Tuesday, March 14, 2006

home

arrived home yesterday and slept from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. but still feeling really groggy today. trying to stay awake through home group tonight, so i thought blogging might help. difficult to concentrate enough to write, though. we'll see how it goes...

how about a quick recap of Sunday and Monday?

Sunday, 8:00 a.m (GMT +3): wake, shower, pack, eat breakfast of toast, cheese, and yogurt in hotel cafe.

Sunday, 10:00 a.m.: walk to Nizhny Novgorod Vineyard with Bob & Steve. Kevin is already there, warming up with Kathy and rest of worship team. Emily is coming with Dave & Stephanie (Dave & Kathy's 15 year old daughter)

Sunday, 11:30 a.m.: worship starts, about 1/2 hour late. no one seems concerned, just seems to be the way things work here in Russia sometimes. worship is awesome - familiar songs in Russian language. Sasha from Vineyard in Siberia is helping lead. Sergei from another Vineyard in western Russia preaches on servant leadership. great stuff - remarkable guy, the only indigeonous pastor of a Vineyard church in western Russia.

Sunday, 1:00 p.m.: eat lunch at Papa Potato (they kind of ran out of food - there's no "after church" brunch crowd in Russia since there are so few churches). our team meets with Dave & Kathy to share some ways we're planning to support them and the church.

Sunday, 3:00 p.m.: walk back to church for conclusion of leadership conference. worship, teaching, ministry time. Holy Spirit present in cool ways to bless people. seems to show up regardless of whether a translator is present to interpret or not. lots of heartfelt goodbyes to people we've felt a deep bond with in a short period of time. receive tons of encouragment about our time here; seems like God's favor has been with us.

Sunday, 8:00 p.m.: pack up van and taxi with luggage, drive to airport outside NN. take Siberian Air to Moscow. it takes off late because of a VIP arriving after everyone else has boarded. somebody with bodyguards, etc.

Monday, 12:30 a.m.: arrive in Moscow, where we are picked up by Sergei from the Moscow Christian Center. Sergei takes us across the city to a hotel near the international airport.

Monday, 2:00 a.m.: check into hotel. eat some dinner and take a shower. call the Harvest Ridge home group to say hi, since it's 7:00 p.m. Sunday in Michigan. finally, Steve and I take a 45 minute nap til our wake up call at 4:30 a.m.

Monday, 5:00 a.m.: arrive at airport, go through security, passport control, etc. get searched, go through 3 metal detectors. meet a guy from Texas at the gate and talk with him for a while. he's cool - an engineer for a gas company who has adopted 2 Russian children, serves as a deacon at his church.

Monday, 7:15 a.m.: take off and fly to Paris. arrive and get searched a couple more times, go through 4 more metal detectors.

Monday, time unknown: fly from Charles De Gaulle to Detroit Metro. some enjoyable turbelence. fight to stay awake so i can sleep at night.

Monday, 2:00 p.m. (GMT- 5): arrive at DTW, go through customs and meet Curt, who drives us home.

Monday, 3:00 p.m.: hug and kiss Ronni, Colin, and Elle. Elle remembers me, thankfully :) give gifts, show pictures, share stories. it's been about 39 hours since i've had any real sleep. watch some tv shows Ronni recorded while i was away. hoping to stay up until 9:00, but can't quite make it...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I missed u jesse. heard you sent the house on fire while preaching, funny. I love ya, call us sometime. Love ya, Grace

Anonymous said...

Have you been able to ajust to the time?? Hope you get lots more sleep, Mr. Royce is telling us about the trip, really cool. Love, grace

Anonymous said...

thanks, Grace. we missed you guys, too. sorry i couldn't make it to your birthday party.

yeah, pretty much adjusted to the time now. it was definitely harder on the way home than the way there, for some reason.

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