Matt in Moscow

2009-06-30T18:23:00.000+04:00

2009-04-18T17:53:00.001+04:00

BELIEVE IN THE RUN

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Winter Planning Confrence

2006-03-23T18:33:00.000+03:00

Sorry the journals have been sparce latly, but I've been pretty busy. I went to Penza with Adam and Dan to plan for a pastor's confrence. We had Bill up two weeks after that for the confrence. Then shortly there after I went to Surgut, Siberia to help open up a BTCP there and I just got back from my registration trip to Tallinn. So to make up I'll post a few pictures, most of them are from the pastor's winter planning conference. As you can see we had quite a few pastors come up from all over Russia. They came to Moscow to get vision for a church growth strategy that involves, evangelism, church partnerships and pastor training. I'll give you three guesses as to who does the pastor training part of the strategy.

Get Out the Map

2006-03-23T18:29:00.000+03:00

Each evening after the seminars we would head to our room, get the map out and plan our BTCP strategy. Ok Dan, we're sending you to outer Siberia, pack warm!

Everything Freezes

2006-03-23T18:23:00.000+03:00

After the confrence we had to get a jump from some of the maintainace guys at the place where we stayed. Who knew that car batteries freeze at -20 C!!?

A Simple List of Noun Endings

2006-03-23T18:15:00.000+03:00

Part of my ministry will always be learning language. Here Dan and I are getting a review of the entire Russian language. Our language teacher, Mukhabat, is holding up a list of all of the possible noun endings in Russian.

I Hear a Voice

2006-03-23T18:06:00.000+03:00

Ummm....I think I feel God calling me to serve in Hawaii.

Moscow Map

2005-10-27T16:00:00.000+04:00

You will need to click on this image to have a good enough view to make sence of it, but this should give you a general idea of where I live in Moscow, in case you were courious. the thin blue circle (you can barly see it) is the MKAD, kind of like a loop and anything on the inside of it is moscow. So you can see I live in southwest Moscow betweeen the MKAD and the center of town (where Red Square is).

My Corner of the City

2005-10-27T15:55:00.000+04:00

This is a close up of where I live and work. My appartment is located right where the thumbtack is on that big "C" shaped building in the upper right. The LSL-Russia office is where I work most days. We rent a cubical in the building where that tack is. Finally Kalluzhkaya Metro station is my portal to the rest of Moscow. The Metro is the name for the subway system here, one of the largest in the world. There are other forms of public transportation, I use those too, but for the majority of the places you see listed here the fastest way for me to get there is to hoof it!

The Virtual Apartment Tour Returns

2005-10-27T15:50:00.000+04:00

For those of you that have been getting my updates for a while you may remember the Virtual Apartment Tour. Now you can see it on my blog! How about we start with my room.

2005-10-27T15:45:00.000+04:00

The living room complete with one of the only pecies of furniture I acually own, my exercise bike.

2005-10-27T15:40:00.000+04:00

This is Dan's room. I wonder, can anyone tell me what state he's from?

2005-10-27T15:25:00.000+04:00

Getting some breakfast in the kitchen before I head out for the office.

2005-10-27T15:24:00.000+04:00

Hey dude, it's time for work. Let's go!

2005-10-26T15:14:00.000+04:00

Walking in an autumn wonderland, our first snow of the season.

2005-10-20T15:06:00.000+04:00

LSL-Russia Office
Finally after 2 years of MTI 1 year of support raising and almost 2 more years of language school we are finally here in our new office having our first buisness meeting. An event certianly worthy of a picture.

2005-10-19T13:12:00.000+04:00

I need to summarize the last few weeks because a lot has been going on. The second week Dan, Adam and I spent most of our time fixing up the new office. We went down to IKEA and bought a load of shelves desks and chairs. I was put in charge of putting it all together and getting it organized. I can tell you that I've become an expert at putting together IKEA furniture. You never know, that skill may come in handy some day. Dan and Adam helped a lot but they were pretty busy themselves. Dan volenteered to do a jr. High retreat for Hinxson Academy naturally needed to free up some time to put his talks together. I forget exactly what Adam was doing, but that's only because he's done a million and one things since then. That left me in the cubical tightening screws, driving in nails and taking things back apart again because I put some dumb board on backwars or something. Honesty, though, it was refreshing to do something with my hands for a while. It's nice sometimes to be able to do something concrete, where you can look back and see that you can see a desk that wasn't there when you started. The best part of the week, though was when we were all sitting in our brand new office having our first meeting together. It was a great feeling, not only to see the office finally come together, but also because 5 years of preperation had offically finnished and we were beginning a new chapter in our ministry, and, in our lives. It was a moment that we all releshed together.

The next week we put together our schedule. Adam explained to us his vision for us in this initial stage in our ministry. As I understand it he wants us to start with the most fundimental part of our ministry-training local church leaders within Moscow Bible Church. I always knew that our servie within the local church was an important part of our ministry but I never understood how key it was. Adam explained that without a local church ministry, how could we hope to effectivly train pastors. If we are going to be training pastors how to do ministry, we need to be doing it ourselves. I can't effectively train pastors drawing on experiences that I had 5 years ago. Therefore, during the next month I will be visiting with different ministry leaders at MBC to determine what area's I could possibly serve in and, most importantly, to better understand where the Lord wants me to serve here in Moscow. Outside of that I'm still spending quite a bit of time studing the language, at least 50% of my time to be precice. That won't last forever, we'll reevaluat after 6 weeks, in fact, but I have to admit, I'm not doing as well in the language as I thought.

I had a lesson today and I feel like I did horribly. I don't know if it's because I'm not used to Mukhabat, my new teacher, or if it was the long time that I spent away from studing the language or what, but I feel like I've forgotten so much. I know that I need a lot of reiview, but some how, I just feel like I should know more. My grammar is all over the place and my vocabulary is really not where it needs to be. Perhaps I get nervose as well, and that doesn't help when I'm talking to my toutor. One encouraging thing has been that I've gotten a lot of compliments from the Russians. I think part of it may be that the Russians in Moscow have gotten used to American's who speak verly poorly if at all. I never used to be complimented by people in Krasnodar. They were either really used foreigners who spoke really well, or they weren't used to foreigners at all and so had nothing to compare me to but native speakers. Either way, I've still got a way to go.

2005-10-10T12:21:00.000+04:00

Sparrow Hills

Your looking at Metro stop Vorobin'iy gory or sparrow hills. This area of Moscow is supposed to have the best view of the city. I really wanted to get out there while we were having good weather. I think you'll agree the fall colors are specatcular.

2005-10-10T12:20:00.000+04:00

2005-10-10T12:19:00.000+04:00

2005-10-10T12:18:00.000+04:00

2005-10-10T12:16:00.000+04:00

2005-10-10T12:15:00.000+04:00

2005-09-27T09:40:00.000+04:00

I got back to Russia last week and I would have to say that things have gone so much better than I would have expected. Kim and her Mom were here getting there things ready to go. They showed us around the house and made sure that we knew where everything is. Then Adam, Heather and the boys all came over and brought us lunch, and groceries to sustain us until we could figure out the local grocery store. After a full day of struggling to stay awake after a sleepless 10 hour flight, Melody fixed us dinner. Then, we chatted with her and her former roommate, Violet, about missing Krasnodar and dreading the winters of Moscow until it was time to hit the rack.
I was really worried that it would take so long to get to know people here, and I am sure that it will. However, it's great to know that I'm not exactly starting from ground zero. We've got the Richardsons for starters and some people from Krasnodar have moved up here as well. Not only that, but there are tons of folks from Kranodar that are planning on cmmming up here soon. Moscow is really the place to be! Already we have two or three people on the docket as guests and we just got here. I can kind of see why Muscovites get a bad reputation for not being hospitible. It's one thing when you get a guest comming in every once in a while, it's entirly diffrent when you get them all of the time. I'm not complaining though. I say bring them on! We've got plenty of space and this city of 12 million can be a pretty lonely place.

2005-08-26T04:00:00.000+04:00

Matt in Moscow