Greetings!

We spent some time at several Zhatva's (Harvest) at various churches in the Tambov and Voronezh oblasts (regions) and wanted to share some of the sights. We'll begin with Boricaglebsk!

We (Barb, Rick and I) were invited to play at the Zhatva service in the church in Boricaglebsk, which is a smaller city in the Voronezh oblast. It was quite a drive, about 2-21/2 hours, but well worth it!

Every church celebrates Zhatva sometime in October each year and it is a time to gather and thank the Lord for His continuing provision for His children and to gather in fellowship for the sharing of a meal after church.

We were blessed with warm and clear weather on this day so we all gathered outside for the meal. The church in Boricaglebsk is very small, perhaps 20 to 30 people but they have a great meal and wonderful time of fellowship!

A young man that we met at camp 2 years ago lives in Boricaglebsk and we were very happy to see him and renew our acquaintance. His name is Maxim and he plays the bass guitar. He loaned his bass to Barb to play during the church service. He, like so many others, was very interested in the banjo so I let him play on it a bit and of course get some pictures.

He wanted a picture of Barb, Rick and I with him and this one turned out pretty good!

Another young man that attended camp with us 2 years ago also came to church that day and, praise God, repented and accepted Christ as his Savior. We were honored to be able to pray with him and for him. He is on my immediate right in the photo.

After dinner we were able to play some Russian hymns with the Pastor and some of the youth. We played for quite awhile and I learned quite a bit about how to "fit" the banjo into this kind of setting. Of course they also wanted to hear English hymns and some bluegrass music as well!

I don't remember this little girls name but she was cute as a button and was all decked out in ribbons and curls.

As things were winding down and we were helping put tables away Barb caught a picture of Maxim working on the banjo and I think that if he had one for just a little while he would have it figured out!

We had a wonderful time praising God for His goodness, His provision, His faithfulness to draw the lost to Himself. We shared a great time of fellowship in a meal and song and prayer.

XRadio Concert

On May 16th Barbara, I and Rick Kirschman gave a concert on the Internet Radio Station XRadio here at the TELA center here in Tambov, Russia and we wanted to share a few pictures with you. This was a great opportunity to share our faith with a large gathering of young people as well as play some music – something we haven’t been able to do for a while. The audience was made up of mostly young people from around Tambov and the surrounding areas. We played a mix of Russian songs and Bluegrass Gospel tunes. The audience was very interested in the banjo so we played a couple of fast instrumentals for them. Rick sang a Japanese song and a Russian song where the radio emcee joined in (it’s on the video!) The best part of the evening for me was when I was able to share my testimony, my faith and the gospel with the group. Below is a picture with Anya Chinenova who interpreted for me. As the evening went along we jammed with members of a blues group who had been on the radio the week before. Barb and I were asked to “sit in” for that concert as well. After the concert we were able to spend about an hour and a half talking with young people on a variety of spiritual topics and this provided a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel in relation to some of the issues and questions young people have here in Russia. We were blessed to be a part of what God is doing in the hearts of those present that evening and pray that we will again be invited to be His instruments for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here is also a short video of a few of the evening’s songs…

Central Market in Tambov and the "KOLONKA"

The weather has finally turned towards spring and we wanted to share with you some of the sights of Tambov beginning with the Central Market place. This is a huge outdoor market where vendors set up small booths that sell just about anything you could want in the way of food products, household products, small hardware, various materials and interior decorating products such as wallpaper, curtain and furniture material as well as some window dressings and ceiling dressings. These are just a few pictures to give you the flavor of the market and a peek at the people of Russia who make their living by selling products seven days a week.

Various types of dried fruit

A lot of different candies and cookies

A woman selling Kbac (Kvas). This a drink that is made from fermented bread. It is non-alcoholic and tastes a little like bread pudding. I have heard Russians refer to it as Russian Pepsi.

Fruits and vegetables

A woman selling flowers

Macaroni row. Pasta here is called macaroni and the word pasta is the Russian word for paste, as in tooth paste (zubnaya pasta).

Security police on a row of vegetables.

Fish row. This area contains a variety of dried and fresh fish and even live fish in tanks.

So that is a brief look at our Central Market. We enjoy going to the market and just wandering around looking for those elusive items, such as lavash (flat bread), which sometimes are only available for a brief period of time.

We also wanted to share a short video of our kolonka. If you watch it Barb will give you the lighting procedure and you’ll see it in action!

Easter in Russia, 2009

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!
Easter has been celebrated again this year in Russia and we wanted to give you a peek at the some of what we enjoy here at this time of year. Below is a picture taken at the central outdoor market. At this time of year there are many vendors selling plastic flowers and wreaths. These are sold primarily to place on the gravesites of family members on Easter day. This quite a big event and many people take buses to the cemeteries to observe this custom.

One custom that is observed here, as it is in the states, is the decorating of eggs. In the market many vendors set up booths to sell a wide variety of decorating products. One of our favorites is the shrink wraps that are very colorful and often very beautiful. They range over a wide area of subjects with some being very Orthodox in flavor to those which have flowers, animals or fairy tales as themes. Another custom here is the special decorated sweet bread (kulich). Below is a picture of our kulich with some decorated eggs.

Here is one of the eggs a bit closer …..

Of course we have special church services at Easter here. We attended a Thursday evening “Last Supper” service where we took communion. A special 3 hour service was held on Saturday night before Easter morning. In this service there are several speakers each covering events beginning with Jesus’ arrest in the garden, through his trial, his crucifixion, and, with proper timing, the pastor of the church at midnight proclaims “Christ is risen” with the congregation responding “He is risen indeed!” On Sunday our service began at noon and afterward we had an Easter gathering of our fellow missionaries here in Tambov. There are only 5 of us here at present so we enjoyed a meal and wonderful afternoon of fellowship.

We’ve included a video of some of the special music at church during the Saturday night and Sunday services. I hope that it gives you a bit of a taste of Russian worship music and how much of a blessing the music is to Barbara and me. Listen for the recurring phrase – Христос воскрес! Войстину воскрес! – Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

April 5, 2009

We just returned from a two day visit to Elets where we stayed with the pastor, Daniel Veremchuk, of a church we have known since 2003. We had a wonderful reunion since we had not seen them since last summer. We want to share some of the trip with you and show you some of the sights around Elets….but mostly Daniel’s children.

Daniel and his wife, Yulya, just had their 5th child last December. They had another girl and her name is Dareena. The other children are Maya (7), Sophia (5), Lev (4), Zoreanna (18 months).



Here is a picture of Barb, Zoreanna and Dareena that I thought was cute.



Each morning Daniel has a devotional time with his children before they head off for school.



Daniel is fond of playing the recorder and is busy teaching Maya a few tunes.



We went for a walk on Wednesday to the park. To get there we had to cross a river on a walk bridge. Here is Barb with Maya on the bridge. It was pretty chilly so everyone is bundled up pretty well.



There is an interesting tradition related to weddings here that we had seen in Voronezh and on this trip we saw that it had begun in Elets as well. This is a picture of Maya on the bridge and if you look close you can see that there are padlocks on the bottom of the bridge rail.



The tradition has married couples cross the bridge and place a padlock, usually with their names inscribed, to signify a lasting relationship together. Here are a few of the locks up close.







One cannot visit any city in Russia without seeing two types of objects common to every city it seems. First are displays of various types of war machinery and the second is Orthodox cathedrals. Here are a few pictures of both for you to see what is seen in Elets.







When we got to the park the kids had fun playing on the park grounds and found other children to play with. I volunteered to keep the baby Dareena company by pushing her stroller around the park.



We had a wonderful but short stay with Daniel and his family and look forward to going again to work with the children’s Sunday School at his church in May. Here is a very nice picture of Yulya with Dareena.



Until our next post !

March 24, 2009
Today we tried the washing machine that came with the apartment. We had heard of these and it was an adventure using it. Here is a picture of the machine after we moved it into the shower room. The agitator is interesting. It only turns clockwise and while it stirs up the water fairly well it is a bit challenged to actually agitate the clothes. We fill the machine with the shower attachment.... and it uses gravity to drain into a bucket which we dump into the tub.... Finally the clothes are wrung out by hand, the wringer on this machine is broken, and the shower becomes the clothes line... We had a fun time using it but we think maybe we'll buy a new one when we move to another apartment.. :) Here is a short video of the process.

We got a request for a map to help visualize where we are in this country with 11 timezones...so here goes. The first map shows Tambov in relation to Lipetsk. The second map gives you an idea of where in Russia we are. You can see Tambov inside the figure and you can see that we're not far from the Ukraine. Hope this helps put some perspective on the geography of Russia.