June 17, 2007

We arrived in Vladimir around 7 this evening. How relieving it is to be in the city I will be ministering in after spending so many hours traveling. The hotel serves not only as a hotel but also as a school for adults and some other offices. When we arrived, dinner was left waiting for us. I was immediately brought back to when I visited Russian at 8 years of age....potatoes and bread at every meal! By this point though, all I wanted was to meet everyone! I got to meet my roommate Sacha. She is a recent college grad from Maryland. I had corresponded with her previously through email so it was nice to get to put a face to words. God could not have paired me up with a better roommate! Sacha is a woman who loves the Lord and it's so evident in her daily walk. She has a heart to be a missionary and I got the honor and privilege to see how God has blessed her with this desire. It was encouraging to be able to spend 10 days with her and share our testimonies and our walks with the Lord. She also knew alot of Russian which definitely helped since I only knew a few phrases!

After meeting Sacha, I had the opportunity to meet with my small group for a brief amount of time. It was a bit intimidating to walk into at first because my small group had already planned out the next day's agenda for the orphanage we were visiting. I had no clue what was going on. I felt like I had missed out on some "bonding time" that had occured before I got there, but it didn't take long before everyone welcomed me and I felt like part of the family. Here's a picture again of my small group from Left to Right: Megan, Linda, Me and Jaye.

After meeting with my small group I was able to get settled. The immediate thing I noticed when I returned to my room was that it was still light out at 11 at night! This would take a little bit of adjustment. We kept our room windows open all night because of the heat and after midnight I could hear people talking and walking down the street outside our room. Who knows what that do at such an hour. Our plans for tomorrow are to go to an orphanage and also get to go minister in families' homes who are poverty stricken.

Prayers for travel and safety were answered!