My Plans

"What are you doing this summer?" is the "How are you?" for college aged kiddos back in their hometowns from May to August. By that I mean it's what everyone asks you in the grocery store but no one wants to listen for a drawn out answer. It follows that if I meet you in the grocery store, all you'll know is that I'm home for the summer. Maybe I'll mention that I'm going on a mission trip. But what am I really doing this summer?

In nine days I will leave for a four week trip to Tomsk, Siberia as the leader in charge of programming for the Russia Initiative, a mission project through the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. This entails coordinating travel logistics for ten team members, designing and preparing Bible school lessons for orphans between the ages of six and sixteen, and planning tour agendas for the sightseeing portion of the trip. The Russia Initiative itself is only a two week program of conducting Bible school and loving on orphans, and this part of the trip will include the ten member team. I am entering the country early, with one other, for an additional two weeks of camping and working with older kids who have been made to leave the orphanage system. To sum all of this up, this summer I will camp in Russia for two weeks, lead a Bible school for Russian orphans for eight days, then spend four days touring Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Why Russia? Well, since high school I've had what I always called an "unexplainable draw" to all things Russian. I tore through Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, soaking up the patronyms and princesses, class systems and cossacks, samovars and heavy snows. I jumped at the chance when the opportunity presented itself to be a team member on the same initiative three years ago, as it was a happy marriage of my heart for missions and my heart for Russia. That trip was life changing, and now I recognize the Spirit moving as that "unexplainable draw" to Russia and putting me in position to grow as both a leader and a servant through this trip.

Please keep our team in your thoughts and prayers this month and the next!