*In case you don’t know me:
This past summer I went on my first overseas mission trip to Russia. This trip changed my life to say the least. It gave me a new outlook and it taught me that no matter my age, intellect, or talents God wants to use ME for His glory. I think it’s only fair that my first blog be about this amazing experience that made me realize I am worthy of this calling.
One of the many beautiful encounters in Russia:
After eight months of planning, thirty plus hours of traveling, and many sleepless nights I finally reached my final destination of Russia. I stepped out of the mundane airport into the glamorous city of Moscow and found myself immersed in a culture surprisingly much like mine. We wore the same clothing, we listened to the same music, and the nearest McDonalds was just a few miles down the road. I felt like I took a plane ride and landed right where we took off, but little did I know what I would find just a four bus ride away in Kaluga City.
As I entered the door to a quaint orphanage I was overwhelmed by the smell; I was so overcome by it that I wanted desperately to walk back to the van, but instead I walked to the bathroom to clean up and put my happy face on. After I washed my hands and collected myself we met the director of the orphanage and she gave us some startling facts. She told us that the orphanage housed about thirty children, infant through elementary age, whose parents no longer were able to care for them. I was so disheartened and shocked by the reality that not every child receives love from their parents; a love that seemed so definite in my mind. As the director attempted to tell us more about the program, we became distracted by the noises of giggling children. My mind began to wonder how these children can create such a lovely noise of happiness and laughter when they are in such a devastating situation. In my mind I had imagined an orphanage to be something like a Sarah McLaughlin commercial; except instead of shelter animals there would be sad orphans glaring at you for love, but instead of glaring looks we received sweet smiles and kind gestures implying that they wanted us to comfort them.
We were split into groups and I was given three adorable preschool aged children: two girls, who had the most beautifully braided hair, and one boy who wore a Garfield shirt and striped pants with pride! The children listened attentively to every word we told them and they would occasionally give us that sweet smile. After getting to know one another, I showed the kids a bracelet with six different colors on it, each representing a part of the gospel and this group of preschool children never lost focus and we even received ear to ear grins. After we finished, I felt the need to give one of the boys in our group the Bible and bracelet I was holding. The boy looked at me with shock, like he could not believe that he was being given a gift that he could call his own. He was so thankful for it that he failed to put it down for the rest of our time there. In my world, you would rarely get this reaction from a child, you would give them the gift and then five minutes later they would forget about it, but this little boy valued it like I had just given him one million dollars.
I live in a world where it is normal to go to the grocery store and spend one hundred dollars or more on groceries weekly, where moms and daughters go to the mall before school starts every year to purchase a fifty dollar pair of shoes, where you spend the majority of your time with your head in a screen. I live in a world full of price tags that mean little to the buyer given they desire the product enough. In Kaluga City I found the complete opposite. I found people who were thankful for the dirty clothes they had on their backs and people who wanted to spend every minute they had with you intentionally. This lifestyle was not originally my definition of a perfect life but it became just that. Living secluded from the reality that not everybody is guaranteed three meals a day, a closet full of clothes, and a mom and dad who love them is unfavorable, because we forget that these treasures are not guaranteed. I never thought I would want to live in a world where you could not find a jumbo sized bottle of mustard, but I do.
