Russia 2007

The Way Self Creeps In

I’m convinced there’s simply no greater threat to our Christian lives than that of “self”.  We live in a society that is horribly “me” oriented.  Everything is about me, my life and how to make it better.  There’s nothing that is more at odds with true Christianity than this focus on self.

The world doesn’t understand the lack of focus on one’s self.  I was in Russia recently on a mission trip.  I traded some e-mail with a client, and informed them I was in Russia to do some work in orphanages.  My client’s response was, “That sounds rewarding.”  The client didn’t mention the children without families.  She didn’t mention the orphanage workers that are beyond overworked.  She didn’t mention the teams on the ground in Russia doing the weekly work of ministering to the kids.  No, the focus was on what the trip could do for me.

A big issue is that self creeps in so quietly that we never notice it’s even there.  Self permeates our thinking and eventually even our most pious thoughts tend toward me.  I was convicted of this recently in my life.  I began to think of how God brought me to this place in my life.

As I thought through how I came here, I began to dwell on why I was here.  I began to think of the things God is doing in my life.  I thought about the fact that God brought me here to go to Russia and work with orphans.   God brought me here to help start a business and acquire resources to help others.  God brought me here to start a non-profit to distribute Bibles.

Do you see the self in that line of thinking?  It’s pretty evident if you step back and take a hard, honest look at it.  Every one of those is about what I’m doing.  Every one of those items is about where I am.

This really caused me to turn my thinking around.  God didn’t bring me here to travel to Russia.  He brought me here because someone in Russia needed help.  He didn’t bring me here because I needed to start a non-profit.  He brought me here because someone needed a Bible.  He didn’t bring me here so I could teach a Sunday School class.  He brought me here because someone needed a teacher.

Do you see the difference?  The focus is no longer on what I’m doing.

I have for years talked about how big our God is.  God is totally capable, ultimately knowledgeable, and infinitely patient.  There’s nothing He can’t do.  There’s no one He can’t reach.  There’s no end to His resources.  He needs us not at all and pursues us regardless.  We add nothing to Him and cannot begin to help Him.

The relating corollary has become very real to me – I am small.  I am, in fact, nothing.  My work is by the grace of God.  My effectiveness is in spite of all my faults.  In truth, the fact that I consider any of my faults or strengths in the equation of what God’s doing is another out pouring of self and the importance I ascribe to myself.

Norman Grubb once said (and I may be paraphrasing slightly), “After salvation nothing in your that happens in your life happens for you.”  He’s exactly right, and it probably cuts you to think about that.  It did me.  If you need affirmation that it’s the truth, think of the life of Christ.

How many things in the life of Christ were for the benefit of Christ?  How many things – blessing or trial, hope or despair, bounty or want – happened for Christ alone?  Everything Christ did was aimed at one of two things: either the glory of God or for us.  From birth to death, it was God or others.

Let’s go back to our earlier examples.  Did Christ come to earth to have a ministry?  Did Christ perform miracles to expand his ministry?

Christ came to the earth because someone needed a savior.  His focus was never on himself, his ministry, or what God was doing through him.  His eyes were constantly on God and others – the beneficiaries of our spiritual lives.

A Rarely Considered Attribute of God that Speaks to Us

We who are churched are constantly reminded of certain attributes of God. While not as common today, the revival meetings of my childhood were filled with sermons admonishing us of God’s holiness and God’s justice. Both of these are certainly important attributes of God. Without God’s holiness there would be nothing to worship. There would be nothing separating God from degenerate man.

God’s justice is equally important. Without God’s justice, what need would there be of Christ? If there were not a price to be paid for our sin – both original and those we commit ourselves – Christ would have died needlessly. If God ignored the chasm separating humankind from Him then there would be no need for evangelism or missions.

In today’s churches you’re much more likely to hear of God’s love and grace. Obviously these attributes are crucial to who He is. God’s love is what draws us to Him. God’s love is what provided the impetus to bridge the gap between Himself and humankind. Without God’s love, would Christ have ever been sent to Earth? Without God’s love, would He ever have mercy on us?

God’s grace is a personal favorite. The unwarranted favor of God falling on us is a beautiful picture. We have never had any right to expect God to pay the price He paid for us. We have never had any right to expect God to look on us with love and mercy rather than judgment. His grace enables us to come boldly before the throne, asking in Christ’s name for His kingdom.

