Who are you following?

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now is already in the world. I John 4:2-3

That’s kind of an odd verse to begin my blog with, I know. I promise that I haven’t found the Antichrist living in Moscow (though if he were, I’d be able to introduce myself, tell him my name, and proclaim myself a “misseeonair.”), though I’m sure that—just like the rest of the world—there are plenty of antichrists running around the city. No, instead this came from my Bible study this morning. Along with the study that the women’s group at church is doing by Kay Arthur, I have started doing a word study of different words from the Bible and how they vary in different contexts. If you are one of my FPO buddies, you will recognize that Elbert is the inspiration here. It’s not very scientific—I’m just going letter by letter in my concordance and finding what I can about different things. Today’s word was antichrist, and it fit with the Kay Arthur study perfectly. It’s awfully important to know what you believe and why. If all we ever do is look for THE Antichrist, then we miss the damage done by the spirit of antichrist around us. Here’s my challenge to you—before you decide to follow someone’s teaching, test it against God’s word. I don’t want to mention names, but there’s a very popular preacher in Houston, Texas (who smiles a lot), and he might make you feel good, but if you test what he says against what God says, you’ll find he is pretty lacking. I am a fan of Alan Floyd’s (our pastor in Florida), and I’d put his preaching up against any preaching anywhere, but if what he said didn’t match what the Bible said, I’d have to say so long. Get my point? Who are you following? I’ll follow Jesus. Men are just men. They’ll fail you—even the good, Godly ones. Jesus never, ever will fail you. That’s my soapbox for the day. Now I’ll climb down and fill you in on what’s going on here.

Well, I started language on Monday. I think it’s going well, but I promise you it’s sooooooooo hard. I am old…or at least my brain is old. It does not want to do the mental gymnastics required to learn to speak Russian. I find myself muttering away as I do things around the house. I’m sure the children think Momma has finally lost it. On second thought, they know I’ve finally lost it.

We have internet sort of. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is unlimited for only 500 rubles a month (roughly $20), so we’re pleased with that. It’s not totally reliable—we were skyping with Poland last night and lost them when the network crashed. But it’s been dependable enough, and we’re pleased to have it. I know many of you have prayed for this, and I wanted you to know that your prayers have been answered. By the way—if you haven’t discovered Skype, you must look into it. If you call computer to computer it’s free, but I can all my parents’ telephone for 15 minutes and pay about 30 cents. It’s amazing!!!

Yesterday, the sun shone for about 2 hours. Sarah Beth and I walked to the specialty grocery store (Seventh Continent), and we bought stuff for our friend Stephen, who arrived yesterday. It was so fun. It felt so good. I have never in my life been so happy to see sunshine. That morning in my quiet time, I read and prayed Psalm 43: Lord, I am living in a land of darkness…hear my pleas to You. Of course, I’m pretty sure the psalmist was being metaphoric, but I was happy for the sunshine any way I could get it. Honestly, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders.

Marc is ranting about the Russian language right now. One hundred and ten conjugations of the word “bathroom,” but no word for “am.” He’s right. Isn’t it weird? If I am introducing myself according to my profession, it goes like this: “Ya preepadavatyel.” (pah-Angliski: I teacher.) No “I am a teacher.” Nyet. “I teacher.” But the days of the week have 6 different endings according to case. Gotta go with him on this one. We’re so funny as we study. I teach whatever it is to no one in particular. He stares and walks up and down. The joke in our house (only Irina and I think it’s funny) is that Marc cannot say the word for teacher (few misseonair can, according to Irina), but everyone in my family is a teacher. She goes through a stack of pictures everyday, grins at him, and then asks different questions about the people there. His friend Mikey, my grandfather, my aunt and uncle, his parents….lots of teachers in the stack. When he points to me, he tries to sneak in “misseeonair,” but she waggles her finger and makes him say, “preepadavatyel.” She’s funny.

One really cool thing about Russia is that you can go to any drugstore and get prescription meds without a prescription. John-John has developed a nasty little cough, and so Irina wrote down what syrup to get for him, Marc took it, and sure enough, we got the cough syrup. Pretty cool, huh? He also got his cholesterol and blood pressure medicines.

I made my own refried beans from scratch tonight. Like from the beans in the bag to the plate—seriously, I did it all myself. I was pretty impressed. I’ve also discovered something called “testa,” which I think means dough. You just roll it out and do stuff with it. I made really yummy cinnamon rolls with it yesterday morning, and pizza with it last night. But before you’re too impressed, I had to use both packages from the refrigerator, because they both exploded, and it looked like the creature from the dough lagoon had entered my refrigerator. It’s really good. I just have to figure out a way to keep it from exploding. :o)

Well, I should go. I still have homework to do. I have to memorize the exceptions to the rules for making singulars into plurals. Yep—just as many as in English. I have a new respect for people who come to America and learn our language. They are brave, brave souls! Blessings to you and yours!
His,
Kellye