St Petersburg/Санкт-Петербург

As you may have noticed, the last month or so has been removed from my blog. I will not get into the details as to why this has happened but it was necessary; unfortunate, but necessary.

So now I am in St Petersburg and have been accepted into a TEFL course here. St Petersburg is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful cities I have ever had the pleasure of travelling to. It is amazing here. So, I try to do the 4 week TEFL course, and I also try to learn Russian!! Should be easy?!! Not really, I have learnt the alphabet and the language is crazy! Anyways, we'll see what happens.

And as far as my poll on the sidebar:

Where should I go after Armavir?

stay in Russia (11%)
back to Canada (44%)
Mozambique (44%)
Azerbijan (0%)
Well, I am staying in Russia for a spell. Thanks y'all.

6 yrs old, and back to Grade 3

Another week has flew by and it's amazing at how fast time actually slips away on us. Mother Teresa has said: Yesterday has gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.

Last friday was one of those 'one of a kind' days that you don't get many of in this life. I woke up early, as I had been invited by a friend of a friend to sit in with a grade 3 class at a local school in downtown St Petersburg to immerse myself in some Russian culture. Upon driving to the school I was kind of nervous and not knowing what to expect cause the entire day was to be in Russian and I was afraid that the kids would think it very uncomfortable to have me (a thirty year old) sitting in class with them. As soon as they seen me they ALL ran over and began practicing their limited english on me, and taking pictures of me, and shaking my hand, etc. It was hilarious. They offered their chairs to me, and their books during class. One little girl (Sasha) gave me 3 rubles for lunch. Another little girl gave me a snack bar to eat. Nastya even gave me her phone number!!? Over and over, they made me things, continually involved me in the class, went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and communicate with me, and shared the Gospel to me without using words. 3 of them even walked me to the door when the day was over. It was awesome. I loved the day. They even asked the teacher if I would return another day. And on thursday I will return to that class to participate in a field trip to a local art museum. I cannot wait.

In other events, I am now 6 years old. Yesterday marked a 6 year milestone of my walk with God. 6 years............. it's amazing how faithful and pastoral God is. For my birthday, Анюта (pronounced Annoota; I call her by the name Annushka though) took me around the city to see some of the sights. She took me to St Isaac's Cathedral, and the Church of the Savior on Blood; both of which were absolutely amazing. Twas a good weekend, to be sure.

Got It!!! (the russian visa)

After getting up early today and being held up on the bus by an aptartment fire and a huge line at the Russian Embassy, and then a 6 hour wait..............we finally get approved for our Russian visas!!! So now we are online trying to book flights for tomorrow or the next day from Moscow to Krasnodar. We are pretty stoked. Finally, after leaving Mozambique on the 9th it finally seems like Russia is a definite. Thanks for your prayers everyone, but don't stop now cause we are only just beginning our descent into Russia.

London has been extremely expensive but incredibly amusing. It seems a great (but expensive!!!) city. Last night we went with Katherine and met Analee, Laura, and Cassandra (3 girls from Holy Given 1) at a great food place and had supper. It was an awesome time and amazing food. Anyways, I'll update again hopefully from Moscow!

London, England(?)

So. London?, you say? Indeed. We got wind of a cheap flight outta Nairobi thursday night to London, and since everyone else got their visas outta London, we decided to try too. We fly to London and land at Heathrow at 6am. We do some stuff and take the subway to the Russian Embassy to learn we can't get an application there, we have to specially download and fill it out from the website. We run down to a printing store who lets us get online and we do our business and run back to the embassy; but wait...........we're 4 minutes after noon and the embassy is closed and won't answer the door!!! So we miss out by 4 minutes! Then Jess gets us a CRAZY contact whom I refuse to stay with. So we get a hostel for a reasonable(?!) $40US/night!! WHAT?! We stay there and the next day I call Katherine Warnock (Lolli) and arrange for us to stay with her and her husband Daniel. THANK YOU JESUS!!! They rock!

So we are hanging out in London for the weekend and takin in the sights. London isnt the cheapest place I've ever been but neither is Pemba, or Nairobi, for that matter. It's pretty crazy. It's all good though. Hopefully we can get our visas tomorrow (monday) morning and fly from London to Moscow tomorrow night. Keep praying everybody, cause this is crazy!

no visa from Nairobi

We went to the Russian embassy early this morning and as we waited for the foreigner to get his visa in front of us, we were informed that WE could not get a visa into Russia. What the..........?!! So now we have about 4 hours to book a flight outta this country because our Kenya visa expires on saturday. Not a lot of time to seek the Lord on this subject so we have to rely on sheer ole continual intimacy and the relationship that we all should continually abide in!! So options are:
1) go to London and try again at the embassy there
2) stay somewhere in Africa and ditch Russia altogether
3) go back to Canada and take stock of things

Decision has to be made ASAP, sooner even! If you read this, pray for some direction for us. Money is an option and time is an option. We need to get outta Nairobi agora mesmo rapido rapido!!! STRESS IS NOT AN OPTION.

perseverance equals.......um, uh............something?

It's starting to get hilarious. Elena (from the Russian embassy) takes all our passports yesterday and tells us to call her today, even though it's a day off for them. We try to call her but the number she gives us cannot be reached by cell phone. So we get to a landline and try again where we talk to this guy who says she's not in but to call back in an hour. We call back to the same number and all we get is the SCREEEEEEECH of a fax machine thing!! We call back a couple more times to no avail. So now we are stuck in Nairobi yet another day, but this day we have not our passports. Like I said, it's starting to get hilarious. Our Kenya visa expires on saturday so regardless of Russia, we have to be out of Kenya by then. So, tomorrow we drive to the Russian Embassy (again) and see what's happening. So, yeah, Russia HAS TO be good, cause it is proving to be one hard place to get into.

Nairobi, Kenya

Yep, here am I. We went to the Russian embassy here in Nairobi this morning and were well recieved by Elena. At first she said we absolutely COULD NOT get a visa to Russia, but after I explained the situation to her (and how embassy's should actually operate(?)) she was more than happy to give us applications and help us however we needed. She could not give us our visas but was going to talk to her superior, who she said was the one who could issue the visa. She gave us her phone number and said we could check back tomorrow morning to see if the applications would be approved.

So we hang in Nairobi till then. It's a very dangerous city and we dare not venture out at night. A tourist makes it about half a block before they get mugged!! It is an incredibly modernized city though. Not a whole lot of room for evangelizin though, since I haven't met one person here who does not know Jesus!! Anyways, I hope the next time I write anything on Blogger I'll be in Russia!

next up.....NAIROBI

Yep, the Russian embassy here in Dar es Salaam is giving us such a hard time that we are packing our bags, and heading north into Kenya to try the Russian embassy in Nairobi for our visa.

It's crazy; entering Russia should not be this hard. It reminds me of all the times that the Apostle Paul tried to go places and was hindered, but he wasn't discouraged and kept going and going, till he got there. The Lord's timing is perfect, and I still truly believe He wants me to help out with this missions school in Armavir. I'm not discouraged in the least, only more excited for what Jesus has in store for myself and the Russians down there. Prayer would still be muchly appreciated though. Thanks!

Oh, and check out the new set of links in my sidebar entitled "VIDEOS'' (right under my ''PHOTOGARPHY''). I separated all into different categories for you. Is this blog user friendly or what?!!

in Tanzania

Made it to Tanzania and have started the application process for my Russian visa. The people at the embassy are not willing (in the least) to help us out and have been very unrealistic and difficult to work with. So we struggle on, but it's not looking good for Russia. Not sure how long I will be in Dar es Salaam; my visa for tanzania is just 14 days. So decisions will have to be made shortly. Sudan and Mozambique are other options, but they are not the primary desire of mine at this point. Other than that, I'm now staying at the Holiday Hotel and paying about $12US/night.

Dar es Salaam is a fairly modern city, and not a bad place to be stuck, but I do appreciate prayer, and much of it as we try for our visas. Blessings. Hopefully my next post will be one of VICTORY!!!

HG5..........check!

Holy Given 5 is now officially over. Graduation was today. Tomorrow I fly to Dar es Salaam and try to get a visa for Russia. Paul Adams is there already trying to get a visa and the embassy is not playing nice; they don't want to give him one. PRAYER IS NEEDED. I want to go to Russia. PLEASE PRAY EVRYONE. I WANT TO GO TO RUSSIA!!!

HG5 went well. I wont go into too many details but it didnt quite go expected as planned? It was good though. All in all, thousands of people recieved Jesus, many churches were planted, and the Gospel was advanced in a mighty way. And that's what it's all about.