There are so many attributes that could be discussed here. God is a God of myriad facets, a personality of deep and strong traits. All of them are worth study.

While in Russia, one trait was brought home to me more than others. I was speaking to a group of older kids in an orphanage. My translator’s brother (Jena) is a Christian and was with us that day. We had finished the bible story and I was answering some questions. Jena asked me to sing the U.S. national anthem. I was taken aback – I don’t have the best voice in the world, to say the least – but in the interest of international relations I sang the anthem. I then turned the request around. I asked him to sing his national anthem.

He began singing and in a couple of spots sang, “Da da da blah blah blah.” He obviously didn’t know the words in some spots. I was, in a word, amazed. How do you get into your mid-twenties and not know your national anthem?

His response floored me. “I know the Soviet anthem, but I don’t know the Russian anthem. They use the same music but the words were changed when the Soviet Union collapsed.”

Wow. Here I was in an orphanage with kids that don’t have any clue what tomorrow holds. They don’t have family they can count on. Their family, in about 80% of the cases, is still around but either can’t or won’t take care of them. They get moved from orphanage to orphanage as they age. Their caregivers come and they go.
I knew all that, but I had never considered that their government was in such flux during their lifetimes that a twenty-something guy wouldn’t know his national anthem. What do these kids have to sink an anchor into?
God’s unchangeable nature – His immutable self – is the anchoring point of our lives. All of us are subject to the vicissitudes of life. Our family changes through death and separation. Our jobs change, our friends change, our surroundings change. What are the most stressful moments in our lives? Divorce, job change, and moving. Times where everything around us is changing and we have no clue how things will fall out.

Holmes and Rahe developed a life stress scale, assigning numerical values to events in our lives. The values represent the amount of stress an event garners. There are 43 items on the list you can pick from that cause stress in your life. Every one of them is about change. Whether it’s a family change (divorce, marriage, death, birth), a job change (hiring, promotion, firing), a financial change (buying a house), or moving, it’s all about change.

God is the great I AM. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is fabulous news to the orphans in Russia. It’s fabulous news for me and you, too.

What is the value of God’s love if it changes? If He behaves like an abusive spouse, loving us today and beating us tomorrow, what good is it? We could not depend on it.

What is the value of God’s mercy if it fluctuates? If He is merciful today and merciless tomorrow what kind of God would he be?

What is the value of God’s grace if it is temporary? If He gives us His grace today and takes it tomorrow, what happens to our lives?

What is Christ’s value as the perfect sacrifice if that can change?

What is the value of the Holy Spirit if he comes in power today but not tomorrow?

You have a rock that you can firmly attach to. Regardless what happens in your family, what happens in your job, what happens in your life, He is the same. You can always depend on His love. You can always depend on His mercy and his grace. You can always depend on his holiness and his justice. They are – thanks to this one attribute, His unchangeable nature – always the same and always in effect.

Sad stories behind every smile.

This will be my last post for the week. It has been such a blessed time and we will have a big day tomorrow and then be off to an early bedtime because we have a very early departure (3:30 am Russia time). Please pray for our team’s safe travel and health.

This has been such a blessed trip with and amazing team that has grown very close. Our time with the children has gone very well and they have all been so excited about the balloons, face painting, bibles and backpacks. In fact all of the children are so happy when we arrive and leave that sometimes it is easy to forget the pain that each child has in his or her life.

I will leave you with 2 stories. The first is about the beautiful smiling boy above. His name is Misha and when he was 6 months old his mother tried to kill him by giving him poison. It is hard to imagine a mother so desperate that she would try to kill her own precious baby. Misha survived but he has liver and stomach damage. He also has very little use of his right arm and his right leg. Love and care at the orphanage have allowed him to blossom into a sweet little boy who happily returned my smiles. However, it is overwhelming to me to imagine what his future will bring. His physical needs will be hard to overcome and who will be the person to tell him his own mother did this to him?

