Just a pic?

Spring is here! Well, it's still a bit chilly, but so light outside!

My father-in-law (Vladimir), Andrei, Yours Truly

For the record, I'm 7 months pregnant in this pic...just in case you thought I looked a little rounder.

Wearing the cross

I arrived at the orphanage not long after Easter and walked into a "conversation" between a counselor and one of her charges.

The boy wanted a cord or chain for a cross pendant he had come across. He felt this would solidify his Christian status.

The counselor, a Muslim (ethnically) had apparently had it with Christianity. Or with Orthodox Christianity. Or with Christian holidays...something had ticked her off. And here she began to rant...about the cross.

It (the cross) didn't mean anything; Christianity didn't mean anything. 90% of "Christians" just went to church to light a candle and say a prayer, then go on with their hypocritical lives.

I could feel the weight of the cross necklace I had put on that morning. I don't wear one regularly; it just feels right sometimes. But I felt awkward to be wearing it at that moment.

If I had heard the comment from a random person on the street, maybe it wouldn't have bothered me. But this counselor is someone I've been trying to witness to. We're friends. I wanted to ask her, "How could you still think that about all Christians?" Not that I've been a saint, but are we all so two-faced? Are our lifestyles so obviously hypocritical?

What about my wedding? I wanted to ask. She had been a guest. The Christ-centered sermon, the church fellowship, the purity of our relationship...didn't it mean anything?

And the American families she had visited a few summers ago...they were Evangelical, Bible-believing Christians. Didn't they challenge her opinion a little bit? Or did she chalk it up to a cultural difference?

She needs to know Evangelical Christians HERE. Even as I write it, it sounds like a diagnosis, as if I could heal someone. No, only God can do that. But I wonder, if I need my social circles to overlap just a little bit more.

Confirming the Cross

My husband is preparing the Easter sermon for tomorrow (according to the Orthodox calendar) and I am collecting my own Easter thoughts.

I was thinking about the standard greeting and response and how I have heard it from childhood, though maybe in different forms and languages.

We used to gather with other families on Resurrection Day, and it was quite easy for the kids to learn the greeting: "He is Risen."  -" He is Risen Indeed!" Sometimes we repeated it while passing Communion around.

And one year, at the kids' table, the girls and I (we tended to stick together) came up with our own version. Though the greetings had already been exchanged, we began to pass different things around the table, proclaiming to each other, "Bread!" -"Bread indeed." "Butter!" -"Butter indeed."

It was very childish and quite funny to us, but as I was reminiscing, I realized that the rationale behind the joke was that we were merely confirming what we regarded as fact. The "elements" on the table were tangible, and to argue with our proclamations would have been illogical. But we also had no reason to doubt that the news of the Resurrection was anything other than fact. We listened and repeated it and came to know, in our hearts, that it was true.

Timing

I had an epiphany today about Russian bureaucracy...it's like having a cold! As the joke goes, if you treat a cold, it will only last about 7 days, but if you leave it alone, it will take a whole week!

The same goes with trying to get something done here. You could struggle through, taking a lot of wrong turns, using trial and error, and it will take you "x" amount of time. OR you could start way in advance, do your research, use what seems like the best method, and it will STILL take you "x" amount of time. And by "x" amount of time I mean you will finish it in the Eleventh Hour, just before the bank closes or your visa expires, or your plane takes off, or the office closes for the weekend, etc.....

And by "you," I'm talking about myself, of course.

Oh, and just like a shot of antibiotics sometimes gets the recovery moving faster, well, it helps to have some connections. There is always a back door or side door or trap door that will suddenly take you down the express route.

I KNOW that God operates outside of all these restrictions. But I also know that I'm not so bad at planning, and that these things really are all beyond my control. So I have to let go a little and not try to be in the driver's seat all the time.