First I'd like to explain some technical things so that further posts will make sense without much explanation.
Campuses: We went to campus today to talk with students. When we go to campuses during the week we are primarily meeting students and striking up conversations. Sometimes we may share the Gospel if the students seems very interested in spiritual things, but more often than not we simply build relationships and ask questions about what they think on deeper subjects. We then invite them to hangout with us at the park on Saturday, or even setup appointments to meet one-on-one later in the week if they want to talk more. (Campus visits will be Mondays-Wednesdays, Appointments on Thursdays and Fridays, and Park hangout time on Saturdays). While appointments are usually initiated with students who want to talk more one on one, the park will be our whole team playing sports and allowing those interested in simply spending more time with us to come along!
Teams: Our whole group is broken up into three ministry teams, and each team will take on two campuses while here. Yesterday my team went to the linguistics school, and today to Moscow State. We each have a primary campus and a secondary campus. The primary campus is the one we'll focus more on (hence, primary)... Moscow State is my teams primary campus and has a rich history. It was founded in 1755 and is considered the Harvard of Moscow universities in prestige and wealth. Needless to say, the students that go there are smart.
The Hostel: The 13 of us students are taking up about half of a hostel called The Napoleon. The thirteen of us share two toilets and two showers with the rest of the hostel, which I'd guess houses 30 or total at its max. It's really relaxed and easy to get used to. Especially since we have such an all-star team!!
I hope those things will help you kind of get a feel for what the ministry looks like while we're here.
Things I'm learning:
---I don't know any Russian
---Vendors/fast-food places like you to pay with exact change (whaa??) or they get angry (which really doesn't matter because when they snap at me in Russian all I do is shrug my shoulders and look confused until they take the money anyway)
---Moscow is fast-paced, not at all the relaxed drive most of us experience on our wide, suburb roads
---I love new cultures, especially this Russian one
---It's hard to put my finger on a specific stereotypical culture/mold for Moscow except for the architecture and krylic constantly remind me of communism and the Soviet Union
---There are lots of people and few smiling faces
---Ministry here is very difficult
Things to pray for:
---For Max and Mark (the two guys I met today and talked with, who seemed very interested in talking about spiritual things and will hopefully come hang out on Saturday) as well as the students that other ministry teams interacted with
---For rest, still adjusting and trying to be energized after two long flights yesterday
---For hard hearts to become soft
---For our hearts to break for the hundreds of stern faces that pass us on the metro
---For the weight, relevance, and freedom of the gospel to become evident to those that we talk to. That they would see a message of hope and joy that's grounded in truth.
Thanks for all your love and support,
Stephen
Stephen
"I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst." (John 6:35)
