Return to the normal life

Well, I'm back from Russia and today is my first day back at work. After being off work since Sept. 23rd, it was kind of hard to be excited about work. I've decided that the longer I'm off work, it's that much harder to return. And it's even more difficult to come back on a holiday when pretty much everyone I know has the day off. But then I realized that I am blessed to A) have a job to come back to and B) it's a job that I mostly enjoy. And today we came back to a travel pool day and POTUS was taking a quick trip to visit wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. So it's really difficult to complain when you are hanging out at a hospital where so many men and women have sacrificed so much for our country. We waited in a non-descript classroom and didn't see any of the patients but then again, I think they'd rather have a visit from their commander-in-chief than from me.

So I returned from Moscow and had an incredible trip!! I had planned on blogging extensively the moment I returned but I came down with a stomach flu and many other ailments hours after my return and I'll spare you all the gruesome details. So for the past few days, I've basically not moved from my couch except for a trip to the doctor, a stop by Target, and then at the end of the Virginia Tech football game on Saturday when I nearly fell to the ground in anxiety over the last few moments of the game. The announcers at the end said it was the best game in the history of college football and while I think that might have been a slight overstatement, I wished nothing more than to have been in Lane Stadium at that moment.




Back to my trip.... I had an awesome time! I went with a couple of good friends from my church- my pastor and his wife, Don and Audrey. I consider them to be somewhat adoptive parents. I already have wonderful parents whom I love dearly and most of the time, I wouldn't trade them for the world :) but it's also nice to have "parents" away from home. Beyond being my pastor, that's who Don and Audrey are to me. We've traveled the world together before (all three of us to Kyrgyzstan and then Audrey and I to Azerbaijan together) and I knew we would all get along without any drama. This trip didn't involve any eyeball eating or any taking any horse pills. Just pure, unaltered fun!!


We went to visit some fellow believers who are at work in Moscow ministering to Central Asian immigrants. It was also kind of an educational/fact-finding mission to see how we can get involved in the future. And educational is an understatement. I learned soooo much about the region and the people of not only Moscow but many former Soviet republics. I wish I could remember 1/3 of what we learned because it is fascinating stuff. But basically there are many, many, many Central Asian immigrants from many different areas who have come to Moscow to find work and to send money back to their families. And they aren't treated very nicely by many in Russia.


So while we got to some of the touristy stuff in Moscow, our main goal was to see the work going on with these immigrants. I won't try to cram it all into one blog post (plus I have yet to get together with Audrey to coordinate our pictures since she took waaay more than me and we were just going to share) but suffice it to say that it was an eye-opening experience. We participated in several house groups, helped in English classes, fed the homeless and visited a women's shelter kind of thing for women to have a place to live with their babies instead of having to give them up for adoption. It was an amazing opportunity and I promise to share more once I get our pictures together!!