December 2006 Mission Tip to Karabanovo, Russia
(Continued from page 1)
Five Days of VBS
On January 1st in the afternoon, we began the medical clinic and the vacation Bible school. There were approximately 40-45 children in the VBS. I will add more detail here once I have the trip report from the VBS director. Neither Stephanie nor I worked in the VBS so we don't have much to say. We will let Kelly Hickey tell her story here.
The Children At VBS
One notable thing that occurred on this mission trip at VBS that I can share with you is about one of the team members. May Elliott, a grandmother who is in her 60's, became so attached to the children that she was just a crying up a storm on the last day of VBS and again on the last day we were at the church in Karabanovo. I love to see short term missionaries get attached to my Russian family, because I know they will be back.
Five Days of Medical Clinic
The medical clinic also started on January 1st and we had about 10-12 people show up the first day. This number doubled each day until the last day of the trip. The clinic was held in an old school building that was no longer used. When you walk in the front door all you see are books, literally thousands of old books and book covers. The pile was about 16ft x 12ft and maybe 1-2 feet high. Well the team set out to make the place more presentable so we pushed the books to the other side of the room. These books were apparently from the old school library and were no longer needed.
We were given 300-400 pairs of reading glasses which we were to distribute to the patients who needed them. Stephanie setup a station where she could help people choose the reading glasses. She had them ordered by strength. She placed one pair of glasses for each level of strength in a window sill of the main room and she and Sveta would work with the patients. But let me allow Stephanie to tell this part.
I worked in the medical clinic this year helping people pick out reading glasses. What a blessing it was to talk to these grandmas and grandpas and hear their stories - many of them were more than happy to share what was going on in their life. The neatest thing was to hand them a pair of glasses and see their face light up as they looked around and could see clearly for the first time in (apparently) a very long time. It was incredible. There were tears, there were exclamations of joy and there was much humble appreciation. They just couldn't believe that Americans would want to come to their small town in Russia and help them...and all for free.
Stephanie Nelms
As patients would come in they would be seen by either of our two receptionists and a medical history would be gathered. Then they would wait to see the doctors, sometimes for an hour or two. In Russia, when you are seventy or older if you go to a doctor they will tell you that you are old and expected to be sick. Go home. Well our doctors would sit and listen to these people and then try to help them in any way they could. The reason the number of patients doubled each day was because the previous day's patients were telling about how wonderful the American doctors were treating them.
Each day I would stand in the entrance to the hallway that led to the doctors. After patients had given their history to the receptionist, they would line up just outside the hallway. I was the hall monitor. :) Of course, this was a great job, because then I got to meet everyone and talk to everyone. There was the old man who had a suit on and on his chest were all of the ribbons and medals he had won as a soldier in the military. He had met Americans in Germany at the end of The Great Patriotic War (World War II to you). He had also served in Korea at some point. Then there were the women who just "Loved Dr. Richard". During my conversations I was able to slip in a few facts about Jesus and try to get them interested in things other than medicine. Each person God allowed me to converse with had a seed planted. It is God's responsibility to get someone to water it.
As I mentioned earlier we could not witness directly to the people. According to Russian laws and our agreement with the local doctors and the mayor we could not directly witness to the patients in the clinic. So we would hand them a written invitation to join us for a Christmas celebration at the church each evening. And indeed some of the patients came to the church.
One man whose name escapes me at this point, we will call him Sergei, came to the evening Bible study at the church. However, when we realized that the people from the clinic were actually coming to the Bible study we decided to change the Bible study to a Matthew Party. A Matthew party is where a few Christians invite a lot of non-Christians to come over for tea and cookies and conversation. So we did.
Jacob was able to lead Sergei to the Lord. I was not present, because I was down the hall in another room having a Bible study with the teens. But we all thanked God for the miracle before the evening was done. Many other seeds were planted, because the people of Karabanovo saw that we were not terrible people and Volodya was not a terrible person for working with us. So what would inspire me to say that?
The Russian Orthodox Priest
On the second or third day of the medical clinic, the Russian Orthodox priest came by for a chat. Apparently I had left as I did each day to go with the VBS team for lunch in Alexandrov. The priest came into the school and asked one of our interpreters to get the religious leader. They called out to Stephanie, "Stephanie there is someone here to see you." So Stephanie came over and greeted the priest and asked if she could help him. Once she realized who he was, Stephanie asked one of the interpreters to call Pastor Volodya who was not present on purpose. He did not want anyone saying we were trying to convert the everyone who came to see the doctors.
The priest grew tired of waiting so he went outside to the sidewalk where the gate to the school was and started turning people away. Eventually Pastor Volodya showed up and he asked Joshua to get his video camera and record the event. The priest started arguing with Pastor Volodya and trying to intimidate everyone. Eventually Pastor Volodya told the priest that, that he should be trying to help his people instead of preventing them from getting help. The priest went away, but not before saying, "If you are still here tomorrow I will come back with ten men from my church and we will block the gate."
Needless to say the priest did not show up again. Well that is not entirely true. The next day I saw what to me looked like a priest and he was gluing a page of paper to the side of a building near to the school. He looked up and saw me and I stared back at him. Later one of the interpreters read the sign for me. It read,
Be Careful. American doctors are treating people in the abandoned school building. They are working with the Baptist church at such and such address.
Pastor Volodya said, he had not had such good advertising in his 8 years at the church. A few weeks after returning to the US we heard that the priest was having heart problems and was in the hospital. I am not drawing any conclusions, I am just stating facts.
The clinic was a success and many people in the town now know about the church and we were able to create some goodwill for pastor Volodya.
As the days went by I noticed that the team had really bonded well and we were truly working as a team and supporting one another in all of the various tasks. One of our goals on every mission trip is to accomplish this bonding and to create a family atmosphere. With God's help we were again able to accomplish this.
