Oh, to grace how great a debtor...Jesus saves!

This is my traditional picture to capture how many people we had in the apartment. It is customary to take off your shoes when you enter someone's home. This was our entryway during our after-Thanksgiving party.
There was, of course, Phase Ten to be played.
John-John and his friend, James, are playing Xbox. I love the look on John-John's face.

Freedom's calling
Chains are falling
Hope is dawning
Bright and true.
Day is breaking
Night is quaking
God is making
All things new.
Jesus saves!
--"Jesus Saves"
Travis Cottrell
David Moffitt

Wow! A weekday post...amazing, I know. I usually don't have time to do this in the mornings before school, but this was a story I had to tell, so I'm making time for it. I hope you will find it as encouraging as I do.

Many, many days, it is just plain hard to live here. A friend of ours put it perfectly yesterday. He said it was work to live in Moscow. You're working all the time. It's not something I can describe, but suffice to say that living in Moscow often makes me feel worn out and wrung out and discouraged. I can't talk about other fields, but I can tell you that Moscow is just plain hard. And because we've been raised as Southern Baptists, we've spent our whole lives hearing numbers. There were this many in worship, this many in Sunday School, we visited this many at visitation...you get the idea. So when numbers drop in whatever ministry you're working on, it can be very discouraging. And that's exactly what has happened lately with English Club. We have been having maybe 5-10 people, when we ran in the high teens this summer. Of course, we understand that people's schedules have changed, and so they are working on Thursday nights, etc., but that doesn't prevent us from feeling like mediocre missionaries, at best. So last night, I just asked God to help me find a way to really invest in whoever showed up for English Club. No matter how many people came, I asked Him to help me pour myself into them. And then something very interesting happened.

Only two people showed up last night. Two. Leigha, who is a 17-year-old high school student, and Marina, who is a chemical engineer in her mid-50s. At first, I was disappointed. I had just said to Marc that it wasn't worth the preparation to only have a few people, so maybe we should just cancel English Club altogether. But he reminded me that we really only started with two people, and God had been faithful so far. So I came into the living room to chat with them before the lesson started, and I found them looking at the Christmas decorations. Leigha was smiling and Marina was gazing around the room. "Kellye, (I wish I could spell my name like Russians say it...sort of like kyeelee) I have never seen such decorations as these." I began explaining all the decorations on the tree, what the ornaments mean, different relationships they represent, and how we chose them very carefully to bring with us. I even talked about my Momma wrapping each ornament individually, and how it meant so much to me to have my decorations with me at Christmas, especially since Russians don't celebrate Christmas in the same way or at the same time as Americans (and most of the rest of the world) do. Leigha quietly said, "My family has a Christmas tree. We celebrate on December 25th." I looked at her and smiled. "Really?" I said. "Why does your family celebrate on the 25th?" She smiled at me again. "Well, my aunt once lived in the United States. And we are Christians." And then, very quietly and in Russian, she said, "We are not Orthodox." For a split second, we looked at one another. "I understand," I replied in Russian. And suddenly, English Club had taken an interesting turn.

So we went on with the lesson, but everything had a different feel to it, at least to me. As we were doing the lesson, I kept catching Marina gazing at our Christmas stockings, which my Momma made for us. "What is it called, Kellye, this putting together of different fabrics?" she asked. I told her it was quilting, and that my mother had made the stockings for us. "She is very talented, your mother." Yes, I agreed. I told her that I found them very comforting, because I knew that each time my mother had stitched things for me, she had thought of me, loved me, and prayed for me. "She must love you very much," she said softly. Then I showed her the quilt my friend, Janet, made and that different members of our church had signed. I told her that even that afternoon, I had sat in that chair with the quilt on my lap, reading a book, and thinking about the people who had signed the quilt and the beloved friend who had made it. I emphasized again that these things meant so much to me. "They must love you very much," she said. I went on to tell her about quilt ministry at our church, how my mother and her friends had sent blankets all over the world to people who needed them, because God had given them that talent to use for Him in places they would never see and never visit. "She is an extraordinary woman, I think. Your mother," she said as she gazed, once again, at the stockings. Then the "Hallelujah Chorus" played on Marc's iPod, which we had hooked up to play softly the whole evening. "What is this song?" Marina asked. So I told her the story of Handel, of the king standing in praise the moment he heard the hallelujahs, how all over the world, when people hear the opening chords they stand in honor, not of tradition, but of the baby Jesus, who was sent to save us. And suddenly, English Club had taken a VERY interesting turn.

Now, I would love to tell you that Marina bowed her head right there and accepted Christ. She didn't. But she laughed and talked, something she has never done in the six months she has been faithfully coming to our house. It struck me that God had given me so much grace that night...first to be encouraged by Leigha's faith, and then to be encouraged that He is at work in the people to whom we minister...even when we can't see what He's doing. It is so difficult to strike up spiritual conversations with Russians, yet He had given me an entire night when I had nothing but spiritual conversations. He is good...all the time. And so, my Momma and her quilts came to English Club last night, ministered to my Russian friend, and helped me talk about Jesus. Not a bad day's work. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are having opportunities to tell others the good news that Jesus saves, and that your apartment is ready for the big party at your house tomorrow afternoon. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye