Saying farewell

A statue of Karl Marx overlooks a block of the center of Moscow. His philosophy formed the basis of communism, which had and continues to have a profound impact on the people of Russia.
General Zubkov's statue outside the entrance to Red Square. He is trampling a Nazi flag beneath his horse. Russians are extremely proud (and rightly so) of their involvement in defeating the Nazi forces.
Probably our city's most famous landmark--St. Basil's cathedral on Red Square. It is said that Ivan the Terrible had the architect's eyes gauged out so that he could never create anything to rival the beauty of St. Basil's.

Blessed be the LORD, for He has made marvelous His lovingkindness to me in a besieged city. Psalm 31:21

You're the God of this city

You're the King of these people

You're the Lord of this nation

You are

You're the Light in this darkness

You're the Hope to the hopeless

You're the Peace to the restless

You are

"God of this city"

While it is only Tuesday and we don't leave until Monday morning, today is likely the last chance I will have to write before our big move to Prague. The apartment is mostly empty. Our belongings are on a truck between Moscow and Prague. We are taking care of last minute things, spending time with friends, and saying our final farewells. This morning, I have spent some time reflecting on what God has done in the last two years as we have lived in this massive city--Europe's largest, and the third largest in the world. The latest calculation I've seen puts the population of Moscow at 15.1 million people. Eleven million people ride the Moscow Metro each day, including the five members of the Hooks clan. So what has God been doing as we have lived in this large place, as David says earlier in Psalm 31? More than I could have imagined two years ago.

• He has grown me out of my comfort zone. It was extremely difficult for me to live in a place where nothing anyone said to me for the first six months made any sense whatsoever. I was accustomed to being a smart person. Suddenly, I had trouble communicating with small children, who had a much broader vocabulary in Russian than I did. My first reaction was complete frustration. But it was clear that God had called us here, so I just kept plugging along at the language. I still am not nearly where I want to be with Russian, and Marc is way, way more advanced than I, but God has definitely used this time to grow me out of the idea that I had to rely on my own "smartness" to get by. Now I know--I have only to rely on Him.
• He has taught me to pray constantly. I literally have an ongoing conversation with God all day long. I could not possibly have survived the first year on the field without a true sense of His constant presence. I have learned that nothing is too small to bring to Him.
• He has made me understand that He doesn't need me to do anything but be obedient, even when it doesn't make sense. When I came here, I genuinely wanted to offer God all of my skills to use as He saw fit. I believed my God-given abilities would certainly be useful to Him. But I have spent the last two years feeling like a failure because I couldn't seem to accomplish anything for God. What I have come to understand is that it isn't about what I can do for Him, but what He can do through me if I just respond in obedience to Him. That means saying yes even when I don't want to or when it doesn't make logical sense to me. No matter what--yes, Lord.
• He has taught me that home is wherever the family is. It was a shock to me the first time I called Moscow "home." But it's where we all are, and so it's home. There are certainly people I miss in the States, and I'd give my right arm some days for a Chik-fil-a sandwich, but home is where Marc and the kids are. And for now, they're in Europe. So Europe is home.
• He has given me a heart for this city and these people. Never in a million years could I love Moscow and its people without fully relying on God. I am not a city person. My Russian is not terrible but not great, either. The culture here is 100% different from my native culture. Yet when I think about leaving on Monday, it's hard. Not because I don't love Prague and all its beauty, but because my heart breaks at leaving Russia. My heart remains here. I will find ministry in Prague, because that's in my nature. But I am praying already for Russian-speaking folks to be involved with in ministry. That, my friends, is completely and totally a God thing.

Goodbyes are never easy, and I seem to have done nothing but say goodbye the last couple of years. But in the midst of this goodbye, I can honestly say that wherever I look, I see the fingerprints of God's lovingkindness to me in this besieged city. I am thankful for a God who remains faithful, compassionate and merciful no matter what city I am living in, or in what part of the world. I am also grateful that He loves this city and these people more than I can fathom, and that His heart remains steadfast in His desire that they would each come to know Him personally. That will continue to be my prayer for Moscow, even as I say, "Dos vedonya." Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you have a heart for whatever city God has put you in for this moment, and that you are having dinner with some of your favorite people tonight, too. Blessings to you and yours!

