Departure in just days

So, time for doing laundry and packing, errands all ran for now.

Our commissioning will be at the 11 am service at La Croix Church this Sunday and we will get in the packed vehicles immediately after, grabbing lunch on the way out of town, and heading straight to the air port!

It's going to be a whirlwind, but surely an interesting, exciting journey.

I'm not sure how often we'll be able to keep up with this blog while "on the road" but I'll do my best.

2010 Summer trip

It seems no one has posted in a LONG time...

I actually forgot about this site as I should have posted about the trip last year that Mike, Ken, and I took with a VIM group. It wasn't a "big" trip, just one to really connect better with the young leaders. In that, it seemed quite successful and helped me see how much time and energy it takes to really invest cross-culturally (when it's not a culture you are familiar with or connected to in any other way).

This summer will be yet another exciting trip. We have Mike leading the way again with Brett (La Croix college pastor), Ken (his third and surely not last trip), Priscilla (a stay-at-home-mom, cattle rancher, and artist), Wendy and Nick (semi-newly married and headed to seminary in Chicago for the fall), and me, Izzie (current seminary student who is having this particular trip count as credit for a course, hoping the 15 page paper for the class will help Mike out as a resource for further ministry).

Since our group is a good, medium size, it looks like we'll try to start out in St. Petersburg (which I haven't been to yet) and do a little this and that there, then Moscow for a day or so then off to camp and then back to Moscow for a day or so before heading back to the US! The details for the whole trip have not been hammered out but considering this is my third trip, I know I can be okay with that and it's the unplanned stuff that's the best anyway! I still remember walking through a Russia cemetery with Mike and Valya the last day in Moscow and snapping amazing pictures of the beautiful tombstones of Russia's former military heroes, actors, singers, poets, and writers. Although I had spent more time alone on that trip than any other trip abroad I've been on, I found our time at the cemetery to be the most peaceful. Then we semi-rushed back to get to the airport to meet the group and made it in plenty of time because the flight was delayed, as it often is...

We leave in a few weeks and hopefully we'll be able to update a couple times. It should be pretty exciting to get to pour into the lives of young people who want to live for Christ and also share the love and testimony of Jesus with some that haven't really heard of Him before!

Izzie

OK, awesome team of 2010!! Thanks to those brave souls who went before us, we already have our own blogspot!! Let's show the world we mean business and we know how to use this technology!! Best I can tell, we only have 28 more days to get ready for this adventure!!

I'm still here!

I'm still here!!! How are you guys doing? I miss you all!!!!

ANYBODY STILL OUT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!?
RUSSIA ROCKED!!!!

Hey everyone!

This is Renee,
Due to my awesome lack of computer bloggingness, i am on Jesse's account. But this is Renee.

We are busy at work, some of us are trying to get our presentations done for camp. Others are doing an awesome Job of leading us. We had our first large group experience on the Moscow metro. With the pushing and shoving of trying to get everyone onto the car without leaving people behind the fast closing doors. We are doing great so far. We had amazing pastries this morning for breakfast (yay, God so blessed those pastries!). My momma, is on her own with a Russian friend going to the store to get food for us and holding down the fort. Yay for mom! Well, I need to go, time for lunch. I'll talk to you all soon!

I hope everything is great back at home. We'll see you all soon!

--Renee

We're safe!

Just thought you should all know that we landed in Moscow on time and safely. Since then we've been doing work in the church and are all doing great. We've also had multiple meetings about the camp next week and other miscelanneous things. For those of you joining us next week, we can't wait to see you, and for those of you waiting for us to come back, we will see you in August.

P.S. sorry, this would be longer and more detailed, but we are running out of time. Hope to be able to post more later.