Russia Recap

I don't even know where to begin telling about Russia! But I do know that I want to make sure that you know that our God is amazing and faithful and He worked miracle after miracle while we were gone!
I will start at the beginning. I am sure I won't get far tonight, so stay tuned!
We left Spokane a bright Friday morning, sometime in June....the 15th I think. We had four guitars (I think), a djembe (it's a drum), a snare drum, a violin, and other misc backpacks as carry-ons. They didn't make us check the instruments, for which we were very grateful. When we went to board, the ones carrying the guitars walked up (yours truly included) and tried to board with first class. Nick walked through without a problem, and then they stopped me and made a comment about boarding later. I said something about hoping to be able to board b/c of the guitars and he looked at the rest of us and finally let us board early! Yay! I sat next to a Christian man and we had a nice chat. Nick and Julie were able to encourage a man (likely a believer) to start going to church again. We flew to Chicago and we witnessed another miracle with boarding. Now, before I tell that story, I have to explain about my backpack. It was HUGE! I borrowed Shauns, b/c I had so much stinking stuff to carry on (pillow, spare clothes, what else....?) and it was a hiking backpack of sorts and was rather large. Rachel had the djembe on her back, and it was quite large and bulky as well. Because this flight was International, we were concerned they would not let us on with them. And we still had all those guitars. So, we were trying to hide in line, and look inconspicuous. Julie got pulled aside and they were making her check her carry on suitcase, b/c it was too big and then too heavy. Rachel and I were really trying then to hide. While they were dealing with her, they opened up for boarding and we walked on without a hitch, b/c they were distracted by Julie! Thanks Julie!
Oh, wonderful Lufthansa! Now, before I say my negative, let me say the positive: Lufthansa has great service and they feed you well, and often it seems. However, the plane we flew on for 8 hours had NO leg room. My knees literally were tight touching the seat in front of me as soon as I sat down. Not much room at all. Rachel and I tried to sleep on this flight, to avoid jet lag, but only rested for about three hours before we couldn't rest any more. We would prop up against each other and use each other for support as we rested. We finally relented to watching the two movies, b/c we couldn't sleep at all. We were sitting next to a dad and his daughter (also believers) on their way to Ehiopia to pick up two kids they were adopting! How fun and encouraging to talk to them!
Frankfurt was an interesting airport. NO drinking fountains. The faucets in the bathroom said drinking water, so we trusted that! Smoking is allowed in the airport, so you would have times when you would have to hold your breath and walk through a cloud of smoke coming from the smoking sections. We found a little coffee/pastry shop, but a cup of coffee was $7 or so, so we opted no!
Frankfurt to Moscow, God brought a friend named Victor our way. He was proving His faithfulness to us before we even got to Russia. Victor and his amazingly cute little two year old, Danilo, sat near a few of our team members. They all struck up a conversation and he too is a musician. He was super excited to meet us and we found out he too was headed for Arkhangelsk! Crazy! He said he was on the same flight and that he would help us in Moscow. We parted ways at landing and he came and found us after passport control. (There was no customs in Moscow, which was confusing to us, that after Passport control, we walked right out and no customs! yay!) He said he would meet up with us at the other airport in Moscow that we had to go to, and took off. Once we got to the second airport, he met us and helped us get all our luggage inside. We had tons of luggage, and he was such a servant helping us with all our stuff. Even though we had a contact in Moscow helping us, Victor helped beyond where Artiom could come. As we got to check in for the flight, Victor convinced them to not charge us the overage per bag that was over 44 pounds. That alone saved us a lot of money. Then, he took two of our action packers under his own name for us. That saved us more. We still had to pay for overages, but I think he probably saved us over a few hundred dollars. Praise the Lord!!!! We were so amazed at God's provision for us!
We got on our plane and realized that Russian flight standards are NOT what they are in America. The plane had rust on the wings, and literally stuff was breaking all over inside the plane. Course by this time we are all so tired that we didn't really care. We had been up for over 24 hours and were fighting exhaustion and nausea, so really, rust on wings? Who cares! We want to get to Arkhangelsk! I went to the restroom and was amazed at the "ghetto-ness" of it. Mostly wooden, a painted on toilet lid and reeking like an outhouse, it was an experience! It did feel more like an outhouse, than a airplane bathroom! :-)
We finally got to our destination, something like 36 hours after leaving Spokane. We were excited to meet Pastor Nikolay and excited to get to bed. We went to our home-stays and they made us dinner and then we crashed. Some of my team took showers. Mind you, the hot water had been turned off, so it was a cold shower! Not fun! I took mine in the morning and it was by far the coldest shower I have ever had in my life! The water was Arctic!
Church was the next morning and we were all fighting jet lag hard! It was a long day and we were very tired, but God's grace was so powerful and so evident, that it was sweet to watch Him work and sweet to recieve His grace and strength! Lunch was a funny story: Rachel and I were eating our soup and both wanted more, so got seconds on it. When we were most of the way done with seconds, Yanek looks at us and says: "You guys know there are two more courses, right?" We look at him in shock and were horrified, because we were mostly full by now! The main course was HUGE, and we as a team hardly made a dent in it! We learned that soup was the first course of a larger meal to come! (I LOVED the soups we had while in Russia! Yummy!)
After lunch, we had a meeting with the camp moms, the translators, and Nikolay to discuss details. We learned that we would have a lot more time to fill once we go to camp the first day that we had planned for. We had planned for two hours of activities once arriving at camp, and in reality, we were going to have five or six! We quickly came up with new plans for the day! This was one of the first of many times we had to be flexible and adjust! It was fun to meet the people who would be at camp with us. We realized already we had a lot of simliar names: Nikolay/Nick, Lilia/Leah, Ulyea/Julie, and Tanya/Tanya (We called her Totianna, so that we could be told apart more easily). We crashed again hard that night and were looking forward to meeting the kids the next morning and heading to camp.
Part Two to come later!