From Russia to Montenegro
February 26, 2010
About 10 days ago, my wife and I began a road trip from St. Petersburg, Russia to visit Stoneworks ministry sites in eastern and central Europe. Stoneworks continues to expand, and it’s an honor to be able to visit so many wonderful people that God has put together as living stones.
Our first stop was in Minsk, Belarus where we visited with our ministry Spring of Revival. We stayed with Yasha and Olga Goncharenko and had a great time visiting several ministry sites.
Olga and her staff continue to do great work under difficult circumstances. They are very worthy of our help and support.
The highlight of our visit was at the Minsk Family Home. The young ladies who live there are doing very well, and Alesya (the counselor, in front on the right) is doing a great job.
We had a good meal together, shared stories and were blessed to have a good time of fellowship and mutual encouragement.
We also visited a foster family we support. The home, for eleven children, is in a small village 30 minutes from Minsk.
We had a great meal there (this is a theme of our travels), and saw some of the pigs we bought for them. We’re now helping purchase a cow, and we’ve also purchased chickens and provided other aid for foster families.
From Minsk, we drove through eastern Poland to Budapest, Hungary after a long day.
The trip through that part of the world is quite interesting and the land is very beautiful, especially as we made our way through the Carpathian mountains of eastern Slovakia. Read more
Meet Tanya
February 25, 2010
MIR recently added a new staff member. Here’s a post from MIR Executive Director Masha Oshkina:
Please meet Tanya Zaikina, the NEW coordinator for the MIR hosting program. Here are a few words she wanted to share with you:
Hello, my name is Tanya. I’m really exited to be on staff with MIR and be involved with hosting orphans from Russia.
I like drawing and traveling. I like animals, especially dogs, cats and horses. Also I like to walk and listening to good music.
One of my desires is to know English like I know Russian.
Another kind of anniversary
February 4, 2010
Another note from our own Liz Hulley –
This week, Russia celebrates 20 years of….McDonald’s!
I would like to leave the fast-food (health) debate for the moment and comment on the culture implications. This kind of anniversary is interesting when looked at in the light of what was going on the world at the time.
1990: I was almost 8 years old and probably didn’t know that the USSR existed. And I barely knew what McDonald’s was, as I wasn’t raised on fast-food.
Meanwhile, in Russia, an interesting “cultural” exchange was taking place. I enjoyed reading the accounts in Monday’s local paper (Metro) about people’s memories of the first McDonald’s opening in Moscow.
They speak of the lines, the intrigue, the scent of a new kind of food. People who had worked as servers describe the pressure they felt, then the relief as the idea took on.
I don’t know exactly which characteristics of American culture are represented by McDonald’s cuisine: Convenience? Mass-marketing? Consumerism? At any rate, in some ways this was a little crack in the cultural barrier. Something that could be “shared”?
An interesting excerpt from Metro (Feb.1, 2010).
How many hours do you have to work, to buy a Big Mac?
-in 1990: 2 hours, 10 minutes
-in 2010: 30 minutes
-in 1990: average salary was 297 rubles a month, a Big Mac cost 3 rubles, 75 kopecks
I asked a friend recently what her favorite restaurant was, and she said “McDonald’s.”
I suppose it is cheaper than other establishments in St. Petersburg, but it is still considered “eating out,” not something most people can afford to do regularly.