The second orphans I want you to pray for are brother and sister Gosha and Masha. They are graduates from the orphanage we visited today. Gosha recently graduated tech school and the government sent him the apartment his parents used to be assigned to. His alcoholic parents are no longer there and they had literally sold everything left in the apartment including all of the fixtures and the doors and windows so that they could by alcohol. Gosha has no where else to go so he is sleeping on a landing in the stairs of the apartment building. His sister graduates from a St Petersburg university in May and will be joining him. The orphanage director described both young people as loving, smart and hard working. However, there is no one to help make their apartment livable so they are on a track to end up like many orphan graduates—turning to a life of crime and eventual suicide or early death. Please pray for Gosha and Masha and for Orphan Outreach as we work towards a program for orphan graduates.

A now the last pictures of team members…

Lisa passes out bibles …

Amy and Beth learning a new Russian song…

Jerry passes out sunglasses and smile…

And new backpacks are a big hit!

Finally- new scraves from Meg for these sweet girls.

another blessed day…

The day started with worship and communion with the team and interpretors setting our hearts straight with our mission. The visit to Nikolsky was filled with excitement and joy. I wanted to share pictures of the team at work!

Brian tells Lisa’s group the bible story. Note to Barbara from Lisa”you need to join her on the next trip to Russia”…

Doug and Thomas painting faces!

Jean’s new friend gives her a look…

Amy helps with the limbo contest…

Kelle and Dima…

Matt and a new friend…

Steve gets in a sword fight…

One of the groups receives their new bibles…

Meg and a new brother in Christ…

More pictures of team members to come tomorrow. Pray for continued health of the team.

Wednesday- a long drive but worth it!

In the past I had taken teams to orphanages in the city of St Petersburg. This trip we are trying to reach orphanages that do not usually get visitors. The orphanages in St Petersburg are actually receiving money from many different sponsors and it is wonderful to report that they are really in such good repair. The orphanages in the region have many needs and our team is excited to be able to help meet the needs of orphanages in the country. Today we saw a wonderful orphanage in the city of Tikhvan. It was a 4 hour drive there and 4 hours back but every minute with the children was worth it. The director was so excited that we came to visit and begged us to change our plans and stay longer! We started with a tour and were impressed that all of the new construction work had been done by the workers themselves. Then we saw the wonderful artwork of all the children—everyone was asking about buying the artwork and sewing crafts. While we were waiting for the children to get out of school we held an auction of these unique items. Our generous team got into the spirit of the auction since the donations were going to support the orphanage art program. For the first item, the orphanage director suggested the bids start at $3—the bidding war brought it to $100! By the time we had finished all the bidding we had donated exactly $800 to the orphanage. PTL- the Director had tears in her eyes as she accepted our gift. After this the team got into bible time and the children enjoyed ballooon animals and face paintiung after hearing about “Walking with God”.

Another happy customer of Doug, Thomas and Lena.

Volunteers from the church lead the children in Christian songs.When they sang “He’s got the whole world in His hands” it had special meaning –with us being in the middle of Russia and these sweet children reminding us the WHOLE world is in HIS hands- not just those of us in the United States.

Lastly- me with the director and all the generous donations we left from the team!

Seeing God at work in the orphanages

Monday was spent in Luga ministering alongside pastor Sasha and a team from his church. The church is starting orphan ministry and Orphan Outreach is going to start supporting them to go to 2 orphanages and a hospital that has many children that are considered orphans and are transitioning into the orphanage system.  Our team was able to see their ministry in the hospital, a baby home and one of the orphanages near Luga. It was so awesome to see the children run up to Sasha and Marina (from his church) you could see they have already built a wonderful relationship with the children and the staff. Pray for Pastor Sasha and Marina and the orphans of Luga pictured here. Orphan Outreach needs supporters of this new porgram.

When our team got on the bus the orphanage Director got on to tell us how important it was for us to continue to come back to visit. We were all praising God for this open door for the Gospel!

Tuesday we continued to see how supporting the local church bears much fruit in the orphanages. We visited Lomonsov baby home and Loopahinka, both supported by Pastor Andre and his church. It was exciting to see many improvements at Lomonsov since I had visited a year ago but it was also overwhelming to see so many babies in need. The orphanage director was very thankful for all the baby items and cloths we brought but she was very much in need of diapers. They go thru 300 diapers a day and they have many HIV positive and special needs babies. She was very open to letting us spend several hours with the children. All of our team just held and prayed over these little angels.

Here are a few of our happy children for the morning–enjoying new clothes and hats from Park Cities Baptist church in Dallas and new cribs from other generous donors.

