Burger Klub

Well it ain't no Smashburger, but I was hungry. We just got back from dinner at the local burger joint called "Burger Klub". Very similar to an american establishment, complete with sleezy music videos playing all the time on several televisions. It was a 15 minute walk from the church in subzero temps. I believe that today is the coldest it has been yet, barely above zero during the day time.

Megan had an allergic reaction overnight which caused her right eye to swell shut (this happens frequently at home as well). She has sat out most of the activities today trying to get it to go away. We brought her back some sort of sandwich wrap and chocolate ice cream. That should go a long way to making her feel better.

Yesterday we were told that we were going to be on our own today due to the Christmas holiday. However, like much of our trip, things change rapidly and we have had an unexpectedly busy day. We visited Anatoly's church today. We have seen and participated in the kids Christmas program about 10 times now. I am now able to play at least 3 parts in russian, the donkey, the sheep, and baby Jesus. Larry and I are struggling to get the melody of several of the songs out of our heads. Though they are truly beautiful worship songs the human mind can only tolerate the same song for so long. Now I know what it means to suffer for Christ.

We also had movie night at Anya's apartment last night, which the others may have already commented on. We watched "Catch Me If You Can". Unfortunately, those of us who had seen the movie already had forgotten that there was some foul language, etc...When the movie was over Misha commented that the movie was very "Educative". I have to agree. Misha is a wonderful translator but has a pretty stoic exterior that seems difficult to penetrate. After several days we finally gotten him to loosen up and laugh, but I can see that it may actually be struggle for him to relate to us at times. Yesterday we visited the construction site for Anatoly's new chruch. While they were trying to unfreeze the lock on the gate with a hammer he started singing..."It's Hammer-time" followed by "Don't touch this!" We immediately started laughing and let him know that we preferred this lyric versus the real one of "You can't touch this!" We have now said it many times and Misha has laughed along with us....he has little choice.

Today I mastered Merry Christmas in russian as we passed out the Immanuel's Child gifts at both Vadim's church and Anatoly's church. It is quite difficult to pronounce but I think I've got it. The phonetic spelling would be something like srazshdestvom christovim.

I have slept soundly now for two days in a row and I'm just now starting to feel like normal. Not looking forward to dealing with the jetlag on the return trip.

Not sure how much of this is already down in the blog. Between Jen and Megan there is likely no stone left unturned.

-Rader