July 16 - Second Day of Debriefing in Novosibirsk

Today started off with breakfast at 9:00. There was cereal, toast, tost with melted cheese and tomatoes, cheese, fruit - a very yummy breakfast!
After breakfast we had devotion. Today was about how we are seated in Heaven with Jesus already, and what that means for us here on earth. Then we had quiet time to read our Bibles ourselves and pray.
Next we had to fill out an evaluation form of our experience with OM Russia, and then had a meeting with Colin, one of the OM Russia leaders. He talked about his journey to mission work, and the was one particular story that stuck out for me. He said that when he was eight years old, a man came to his school to talk about his experiences in India. The man said that he bought a pack of peanuts, cracked open one nut and threw the shell to the ground. Immediately a little boy ran up, grabbed the peanut shell off the ground and ate it. The man saw that the boy must be hungry, so he gave the boy all of his peanuts. Suddenly, a mob of children ran up to the boy and started grabbing at the package, trampling all over the boy. Colin said that it was that story that made him pray to God, at age 8, that He would use him to help people in the world. He went on to say that even though we were just here for a short term mission, one day one of the kids we worked with might say, "There was a day when a bunch of missionaries came and taught me about Jesus", etc. I appreciated that he told us this story because it gave some encouragement that we really did make a difference. And I hope that when school starts in September and I share my stories and photos with my students, that maybe it will touch them too, and make them want to do the same!
Then we had lunch followed by our last worship time. After that we sat in a big circle and shared our prayer requests. After each person shared his/her requests, we all prayed for that person "Korean Style" (where everyone all prays out loud at once, but in their own words). It was a really nest experience to share our needs with each other and have time to pray for each person individually.
The next thing on the schedule was souvenir shopping and then the ballet! Unfortunately the traffic was absolutely crazy, and we spent over two hours driving. Therefore, we didn't get to do any shopping, we just had to head straight to the ballet. The theatre was beautiful! It had paintings on the ceiling and a crystal chandelier. There we also statues all around the walls.

I don't know the name of the ballet because it didn't have an English translation - it was just the names of the two main characters. It was a love story about a 40 year old Russian sailor and a 14 year old American girl who fall in love. They get married but then for some reason they both die in the end. It was narrated and sung throughout, but it was all in Russian, so I don't really know what was happening. The music was really cool - it was a rock opera, so it was quite different that the usual ballet. The only strange thing was that it was not live music - it was recorded.
We got home around 9:00pm and then had dinner. The was homemade pizza, but it had sausage in it so I had some leftover spaghetti. We also had this cottage cheese square thing, ice cream, chips and watermelon. At 10:00 we started our Good Bye Party. It was really fun!

First they made me sing the song I sang st church on Sunday. After that we did some dancing to fun songs, and did this other fun line dance with partners. We were laughing so much! The second part of the party was a little more quiet. We all sat in a circle, and Olga had a ball of yarn. She tied it around her wrist and then threw it to someone else, saying things she liked about them. We each did the same until everybody had a piece of the yarn and a big web was created. I passed to Olesya - I was glad to have a chance to let her know how I felt about her because Olga was translating. I told her that I thought she was a beautiful woman and that I feel so blessed to have met her. She is always thinking about others first, and making sure we have what we need. She even opened her home to us four girls when we had nowhere to go, even though it meant she could possibly get bed bugs from us. I was happy to get a chance to tell her how much I love her!

The party wrapped up at 12:00am, and I still had to finish packing and have a shower. We all pretty much decided just to stay up later, and Dimona and I (who had to leave at 4:00am would just not bother going to bed. So we stayed up talking and having fun, and I had a nice chat with Arisha using Google translate!