Вера, Надежда, и Любовь//Faith, Hope, & Love

I have lived in Irkutsk for a month.

 

February was a month of transition: new environment, new people, new language, new climate, new food, new system, new apartment, new pets. But of course the best additions to my life over the past month have been new friends. Within my first week in Irkutsk, I met Paul, a middle-aged student from South Africa, who attends a small evangelical church here.  Paul was more than willing, of course, to let me tag along and we have since met up every Sunday morning and ride the antique street cars to church together. The church, named Faith, Hope, and Love, meets in the basement of an apartment building and has about 40 members. All 40 are wonderful, God-fearing, warm-hearted people :) The church currently does not have a pastor, and a missionary couple from Beaverton, Oregon is currently filling that position. There is also a missionary family from Minnesota with a daughter my age and a 13 or 14 year-old son.  A good portion of the congregation are young, educated adults who speak English; such a perfect place for someone like me! I have never been a part of such a small church, and I must admit it is rather nice to already know everyone’s name and have the chance to catch up with everyone every week :)  Prayer request for the church right now: the couple from Beaverton was just called back this past week by their home church to lead all adult ministries. Their church is in a bit of a leadership and financial crisis and attendance is way down. They are leaving in two weeks, meaning in two weeks FHL church will be going into a new phase, to say the least.

 

The weather is much improved. The streets are dotted with muddy puddles and patches of brown ice and snow are slowly disappearing. The temperature is often without the minus, though remain in the single digits. Last Saturday I went with Janae (a classmate from Anchorage), Lena (who Janae lives with), and Igor (a friend of Lena’s who drove us) to the small town of Listvianka on the shore of Lake Baikal. And what a beautiful day it was. All my photos are on Facebook, so take a look! (Loading photos onto this blog is a rather slow process with my current internet connection.)  Baikal is completely frozen over right now, and won’t thaw completely until May. Such clean air, pristine views, and mass amounts of smoked fish were a welcome change from city-life in Irkutsk. I pray many more trips to Baikal are ahead!