Bible stories, the birthday party, and our visas

But as for me, I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of your righteousness and of Your salvation all day long, for I do not know the sum of them. I will come with the mighty deeds of the LORD God; I will mention of Your righteousness, Yours alone. Psalm 71:14-16

This has been our week to "hope continually," since it appears that we are delayed because of visa issues. I won't go into a long, detailed description of what has happened (it's not just us--everyone going to Russia is waiting), but suffice to say that it appears we will be delayed for a while, in spite of the best efforts of very talented and earnest people at the IMB. After trying to work all week long to get us out on time, we were told last night that there was no way to do that. But they tried, and I am grateful for that. I could be upset, but it wouldn't get me to Russia any faster. Just pray that our Letter of Invitation, which we have to have before we can go forward, is on our email Monday morning. That's our best prayer right now.

This was also a week of different strategies for spreading the gospel. Our favorite was Bible storying, which is exactly what it sounds like. You might think it's only for oral cultures with no written language (there are a huge number of those in the world, which I didn't know until this week), but it's really a technique that could work in many different cultures, including ours. It was fun. We've been practicing it all week, and it's been really enjoyable.

Oh, the birthday party. Monday was the birthday of one of our quadmates, another young lady headed to a large country in Asia, and another young lady headed to Western Europe. Our quad (how did I get put in the party quad?) threw a birthday party for all three in our living room. Let me say this--these are not large spaces. I know there were at least fifty people there. Since Russian tradition is to offer poems and songs at birthday parties, I sang a duet in Russian with my dear friend (and neighbor in Moscow) Teri. It was very intimidating, but it was so fun. She is also an OBU alum (there are seemingly millions of us here), and we have had a great deal of fun being together. She leaves to head home to Russia soon, and I am going to miss her the couple of weeks we're apart. What a blessing it has been to have her here.

Well, we're off to D.C. today--all of us. The entire FPO community, including children, is taking a field trip to D.C. Marc and I and the kids will be with good friends from our small group, and we'll be headed to the embassies of our countries to prayer walk. I have my Russian dictionary, and I am determined to speak some Russian today. Pray for us--I'm shocked at how scary that is. We went to a European market which is owned by a Ukrainian woman (all Ukrainians speak Russian first), and when we held a conversation with her in Russian, I promise my heart was beating so hard and loudly that I was sure she could hear it. It's hard to put yourself in a position to look stupid. But it's also the only way to learn the language. We also hope to see my cousin Rachel, who works in the House of Representatives. She is the "baby" of that side of the family, and we are really, really hoping to be able to see her today. What a blessing that would be to us--she's never seen John, and I don't think she's seen Hannah before, either. What fun!

Pray for us while we're gone today. I challenge you to learn a sentence in another language today, just for fun. Then think of me trying to learn how to order meat at the butcher. My family may become vegetarians just out of necessity! Blessings!
His,
Kellye