Still in Voronezh

It is now Wednesday night in Voronezh, and our week of ministry is drawing to a close. On Thursday we will be going to Bobrov Youth Prison (the same one as last year) to minister to the boys there. We then travel back to the meeting hall to have a dinner with people that we've met throughout the week. I am hoping to go to visit my friend Oleg and his family tomorrow evening, but there are a few details to work out before that can happen. I don't want to ruffle any feathers since the schedule this week has already be thrown into upheaval many times.

On Friday we have our last day in Voronezh. We are going to visit a famous painter named Uri in the morning followed by a bus tour of the city. Then it's off to the culinary school for our final meal with the church group. We then have about 3-4 hours of free time with our interpreters before we load up our bags and head off to the train station. We take the overnight train to Moscow where we will spend the day on Saturday. Finally we leave Sunday morning to return to the US.

This week has gone by so much more quickly than last year, and I am already missing some of the friends that I have made here. I wish there was an easy way to get here (like a Star Trek teleporter) so that I could visit them all the time. Maybe Nickie and I can sell the house and move here by year's end......JUST KIDDING (sorta). :)

Well, it is late, and I have to pay for the time on the computer or the bandwidth that I use, whichever is greater, so I need to keep this post short. I'll try to post more when we get to Moscow.

I'm in Voronezh

Hello from Voronezh. Our team has made it here safely, and we are having a great time. I don't have time for a big post right now, so I'll give 2 highlights:

1) I got to go to a transitional center for kids getting out of the orpanages. It was a blast.

2) I got to see Lubov, the little old lady from the park last year. This was an interesting story that I don't have time to post. I'll tell the story later. (check back over the next few days.)

I'm now in Moscow

We have all made it safely to Moscow. Our flight arrived about 15 minutes early, and we all made it through the customs lines without incident. We met up with our bus and after experiencing the Moscow version of lunch time traffic, we made it to the hotel.

Because it was the morning here, we needed to stay up all day to get our internal clocks adjusted to the new time zone. So, we walked down the block to the Metro (subway) station and took a ride in to Red Square. It never ceases to amaze me when I walk on the cobble stone street in RED SQUARE!! I never thought I'd ever see it, and now I've been here twice.

We had an added bonus. As we walked towards St. Basil's Cathedral, we noticed that it was open to the public (for a small fee). Not one of our team members had ever been inside, and some of them have been coming to Russia for over 6 years! It is really cool to stand inside a building that was constructed over 400 years ago.

After the tour we decided that it was time for dinner, but one of our team members had not yet arrived in Moscow. This lead to some logistical problems and lots of walking up and down stairs, but exercise is good for you, right? We finally made it to the restaurant back in our hotel and had some great Russian food!

Well, it's getting late and I need to get to bed soon. We have a long day (and week) ahead of us. I'll post again when I have the opportunity.

I'm in Atlanta

For those of you keeping track of my progress on the web, I have made it to
Atlanta. I am meeting the rest of the team here. We leave at 3:55 pm, and
everything is on time right now.

I'll post more later if I get a chance.

I'm off

Well, it's 11:00 pm on September 20, and I leave for Voronezh, Russia tomorrow morning at 8:50. I'm so excited I can hardly sleep.

Please be praying for our team as we travel to and through Russia, that we would arrive safely and with all of our stuff.

Keep your eyes on this site for updates as I'm able to make them.

What's with the name?

I know people will probably ask, so I'll go ahead and answer right away. I chose the name for my blog ("Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects") while reading The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs. Basically A. J. read the Encyclopedia Britannica in an attempt to gain all knowledge known to man. Along with sections on the interesting tidbits he finds in the Britannica, he also shares about his life throughout the process. It's pretty funny.

In one part of the book he tells about some of his favorite book titles. One particularly good one is Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle Between the Years 1826 and 1836, Describing Their Examination of the Southern Shores of South Americana and the Beagle's Circumnavigation of the Globe by Robert Fitzroy. I'm sure that this was quite a page turner!

Another good title is one used by Anglo-Irish chemist Robert Boyle for his book of moral essays, which is Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects. I thought it would make a great title for my blog since I will be writing on occasion (no promises of daily entries) and I will not be focusing on any particular topic.

My First Post

Well, I've finally broken down and created my own blog. I've been wrestling with the idea for a long time, and have always had questions about it:

• Do I need one?
• What will I talk about?
• Will anyone read what I write?
• Why don't I just put this stuff on my normal web site (www.elfcc.com)?

So, over the past few weeks I've encountered a few times where I wish I had remembered something - usually while working on a web site. I would encounter a problem that I knew I had solved before, but I just couldn't remember when or where. So I had to search for quite some time through all my project files to re-find the solution. I'm tired of doing that now.

Also, my friend Kelsey has been telling me for a while now that I needed to get a blog up and running. Today is his birthday, so what better present than to give in to his demands and get the blog going. Happy Birthday Kelsey! BTW, you can check out Kelsey's blog at www.TheMoleskin.com - it's much cooler than mine.

But what really has made me decide to finally do this is that I am leaving for a short-term mission trip to Russia on September 21, and I want an easy way to let my friends and family back home know what I'm up to while I'm there. There are several Internet cafes in Russia that I'll have occasional access to, so I should be able to post a couple times while I'm there. This will also keep my wife from having to send out a bunch of emails to everyone on my list.

So there you have it. My first post. That wasn't too hard. : )