Battleship

For all of us that pronounce Moscow 'moss-cow', we should know that the rest of the world refers to it as 'moss-cowe' as in stow, row, or crow (not now, wow, or cow).

It's a great day to learn something new. Happy Thursday everyone!!

I uploaded a picture of our ministry team in front of the Linguistics School yesterday. From the left was me, Abby, Laura, and David. That is our secondary campus and a great one since every student is studying to be a translator and knows English verrryy well. Some even claimed to know Spanish... They didn't.

We had great conversations with a few groups of students about life and happiness, where they believe it's rooted, and what they think are the most important aspects of life. They really seem to enjoy talking to us, and I think most of them will come on Saturday to hang out! Likewise, it's really been fun getting to ask them questions. Conversations are easy because we're still all just students chatting about life and working through similar struggles!!

We've had a lot of conversations, some that will tell you more about later. Two students today at MSU believed in God and were very interested in talking more about Him and our differing viewpoints. Brian and I then spent 4 hours this afternoon walking all over central Moscow with Vitali, an atheist who the team met last year. He's very intellectually deep and knows a lot about science and philosophy. He took the two of us to a museum of old Soviet arcade games. We shot up what were probably old American enemy ships as Vitali intricately explained each game's instructions. I would say that the majority of games involved submarines or battleships. I would also say that 2 minutes is a very short period of time to sink 25 Navy ships. That would take a military hours at least.

Right? Not fair.

It was cool to play for a while before taking a stroll and addressing the deeper questions of life.

He's one that's not open to Christianity in any way, and I was quick to tell him that convincing our beliefs (or forcing them) was not our goal or productive at all. Rather, we feel as though Christ brings life, meaning, and joy to our broken world by reconciling us to God through Hs perfection. This is good news that needs not to be persuaded, but simply told and the implications examined.

If true, the implications are enormous. He agreed apathetically.

It seems as though intellect and logic keep him from seeing any need for a Savior (even though our prior conversation consisted in him telling about all the lost hope for Russia and how he believed there was nothing anyone could do to save such a corrupt and broken country.)

Brian and I suggested prayer.

The truth is, without God I don't see any hope. Can hope be self-generated? Can we formulate it? Can all of the students that want to leave Russia find perfection in any other country? America fails me daily.

But as Shane & Shane say, "I put my hope in nothing less, than Jesus Christ and His righteousness."

It's the only thing not fleeting, that never runs dry.

"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) "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" (7:38)