Living in the world's most expensive city

Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD. Jeremiah 9:23-24

Okay, my blog today has no deep spiritual meaning, and it's totally unrelated to the scripture above. In my word study of the Bible (I'm all the way up to the B's!), I came upon this verse this morning. I really liked what it had to say. More and more, I find myself in a position to boast of absolutely nothing except Him. That was harder for me when I spoke the language of those around me fluently, but since I now speak like a two-year-old (a bright two-year-old--I'm making progress), it's hard to boast about anything but Him. See how God's working?! Okay, the spiritual part of my blog is over. :o)

If you didn't know, or if there's no reason whatsoever for you to keep track of such things, Moscow just happens to be the world's most expensive city. Yep, that's right. Unbelievably expensive. For instance, I went Christmas shopping yesterday at Russia's largest toy store. The Barbies were forty dollars and up. The kind of Barbies you buy at Target for four bucks, the really plain ones for that birthday party of the kid your kid isn't really that friendly with (you know which ones I'm talking about), yeah, those start at forty bucks. I'm not kidding. I just couldn't do it. I'm going to the toy store near us today, because it seems to me that even though they're the same chain of toy stores, ours has better prices--likely because we live in the "suburbs" and the one I went to yesterday is in the center of the city. Yikes! I'm not kidding--Sarah Beth and I almost had a heart attack trying to find toys. We did find some really cute things, but we paid more for them than I can even imagine. So many folks, many who read this blog regularly, sent money to my parents to deposit for us to use for Christmas. It never in a million years occurred to me that people would do that. If you did that, can I just say thank you? We would never be able to afford anything for our kids if folks hadn't helped. It's just an unbelievably thoughtful, nice thing to do. My children are going to have a nice Christmas, and its totally because so many people helped us provide it for them.

Everything here costs more. We cannot get out of the grocery store (where we go every single day) without spending at least 1,000 rubles (which is about $40). My children will NOT be getting clothing for Christmas, because we simply can't afford it. No missionaries buy clothes here--they have them brought in from the states. You can't imagine how expensive clothes are. It's one reason Russians don't have a whole closet full of clothes and wear the same outfit again and again--they can't afford to buy lots and lots of clothes.

But here's the interesting thing: Irina says that Russians never complain about how expensive things are, because they remember the days when there was simply nothing to buy. She told me that immediately after the fall of communism, when her son was very little, she would stand in line for 4-5 hours to buy a pacquette (a really small package) of spaghetti. They couldn't find anything to buy--her parents shipped things in on the train from Kiev, or they wouldn't have survived. So it's all a matter of perspective. Irina has told us many, many interesting things about living under communism and in the new Russia. For instance, did you know that Russians mourned for a long time over the death of JFK? According to Irina, they loved JFK almost as much as Americans, considered him a friend, and were devastated both at his death and at the suspicions pointed at them for somehow orchestrating it. Interesting, huh?

Well, this wasn't very spiritual or deeply moving. Sorry. Some days, I just have to tell you about the practicalities of living here. It's such an interesting thing to live in a place so totally different from home. It's doubly interesting to live in a place that was my home's greatest enemy for so many years. Well, I'm off to make breakfast. Love you guys, and hope you have a wonderfully inexpensive day wherever you are! Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye