but he said something to the effect that even the phrase "God, help!" is a prayer. It was a cool thought at that time and today it became more real to me. This workday has been rough. There is so much going on here right now and certain things aren't going so well. For example, one of our analytical instruments stopped working a few days ago. It is the only one of its type in our lab, so we don't have a back-up. As Murphy's Law would indicate, we need certain materials in production next week that require a test from this instrument. Without a functional instrument, we can't do a normal release and that causes additional issues. Well, throw that on top of other things here, the fact that I'm tired, my discouragement over the slower-than-a-snail's pace of the visa invitation, and I was starting to get stressed and depressed. I didn't know what to do so I simply cried out "God, help! I don't know what to do and I feel like garbage." Well, He answered the prayer. After some diagnostics work on the instrument with a co-worker, the instrument started working again. Some doubters might say that it had nothing to do with God. I say that it had everything to do with God. He gave me strength and inspiration to keep trying and dig deeper. Everyone in my group, including me, was ready to take alternative measures to release the material that would have been very time and cost consuming. But, GOD CARES. I just want to say "thank you" to Him right now for helping us. He is so loving, faithful, patient, and full of grace. Hallelujah! 11/21/02 Please pray. I don't have the patience I need. After several days of hearing no updates about the visa invitation, I finally heard from Olya's church. They said that they won't be able to apply for my invitation until Thursday, November 28th. The e-mail was a bit confusing as it also stated that the invitation should be ready by December 28th. If this is true, I am EXTREMELY disappointed. I wanted to have visa in hand before the end of the month so I could turn in my resignation and have three or four weeks to train my replacement and still be able to be in Russia before the missions training program started. If I don't even get an official invitation until December 28th, it throws a whole lot of things off. My feelings are that "December" was a typo, but you can imagine my feelings upon first read. I asked for clarification. I will keep you all updated. I have a dentist appointment scheduled for December 5th, so I am hoping that any further work needing to be done after that visit can be taken care of before Christmas. Otherwise, that throws another wrench in things. My apologies if this seems like a jumbled thought mess. There is so much and so little going on at the same time and my mind is mulling it all over, so it often looks like mush when I try to describe it verbally or in writing. Anyway, your prayers for details to come and things to fall into place are greatly appreciate. Oh, and for lots of patience and peace too. God is good and He is in control! 11/18/02 Well, I hope this week will bring me to some real progress for going to Russia. Now that the conference at Olya's church is over, they have time to work on my invitation. I hope to hear an update from them in the next day or two. I am excited about the possibility of really being able to prepare. Today I had the first part (of two total) of a physical exam as preparation for my trip. It has been a while since I've had a physical, so it was a good thing to do anyway. Tomorrow morning I will have blood drawn for the final part of the testing. It feels good to be able to do something to prepare for the trip. The only other thing I have really been able to do is pray. Of course, I think that is probably the most important part of preparation anyway. It's just that with prayer, you don't always "feel" like you are preparing, so it's nice to be able to do other things too. I'm doing OK with patience. Most of the time I don't think much about things, but I tend to get a bit frustrated and impatient when people ask me if I have any updates. Believe me I would LOVE to give a tangible update, but I can't yet. I have to wait. That's all right. When I made finally made the decision to go to Russia, part of the word given to me was to be patient. How true that has been! 11/14/02 I've had a good reminder of God's grace and our righteousness in Christ the last two days. My devotional reading has been primarily in the book of Galatians. The beauty and power of what our Lord did on the cross nearly knocked me off my feet. Seriously, I had to fall on my knees in praise and admiration for the fact that we have been set free from sin and made right with God through faith in Jesus Christ. I can live in this admiration according to the Spirit's leading and be free from strict legalism. The amazing thing is this reminder that truly having victory over sin comes not through my strength, but by the work of the Spirit of God dwelling in us. I am so thankful for God's gift of salvation to us through Jesus Christ. This reminder over the last few days has been a breath of fresh air and has made me leap inside. Praise God! 11/11/02 Sorry to leave you guys hanging over the weekend. I was finally able to talk to Olya on Thursday night. It turns out that her phone wasn't working and while trying to get it to work she turned the ringer off. So, when the phone was working again, she wasn't able to hear it ring! Anyway, it all worked out. It really was a miracle that I was able to speak with her though. We had scheduled a time to talk on Saturday morning and the same thing as Wednesday night happened. Olya told me yesterday that the only time their phone was working between Wednesday and Sunday was when I called. Her mom actually had to call the phone company and get them to fix the line Sunday. Good times. I'm feeling overwhelmed again because of family stuff. I really can't believe all the junk that we've gone through since mom passed away two years ago. What is so hard for me is seeing people that I love make dumb decisions (I'm not excluded) that hurt them and others. It's just as hard to see them hurt by other people's dumb decisions. Sometimes, dumb isn't even a good word. There has been some bad bad stuff and it breaks my heart. I am starting to believe to a greater degree that sin is absolutely awful. There is absolutely NOTHING good in it. NOTHING. The amazing thing is that God is bigger than sin and He works things for good anyway. Wow. God you are awesome! 11/7/02 Help! My fiancee is M.I.A.! We had a scheduled "date" for 9:30pm last night, but no one answered the phone. I kept trying every 20-30 minutes until 3am, but there was never an answer. I also checked my email during that time, thinking that if there was a problem with the phone, she would email me and let me know. It's not unusual for Olya's phone to be non-functional, but when it has been that way before, I hear the equivalent of a busy signal or an error message from the operator. With these calls though, there is the familiar Russian ring. I even called a random number in her city to see if it was just the international phone connection, but someone answered, so that ruined that hypothesis. So, I see two possibilities now. Either her phone is not working in a new and exciting way or else EVERYONE at her place is gone for some reason. This is a little unnerving, I must admit. I don't have a lot of patience and there have been some worrisome thoughts. These are times where my trust and peace in God are really tested and I see how weak I am. If you see this, please pray about the situation. Thanks. I still have no idea when I will be able to get the visa invitation. The nice thing is that Pastor Jeff emailed me this morning and gave me an update on where they are at in the process. Two staff members have identified the appropriate government department handling invitations (Interior Ministry) and have prepared all the necessary documents to hand to them for the church to be registered with them and have the ability to invite foreigners. It doesn't sound like they have actually registered with them yet. I know that today and tomorrow are holidays in Russia and therefore they aren't able to turn in the paperwork until Monday. One of the staff members will be contacting me about the information I need to provide to them so they can turn in the application for my invitation as soon as they are able. Unfortunately, that's all the new info. This is also another great tester of my patience and faith. God is sovereign. Period. May He receive all the glory! 11/1/02 First of all, I haven't received any word yet about when I will be able to get the visa invitation. The change of Russian departments handling those things supposedly went into effect today. I'm just waiting to hear from Olya's pastor for an update. Last night I went over to Rob's apartment after work to watch a movie called "The Rookie". It was the Disney movie based on the true story of Jim Morris, a 35 year old rookie pitcher for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in September of 1999. I wasn't sure what to make of it since it didn't get a lot of press except for some mediocre reviews. I really enjoyed it. It may not have had the greatest acting, but the story was inspiring. It's one of those movies that makes me want to go out and start working for some childhood dream that got thrown aside because of set-backs and adulthood responsibilities. I told Rob we should go outside and start throwing the ball around again. The only problem is that we were never gifted pitchers in the first place! Oh well. Anyway, I thought it provided some quality entertainment. |