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!