December 2006 Mission Tip to Karabanovo, Russia
Pre-Trip Woes
While on the December 2005 Russia mission trip, we met with the Mayor of Karabanovo and the head doctor of the local hospital, to discuss the possibility of holding a medical clinic the following December in 2006. They agree and agreed to provide us a room in the hospital where we could work. Over the course of the year, it was made clear we could not use American medicines. What was not made clear until August or September was that over the counter medicines were included in that decree. In addition, now the Mayor and the head doctor wanted to meet with our doctors on December 29th the day after we arrived in Russia. The purpose of the meeting was to determine whether or not there would be a medical clinic.
This had been in the front of my mind since September and I had been very concerned that permission to hold the medical clinic would be denied. What made this more troublesome was that we would not know until we met with the Mayor and the head doctor at the hospital in Karabanovo on December 29th, thus presenting the possibility that the medial team would travel 5,800 miles around the world only to be told no, you can not do the one thing you are best at.
Four days before the trip, I was told by my lovely bride that we have no housing. She had traveled five days in advance of the mission team to purchase groceries and get the apartments setup. Well there were no apartments and no hotel rooms. So I immediately got off the phone with her and started to worry. I did not want to burden God you know. Well, then I started praying and an idea came to mind, from God obviously. Well, actually to you it is not obvious now, but by the time you finish reading this it will be. It was Saturday December 23 and we were to arrive on Thursday December 28.
So, I called Luba, an interpreter who lives in Vladimir, which is not the town where we work. We live in Alexandrov and work in Karabanovo. Vladimir is about 2-3 hours down the road. I asked Luba to arrange an entire mission trip to come to her city and work with a church in her city and oh by the way, she had to make all of these arrangements in 48 hours. We also needed a place to stay and transportation. This was Saturday morning.
On Sunday afternoon Luba called me. God had worked through Luba to find us a church, with a dormitory (free housing), and transportation. In other words, God did in 24 hours what had taken Andy 9 months of planning. Then I called Stephanie and she said that we did indeed now have housing in Alexandrov and to come on to Alexandrov. Great, now I must disappoint this church in Vladimir that had arranged everything in a moments notice. God was working in all of this as you will see, but for now you will have to wait. I will take up this story later, so you will just have to keep reading.
In the back of my mind I was worried about the $1,100 plus that a supposed team member owed me. I had purchased a ticket for her and arrange for her to be on the trip and she left the group as soon as we arrived at the airport. It is a very long story and we may never see that money again, but that was in the back of my mind on the entire trip. I did learn a very valuable lesson. When it is time to purchase the airline tickets if a team member does not have the funds collected and delivered to me, the ticket will not be purchased.
Departure
When we went to the Atlanta airport, we were greeted by our Delta angel. No we didn't know her, but God did and she would take care of us, on God's orders. She first attempted to setup a station exclusively for us to check our luggage upstairs in the normal international check-in area, but she could not. She was doing this just to get our large group checked in. Well, when she could not make that happen she sent us downstairs where we had begun, at another small check-in area.
There we were greeted by our second Delta angel. She successfully setup a check-in station just for us and we proceeded to check our luggage. William or David, I don’t remember which, afterward said that half of our containers (our luggage) was overweight. So we should have been charged about $500 for that and another $900 for excess baggage. We were not. God was blessing us already and we had not left town.
We had lunch, went out to the gate and checked in. We departed on time and so we arrived in Russia as scheduled and we were very tired. We had been up since the morning of the 27th until the morning of the 28th and most of us had not slept. We were all very tired and I was a little grumpy. Even with that I sensed that the Americans were beginning to bond.
Arrival in Moscow
We went through Passport Control and then on to claim our luggage. Three pieces were missing. Well another problem, not necessarily a large problem, but they were beginning to pile up.
We met Volodya Kochelev, the pastor with whom we were to work and Venera an interpreter and headed down to the vans to be transported to Alexandrov. All was well until about an hour down the road, May needs to use the bathroom. Well there are not bathrooms along the way, but she REALLY has to go, so we stopped. She gets a couple of ladies to volunteer to stand in front and behind her and she does her thing between two cars parked beside each other.
Arrival in Alexandrov
We finally arrive in Alexandrov. We dropped the ladies off at Pastor Volodya's home and the men proceeded to the hotel and to the one apartment and unload all of the luggage. Meanwhile the ladies are eating dinner at the Kochelevs. Once the luggage is unloaded the men head to the Kochelevs and they eat. Then we have the introductions and discuss what is going to happen on the trip during the next few days.
We spend the next couple of days preparing for the real work. We also spend the time bonding, making sure that the team members who have been before spend time with new team members and we make sure the Americans spend time with the Russian interpreters so that they bond as well. We started Secret Pals which we try to do every day. In this way when we start the real work on December 31, we are already a team and we can function well.
The Meeting with the Mayor and Head Doctor
It is now Friday December 29, 2006 and we are meeting with the Mayor and the doctor. They explain their position the American doctors describe their specialties. We deliberately do not mention American medicines and the Russian doctors do not mention it either. The head doctor takes our group on a tour of the hospital. It is what you would expect of a third world country, and in case you are reading this thinking Russia is not a third world country, think again. In the end we were given permission to hold the medical clinic, but we could not give witness of Jesus to the people as they finished their visits with the doctors, so instead we gave them invitations to Pastor Volodya's church. We will have more on that later.
New Year's Eve
New Year's eve comes and we go to the church and we celebrate New Year's with the children and adults of the church in Karabanovo by eating a very large meal, and giving and receiving presents. The presents are all put into a large box and we have a tradition that we do each year. Pastor Volodya secretly selects a gift from the large box and hidden from my view. I select someone in the room, to receive the gift. Then Volodya hands me the gift and I deliver it to the blessed recipient. It's pretty cool.
Then begins a talent show, where usually the Americans are kind of left out, because they are usually too shy to do anything and besides I almost always forget to warn them that a talent show is being held. Sometimes, unbeknownst to me, Luda, a long time member of the church in Karabanovo, will drag me and others into a drama which is only just now being explained to us. Of course, they only explain to us the major plot, not the underlying subplot that makes us look so funny. We love it and after the full explanations are given it is even funny to us. For more about that you will have to read the Russia Mission Trip report for December 2005.
