Moscow Journal
More Serendipity and a Music Festival
May 21, 2007
When I wrote that last entry about serendipity for me here in Moscow, there were a few encounters I neglected to mention that I was thinking about today. God is so good and so faithful.
I already told you that before graduation I got to know one of the graduates, Tatiana, who pastors a church in Yuzhni, near Krasnodar. About a week after writing about her, I got an e-mail from Joan and Al, some friends in Maryland who were on the VIM trip to Pushkin, near St. Petersburg with me in the summer of ’94. They also went on several subsequent VIM trips to Russia. In the e-mail Joan asked me if Tatiana from around Krasnodar whom I wrote about could possibly be Tatiana Azyavina, because Al worshipped at her church. Of course it turned out it WAS Tatiana Azyavina. Joan asked me that if it was, to please let Tatiana know that Al had been there and that they know me.
My first inclination is to say, “It’s a small world!” But that doesn’t really cover it, because the kind of connections we have with one another come from the Lord bringing us together . . . I have had the joy of knowing Joan and Al for 13 years, and was so happy to meet Tatiana. Now I am so happy to know that there is another connection between us and someone else who knows and serves the Lord.
On the day of graduation and for the next few days the Board of Ordained Ministry met here with the graduates and with some other folks who are applying to be in ministry. One of the Board members was a pastor who had been my room mate in Fairfax, VA at the last meeting of the Russia Initiative in February of ’06. It was great to see her again over the days they met here! We caught up and the last time we talked together she invited me again to visit her in Samara where she lives. More serendipity . . . God is so good!
Usually when I see someone I don’t know, I introduce myself, and when a saw a young woman who was waiting to be seen by the Board members, I went over to her. We talked together for a while, and since she was a bit nervous about talking to the Board members, I tried to reassure her that it would be OK because she was answering the Lord’s call, and God would help her. We continued to talk and I mentioned that I had been in Astana, Kazakhstan for five months.
Her eyes lit up and she said that a pastor from there had baptized her. It turned out that her pastor was the same minister whose church services I attended when I was there! We rejoiced together at that “God-incidence”, amazed that we would have something in common when we were both so far away from home.
Maybe we shouldn’t have been so surprised, though. We belong to the Lord and the Kingdom of Heaven is not a geographical place . . . so it seems to me that all the serendipity I have been experiencing may just be “normal” for us.
It’s 9 PM here, and I had a long day at work, a break for dinner and a rest – and then came back to use the LAN line to write to you. I finally got through to my parents on the phone yesterday and was blessed to hear that they are doing well. They were watching the Cubs play the White Sox on TV, and I haven’t heard yet who won. I know that during the game a lot of folks in Chicago were very happy, though half of them must have been disappointed with whatever the outcome was . . .!
Since I have been here, I have also been blessed to be able to chat with Krista and Tom – and also with some friends in Australia and in England on MSN Messenger. Even with the time zone differences, it’s been good to be able to catch up with everyone. Krista told me today that Seth, who will be 16 months old on Thursday said, “I love you.” To her for the first time today! It will be good to get back home to see them all – and to be able to visit my folks and Tom and his kids this summer, God willing.
But I really feel at home here, too, and thank God for that. On Friday I helped make sandwiches for a music festival on Saturday afternoon. Choirs from many of the United Methodist Churches in the Moscow area came, and it was really wonderful. For some reason Pastor Lyudmila Gorbuzova, who I’ve told you about, and who was the director of the festival asked me to sing something, and I sang two verses of one of my favorite hymns, “Abide With Me” in Russian. The title in Russian is “Prebud’ co Mnoy”.
When I started the ministry to the Russian-speaking immigrants in DC, they didn’t know any Methodist hymns, but the GBGM had already asked Lyudmila and some other folks to work on a Methodist Hymnal in Russian. It is called “Mir Vam” – “May God be with You” – and is really wonderful, filled with traditional Methodist hymns translated into Russian, praise songs, Russian choir music, and hymns from all over the world and from other denominations. I had some pre-publication copies of the hymns and taught the folks who came to worship with me “Prebud’ co Mnoy”. We sang it every Sunday, and they still sing it at the worship services at the Grace Russian UMC in DC, since it has become a tradition.