His,

Kellye

Could we borrow those life vests, please?

Hannah's best impression of a model, maybe? I love this, because you can see the lady who works at this shop in the mirror. It was sweet of her to let Hannah and her friend try things on and take pictures.

O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called "knowledge"--which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. I Timothy 6:1-2

It is a gray, yucky morning here in Moscow. We are heading to house church and then a birthday party for a friend then back home to finish packing our room, so it will be a full day here. It has been a rough couple of weeks for us--packing, getting rid of stuff, packing, packing, packing. We did have a really lovely evening with friends Friday night, and we've actually managed to have some family time amidst the packing, but it's mostly been a long, steady stream of going through our lives and realizing how much we've accumulated in our two years in Moscow.

Three weeks from tomorrow we leave Moscow. It's hard for me to believe, and I definitely have mixed feelings about it. There are many things about this city that I love. There are also many things I hate about this city. I will miss my friends here, certainly. On Saturday, we will have some Russian friends over for a farewell party, and that will be hard. It will be especially hard to say goodbye to Sergei, who has become such a part of our lives here. But we know for certain that it is time to head to Prague, at least for the next year. We are tired, and to be honest, we need a break. We have had no vacation in the two years we've been here, except for a couple of days in Prague last October, and we need some down time. Of course, we will still be working in Prague, but it is a smaller city, a little slower, a little more Western than Moscow. It isn't America by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a place where we have good friends, where we know for certain that we can breathe a little more deeply and relax a little. I'm looking forward to that. And there is ministry there for all of us, because there are Russian-speakers everywhere in the world. Any major city anywhere in the world is going to have a group of Russian-speakers, making our time learning Russian time well-spent.

The verses above are important to me. The "Timothys" are some of my favorite books in the New Testament (I'm reading Numbers right now and finding it a surprisingly good read), and Paul admonishes Timothy again and again to "guard what has been entrusted to you." I feel as though my main job here in Moscow has been to guard what has been entrusted to me. Sometimes, it feels like our little family is on a dangerously small life raft, clinging to the sides and praying for help against a choppy, rough ocean. Think The Perfect Storm without the lifevests. In the last two months, that has been especially true. And as we prepare to leave Moscow, it has really felt like we were fighting uphill battles against an enemy we can't see clearly, but whose arrows are poisonous just the same. I'm sure many of you who read this can identify with feeling like you are under attack from every corner. But you know what? Just because it feels that way, doesn't mean that's reality. It's easy for the enemy of our souls to find strongholds in our emotions and use them against us. I'm not saying emotions are bad, because they aren't--they are God-given just like the rest of our characteristics. But the reality is that often, our emotions lead us astray. We don't have to ignore them, but we have to evaluate them against what we know of our God. And when I read the Bible, I find a holy God who claims that we are NEVER alone. And because I know Him to be true to His word, I can trust that even though it seems that we are fighting enemies alone, we really aren't. He's here with us, just like He's always been. And though we might stray, He never does.

One thing I will say about the move is that it has highlighted the differences between Marc and me. He processes everything aloud. I process everything internally. Frustration makes him talk, and it makes me withdraw. It turns out that those personality tests were right--we are pretty much opposites. The great thing is that no matter how different we are, we have grown together so much the last two years that we can laugh at the differences. Not always, but most of the time. We've laughed a good bit in the last week. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you know that you are not alone, no matter the circumstances, and that in a week, you will be heading to Greece for a week, too. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye

The notebook

The outside of the notebook. It spells Aeroflot in Cyrillic. Aeroflot is the national airline of Russia.
The front page. The two quotes are both from Jim Elliot. One says, "Wherever you are, be all there." The other says, "Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God."