At Loopahinka, several members of the team had their hearts completely broken. These were some of the sweetest children I had ever met and we were greeted with children running up to the bus and we departed with children chasing us down the lane in order to say the last “Paka” or Good-bye!”. They all begged our team to stay for several more days and every child was anxious to hear the bible stories. Again we passed out bibles and the children were so happy to have the word of God. To make the day even more special it was our first opportunity to pass out backpacks and we loved to see them be excited about picking out the exact color and style they wanted.

Sunday- the joy of bibles!

When we finished the meals we spilt the children into several groups and proceeded with bible story time, crafts and recreation. Here are a few of the photos from the face painting. The room was soon crawling with cats, dogs and otehr creatures.

At the end of the day Brian, a trip participant with a ministry called Lone Sheep Ministries (www.lonesheepministries.org) began to pass out the bibles his ministry had just sent into Russia. Lone sheep was started after Brain visited orphanages in 2006 and noticed that the children did not have specific materials for their age group. Lone sheep is providing “comic book” style bibles for ministry in Russia. I knew the bibles were a good idea but I had no idea what they would mean to the children. I am actually ashamed to admit that I had not realized what an impact the word of God would mean to these children. When Brian passed the first bible out to one of the boys, many of the other boys saw the bibles and they started shouting “Bibles! Bibles!” One little boy , named Sergei, literally jumped for joy and held his bible over his head and starting running around with it. Soon the room was filled with children READING their bibles. I was brought to tears when I thought of how hard Brian had worked to figure out the customs and shipping requirements and raise the funds for the bibles. And to then see him experience the joy the word of God was bringing to these children. What a wonderful ending to our 2^nd day of ministry!

Saturday- Hospital #15 and sightseeing

Lisa has arrived safely so now our entire team is here! We had such a wonderful day and this team is so fun to be with. We spent the morning at Hospital #15 passing out hugs to the babies, making balloon animals, painting faces and nails and sharing the love of Christ with children in the street hospital of St Petersburg. This is the place that the children come before they are sent to an orphanage. It is usually a very sad place but today it was filled with laughter. The hardest child for the team to hear about was Lilia who turns 9 tomorrow. She is pictured below playing “paddy cake” with Amy. You will see she is wearing a hat because all her beautiful hair was cut when she entered the hospital (most of the children have this happen because of lice). We found out Lilia had just witnessed her father kill her mother and now he is in jail and she is so scared about her future. She was so excited to spend time with Amy and Beth and to have Amy paint her nails (2 coats of pink of course). As we were leaving she asked Amy is we could bring her back a bible- she was excited to learn more about God. In fact all of the children we met were anxious to hear more of the word of God and they actually asked us for a bible story. Brian led a story time and all the children listened so intently. I was amazed to think that that they all had stories as sad as Lilia’s and they all were excited to hear about the one person who would not leave them. Pray for Lilia as she experiences her first birthday alone from her family and that the seed planted today will grow into a relationship with her Christ that will never leave her.

We all enjoyed a driving tour of the beautiful city of St Petersburg including tours of 2 cathedrals and, of course, a bit of shopping.  We have had a good first day- pray for many others.

We are here!

Dear friends and family. Everyone from Atlanta and Dallas have arrived safely. We need prayers for Lisa who is coming from New York. Lisa’s plane was turned around when the smoke alarm went off so the flight was cancelled. She will join us tomorrow (God willing!). Pray for her safe travels. There have already been many obstacles in our path but this is such a wonderful team and we are already pulling close together thru shared prayer and laughter. A few of the issues we have faced include car wrecks on the way to the airport, lost bags, a Russian customs fee, no sleep on the planes! It reminds us all of the good we do on these trips and the forces that try to wear us down. We had our first quick visit at an orphanage near the airport. We were blessed by a wonderful performance by the children and a tour of the orphanage. The children were precious and we were treated to a tour by the most adorable little girl. While she looked to be 6 or 7 we were surprised to hear she was 10. I always forget how tiny many of the children are from years of malnutrition and lack of stimulation. When I return to Dallas my children always look like giants. It was a stark reminder of the lives of these children. Tomorrow we visit Hospital #15- please pray for our time with these children and babies.

We leave tomorrow!

Please pray for our team that our bags make it thru safely and everyone arrives safely.