Day 3-5: First week

Day 3: Wednesday, 21 May- the first devotional at the pastors house where he spoke about who we are in Christ. Most of the day we were just relaxing and still recovering from jet lag, but after the devo one of the members of the church took three of us to see some of the city and walk around the outside of Christ the Savior temple. Before the devotional the pastor’s son who is about to graduate high school came to take us to the apartment. Also, this day was our first time on the famous Moscow Metro where we ventured out as a team to see the famous Red Square, St. Basils Cathedral as well as the GUM (which is a VERY VERY VERY fancy mall, with Louis Vuitton and all of the upclass stores. This store is the largest and most expensive in the entire city. It was so big that it was easily to get lost. With three different sections per floor which there were three different levels that must to have been at least half a mile long. But something I noticed nearly at every corner and end of each floor was café’s that were on the ends.

Day 4: Thursday, 22 May- Rest day. still recovering us crazy Americans and our jet lag we just stayed around here until the evening.

Day 5: Friday 23 May- Our first day of Russian Class at Moscow State University of Humanities. We met with Val (pastor) around 830 and took the purple line metro all the way to the end. Our school is on the opposite side of where we are staying so it takes about an hour to ride the metro, and walk as well. Our teacher is Irina who is an older lady but really nice. We also met an exchange student form Japan but he had come from the States after studying there this year at Northeastern in Boston and now studying here for the summer. One of the directors of the school Roma, showed us the campus and we also ate lunch in the cafeteria. It really was not that bad and I had some type of salad with another plate of rice and meat ( I am pretty sure it was Plova). But before we went to the cafeteria we had our first class which was about three and half hours long (not including the 15 minute break) which goes from 10-2, break at 1145-12. The first day was just learning the alphabet and trying to read sounds, which was quite difficult for me. I can understand the language much more than I can read it. That evening was a devo here at the church with about 10 people (not including the team) but here they sang such beautiful worship music. One thing I have observed is how devoted they are to their worship, and it is absolutely breathe taking to hear them sing. And you can feel the heavy prescence of the Lord. Our first Friday evening in Moscow, consisted of going to a benefit concert for autistic and DS kids in the art section of Moscow called ArtPlay. It was such a long walk but the kids had so much joy. One of the children reminded me of a kid at camp CN. This little boy at the concert wore a dress with butterfly wings attached to the back of him, running around happily. Much like CN at camp would do. Oh how I miss camp.