I only practiced singing it with Lyudmila playing the piano once, and had a bit of stage fright when she called me up to sing. The choirs had been singing so beautifully and I was so touched to be able to be there. There were people with professional level voices, so I felt very inadequate, but a few people came up later and said that they were happy I had sung. They said they could tell I sang it from my heart. You know the lyrics, don’t you? They are appropriate for me right now since the light is fading and it’s time to head for bed . . . I only sang the first two verses, but here is all of it:
Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide:when other helpers fail and comforts flee,help of the helpless, O abide with me.I need thy presence every passing hour;what but thy grace can foil the tempter's power?Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.Where is death's dark sting? where, grave, thy victory?I triumph still, if thou abide with me.Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
Words: Henry Francis Lyte, 1847
May the Lord continue to bless and keep you and yours and give you a peaceful night’s rest when it is your turn to go to bed.
Blessings in the Love of Jesus – Kathy
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A Drink of Living Water
It was cold for several weeks in January there on the central east coast of Florida with only an occasional day in the lower 70s. That gets our hopes up and when that doesn’t last we feel cheated. It's strange how every time I live in Florida, during most of the year I forget that it gets cold in January. Most of the time even when it is cold it is bright and sunshiny, so it is easy to be forgiving about the cold. When I left Washington, DC the last time, I also gave away most of my winter clothes, forgetting that some of them would still come in handy for a few weeks in December and January.
I kept my winter sports coat, though, fiber-filled and red with a hood. I really needed it when I decided to brave a walk on the beach. Because of the cold I argued with myself all day about whether to go for a walk or not, but finally the sunset convinced me since it was one of those full-sky glorious displays that declare the glory of God so beautifully.
I love to walk on the shore with magenta clouds like furrows overhead and that purplish glow on the eastern horizon.
The ocean was petulantly quiet and a deep electric blue changing to steel grey as the edge of the waves turned to bright white froth.
The only waves were right at the shore line, gently swelling and swashing. I love the sound of the ocean, especially because it is so different depending on the surge of the surf. Often I could hear it when I leave my apartment but the night before, I couldn’t hear it until I approached the dune crossover, so I knew it was calm. The wind was gentle and from the west instead of the north which was one of the reasons I took a chance on the walk even though it was cold.
The sunset was so beautiful and the light over the ocean caught a large white passenger ship on the horizon in such a way that it shone and shimmered as it headed south. I often saw the same ship at sunset because it is one of those gambling boats that leaves Port Canaveral on a regular schedule. The setting sun made the ship shine in a way that made it look larger than usual, out of proportion somehow.
On the way to the beach I had told myself that if it seemed too cold I would not walk, but just watch the ocean from the crossover for a bit. After I got there, though, I couldn’t resist the lure of the surf and headed down the steep crossover steps and then south down the beach. I have a good idea of distances I have marked out, so I made my goal the dune crossover about a half a mile down the beach. It was cold enough that I almost regretted that about ¾ of the way there, but I don’t usually change my goals, so I ran some of the distance to keep warm, and to get back to my apartment sooner.
As I walked north I was lost in a brown study, not really aware of anything since there was very little to see. Only a few shore birds were busy at the edge of the water. It was too cold for the ghost crabs to venture out, and I had not noticed any activity of fish or fowl over the expanse of seawater. The gambling boat was behind me on the horizon by the time I made my way back toward home, but all of a sudden I stopped dead in my tracks.
I was shocked to see a big orange disk rising out of the sea. It took me a moment to figure out that it was the moon because it mimicked the sun so well, even occupying the place the sun rose the last time I saw it. The verse from Genesis about the greater light for the day and the lesser light for the night came to my mind.
Out of my absent-minded reverie I had to remind myself that it was indeed evening and not dawn - a very strange disorientation. As I stood there transfixed, the earth’s turning did its work, though it seemed that the huge orange disk that had a bright red lower crescent pulled itself out of the water. There was that period of time when the mirror of the sea reflected the moon’s bright colors and right before it pulled itself all the way out of the drink, it looked like a stubby goblet with a stem and stand. Bands of clouds then took the moon up and swathed it mysteriously. By that time I had been standing still for several minutes and I was pretty cold, so I hurried home, looking back at the moon again only when I reached the top of the crossover.
On the way back to my apartment another Bible verse came to mind – “The sun shall not strike thee by day nor the moon by night . . .” from Psalm 91. The next lines are “God will give His angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” The feeling of disorientation passed and as I took off my coat in my cozy warm apartment I felt cozy and warm inside, too, with the remembrance of God’s faithful promises of love and protection. God is so good!
Thank You, Lord for the sun and the moon, for beautiful sunsets and the reliable dawn. Thank You for the beauty in nature and the gift of being able to know You and relate to You. Alleluia! Amen.
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