Lord God, I praise You this morning, for I have trusted in Your lovingkindness, and I rejoice in Your salvation. As I sit at my kitchen table and look over the city of Moscow, I sing to You, for you have, indeed, dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:5-6) --first entry in my prayer journal after we moved to Moscow, October 6, 2007

I rarely quote myself. It's kind of arrogant and icky. However, for the purposes of this blog, I couldn't get around it. Yesterday was pretty momentous for me, because I finished the journal that I have been writing in since I became a missionary. It was a gift from my parents. Daddy received it as a retirement gift from Aeroflot, the national airline of Russia. It is a really cool notebook, with lined pages and lots of them. (I cannot write in a straight line without lines. Gotta have 'em.) I saved it to use when I went away to training with my family in August of 2007. And in it, I have recorded prayer requests (many, many of your names are mentioned), praise to God, answered prayers, things I think God is telling me, many confessions of my own failures, and anything else that occurs to me as I'm praying. One of my goals when I came to the field--and it remains a goal--was to improve my prayer life. Not to be more consistent--I've told you before that I'm a girl with a checklist and some discipline, and finding time to spend with God is not a problem. But I've always felt that my prayers were--I don't know--simple. Not really deep or meaningful, and not really indicative of the kind of relationship I want to have with the Lord of my life. So I began writing my prayers. Sometimes I write them and then read them aloud. Sometimes I just write them. So I spent some time yesterday reading the letters I'd written, and it was a pretty illuminating experience. Here are some things I learned, both about myself and about prayer in general.

• My prayers have grown up. At first, there are a lot of "make me happy and help me to live with these people who are in my family" kind of prayers. Then there are the "what are You thinking having that person in missions work?" kind of prayers. As the book progresses, the prayers are less and less about situations and people, and more and more about the love and desire I have for Christ. Fewer and fewer specific situations are mentioned--help me with that person, Lord, because they are driving me NUTS--and the focus of the prayers becomes more and more about Him.
  

• My prayers have become very, very Scripture focused. When I feel weak and pitiful and don't know what to say, God's word ALWAYS has the right words. And I truly believe that there is a great deal of power to be found in speaking God's words back to Him. Some of my favorite prayers in the book are passages that I've rewritten for my situation. There is comfort in writing, "But now God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the One who formed me, says, 'Kellye, do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I am the One who called you by name. Kellye, you belong to me! When you pass through the snow, I am right there with you. As you wade through language study, I am there, too. When things are at their most difficult, when it seems that all around you is fire--you will be safe. You will walk right through the hard times without being scorched, because I am with you. I am the LORD your God, He who saved you. You are precious to me, and I honor and love you. Refuse to be afraid, because I am with you in Moscow, just as I was with you in Richmond, and just as I was with you in Middleburg. No matter where you are, I am with you, and I call you by name. You, Kellye, I have formed and made for My glory, and I am always with you, even to the farthest reaches of the earth.'" (Isaiah 43:1-7, November 3, 2007) Who can feel weak and alone when the God of the Universe calls your name?
  

• The really important part of prayer is listening. I have never spent as much time listening for what God is saying to me as I have in the last two years. I have learned the importance of asking a question and then shutting my trap. I don't ask over and over and over anymore. God knows. He knows when I am anxious. He knows what I need to know and when I need to know it. And so instead of asking the same thing again and again, I listen and then record what I believe He is saying.
  

• He has been beyond faithful to me. There are hundreds and hundreds of prayers in that book, and when I read them, I am overwhelmed by God's goodness and faithfulness. And it's not so much His faithfulness in things or situations or people, though He's certainly faithful in those things. It's His faithfulness to show me more of Himself, to walk closely with me, to be my constant companion. It's His faithfulness to show me what He wants for me. It's His faithfulness in the big and the seemingly tiny aspects of my life. Oh, my friends--He is faithful and true. I will declare it with my last breath. He is faithful and true.

So it's time to start a new notebook. In it, I will record more prayers to my Maker. And I will record the ways in which He responds to those prayers. But I know that no matter what the future holds, when I finish that notebook and look back through it, I will see once again the goodness of the Lord. That is an immeasurable gift, I think. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you have recorded somewhere the ways in which God has been true and faithful in your life, and that you enjoyed a Weight Watchers chocolate smoothie after your workout this morning, too. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye