Idle and Blessed

To those who donated, collected, or prayed over the clothes for the orphanage, this one is for you. I've been to three Russian orphanages. This one was the hardest. It was last July when we brought clothes, ice cream, and shampoo, the last of which they said they didn't need - I assume because they hadn't used it before. Their shoes had holes and I thought about the winter. About the cold Russian snow they'd be walking over with their feet. They were hesitant at first but soon clung to me, asking me when I was coming back. Asking me my name. They kept forgetting it, and asking again and again. When we left they climbed inside the windows of the van and attached themselves to the outside of it. As we started to roll away we moved their hands away from the windows and rolled them up so we didn't take those little hands with us. I had given the swarms of kids big hugs before we got in the van, probably nearly smothering them, but they just kept asking me to come ...

Nothing I was afraid of beforehand actually happened. The day before I left, Kelsey came to see me at work and I told her I was afraid I wouldn't remember Russian, and I wouldn't be able to see Sasha and Nadya or Slavik and Tanya. I told her I was afraid of spending too much time with the Americans out of fear of breaking out of my comfort zone. I was freaking out about not running for 10 days because I have more triathlons this season.  And you know what she said? Or rather, what God said through her lips, because he has been screaming it throughout this whole journey? It's not about you.  Praise God for friends who say that to me. Oh, praise him.  At least 5 Russians independently of each other told me my Russian had improved since last year.  I saw both my families and all their kids. I gave them all a hundred hugs and even got to spend hours at a time with Nadya. Karina stayed till Friday and cried on my lap that night, and when I asked her w...

My favorite thing about coming back is lunch the next day with mom.  I mean, sleeping and showering and getting back on a mountain bike are up there, too.  But we have a tradition of mom taking off work, making me wake up from my jet lagged slumber, and listening to every single Russian detail over Mexican food. She puts important things on hold to hear my heart, the pretty and the ugly, the good and the bad. She wants to hear all the little details, see all the pictures, meet all my favorite people through my words. She knows to ask about Ina. She knows to ask about Nadya and her baby. She knows to ask how my Russian was and if I was frustrated or not. She knows everything, because ever since she watched my 15 year old self walk into an airport years ago, she's been a part of this too. She's been pulled into this world with me.  She's gotten text messages from Russian airports where I was alone with no one to pick me up. She's gotten phone calls from Karac...

It took me one day to start dreaming in Russian again. It's hard to describe it, but I always say its like my brain switches over into a different gear. It skips over the past 12 months and remembers words in my sleep I can't quite understand while awake. It comes easier. When I left Nashville I was ready for the little stuff to fall away. I prayed to God for something to break me and change me and teach me how to serve. I asked him to show me how to love big in beautiful messes, because nothing in life has been clean lately. I asked him to engulf me in something so much bigger than myself that all I could see was hope and glory and the raw hearts of other people. I was ready to be drawn away from the things in Nashville that make me think small, that make me forget the big picture.  I started making a list of themes from this trip on the first day. Every trip is so drastically different that I can measure my life in Russia years. In 2006 I saw the world was big an...

My roommate and I have been talking lately about whether or not God does big things in our lives. Of course, my first reaction is always to say "He does!" but when I start naming those things, they're usually not exactly big things. They are small things. Small things that meet me and my life at the exact right moment in time to become big things to me, when all outside eyes would say they're small. And to be honest, most of the big things God does in my life are centered around Russia. He provides financially in the oddest, most mind-blowing and humbling ways. He puts a safeguard of protection around me, even in dangerous situations when I have no one on my side. He has given me deep relationships against all odds and through language buriers, helped me learn Russian, and done BIG things in lots of hearts and minds. I've been able to witness lives literally changed 180 degrees. I've been able to witness God's kingdom growing with each child I've led...

4 days. 4! Always at this point in the journey I hear a voice in my heart saying, "I am not unprepared for this." He has prepared me well. Anointed me for such a time as this. The to-dos and packing lists and shopping lists and last-minutes are there, looming, but my sanity is still intact. It's all doable. I should've started these things a week ago, but still...doable. This summer has been about letting the dirt settle and the water become clear. Resting from the good things. Getting lost in pastimes, songs I love, dirt trails, and iced coffees. Finding truth in lyrics instead of thick books. Talking to God in my car. Eating at the farmers market. Running along to new playlists. Simplicity. I suppose this is what a Sabbath season is like. And after the past two summers and three school years, it's much needed. But I miss speaking Russian and hearing it and being in the thick of it all. In the middle of all the work, heartache, effort, pain, joy, and ...

"We must never bypass the law and come straight to the gospel.  To do so is to contradict the plan of God in biblical history.  Is this not why the gospel is unappreciated today?  Some ignore it, others ridicule it.  So in our modern evangelism we cast our pearls (the costliest pearl being the gospel) before swine.  People cannot see the beauty of the pearl, because they have no conception of the filth of the pigsty.  No man has ever appreciated the gospel until the law has first revealed him to himself.  It is only against the inky blackness of the night sky that the stars begin to appear, and it is only against the dark background of sin that the gospel shines forth.  Not until the law has bruised and smitten us will we admit our need of the gospel to bind up our wounds.  Not until the law has arrested and imprisoned us will we pine for Christ to set us free.  Not until the law has condemned and killed us will we call upon Christ for j...