The first 48 hours

Those of you that pray for us must have been praying a bit harder lately. This has been a week of ups, downs and surprises to say the least. Our U.S. summer project arrived for a month last Wednesday. There are approximately 15 students and staff who have come to join us in seeking to bless the city of Moscow, especially the students who are so influential in this country. We started their first day off with a morning briefing where we told them about getting around safely, how to guard their bags and purses and to keep their passports safe. Losing a passport in Moscow can be a huge headache as we would later discover. After that we took them on a staff scavenger hunt around the city.

The staff were hidden at different historical spots around the city and their job was to find us, do a task at the site and then they would be given a clue to go find the next person. It all went really well, the weather was great and they learned how to navigate the city on their own and they pushed through jetlag. We ended the scavenger hunt at a cafeteria-style restaurant near the center of the city. Our staff helped the students by translating the menu and negotiating portions with the restaurant staff. Those big Texas boys need to eat a lot!

After dinner we all headed home and that’s when the madness started. In the span of thirty minutes our director, Chris, got two phone calls that turned his night into a long one. At about 9:30 the students arrived back at their hostel and suddenly one student realized that her wallet, her passport and the photocopy of her passport and visa were all missing. She had lost them. In a panic she rushed back to the restaurant only to find what she feared most. Nothing. She was without any money or any ID in a foreign country notorious for their corrupt police and labyrinthine bureaucratic visa process. What was she going to do? Call us.

At the same time another couple from our project arrived back at the apartment they are renting for the duration of their stay. When they left that morning they could not get the key out of the door which secures the hallway for their apartment and the other three apartments on their floor. Thinking that if they could not get the key then no one could they took the key off the key ring and went on their way. When they got home that night guess what they found? No key. What were they going to do? Call us.

By call us I mean call Chris who is cool as a cucumber most of the time (except for when OU football is losing). So what did Chris do? At 10 that night he went back downtown, met up with the girl and another guy from the project and found a local police officer and told him about the situation and that they needed a “spravka”: the equivalent of a hall pass for foreigners without their passports. The police officer took them to another officer who took them to a third officer who in turn took them to a fourth and final officer who said he knew who to call but it was too late and they would have to come back tomorrow. Meanwhile our friends at the apartment were trying to figure out how to get into their apartment and where their key went. Chris and his wife have a Russian friend staying at their place so he had her talk to the concierge of the building that our poor friends lived in. After a lot of explanation, pointing and grunting they finally were able to get a neighbor to open the door and let them into the shared hallway. Chris’s long night ended around 2 a.m. and he had to be up and ready to go the next morning to get that wonderful hall pass.

The next morning I was making eggs and drinking my morning coffee and going over the devotional I was supposed to give that morning to the project when Chris called. He told me about the comedy of errors that occurred the night before and said he was going to be “making friends” at the police station all day tomorrow and wouldn’t be around to help with briefing and asked if I could help figure out the key dilemma. Flexibility is the name of the game when you live here so we both laughed at the unusual situation and got ready for the day.

According to Chris he had an ever more bizarre experience at the police station that morning. The way he described it the police station seemed like something out of one of the esteemed “Police Academy” movies: lots of guys in uniform, none of them really doing much except for making fun of each other and a lot of mayhem. They told him he needed to talk to this one certain person to get the spravka and the stamp. Nothing is official in Russia unless there is a stamp on it. That includes receipts for minutia like headphones or printer cartridges. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the guy Chris needed to talk to wasn’t going to be around until later that afternoon.

So what about the girl who lost her passport and wallet? How was she doing? If it were me I would probably be a nervous mess. After her panic subsided that first night she was calmed by Chris’s confidence that everything would be ok and she was ready to join us that next morning. We were impressed with her composed demeanor and ability to roll with the punches after the dust settled. She decided to lay low for the next day while we got the spravka figured out.

We were also really impressed by the project. They rallied around her, prayed together and asked God to use this for good. In an unexpected way God used this situation to knit the team closer together, right away. It is amazing to watch God take a bad situation, bring us closer to him through it then turn it into good later. That’s just what God does. He’s the restorer of all things.

So what happens with the spravka and the key? Chris went back to the police station later that day, after more searching, more calling and more persistence Chris found the guy he needed to talk to. He wasn’t wearing a uniform. Rather he was wearing a too tight black t-shirt, a gold chain and had a shaved head. He was pretty gruff and didn’t seem too excited about helping Chris. He asked how Chris got his name, how he found his office, where the girl was and how hard this would be. After much persistence the gruff, reluctant officer finally started typing up the spravka. When he went to print it the printer was out of ink and paper! Of course it was. He turned to Chris and asked “How am I supposed to print something without any ink or paper? Do you have paper problems in America?” With a wry smile Chris commiserated with him. Officer McGruff, as we’ll call him, took both the paper and the ink cartridge out of one nearby printer, put it in his and with a loud slam the spravka was on its way to being born. I can imagine that Chris tasted something akin to victory in that moment. After this he went upstairs, then downstairs, in one office, out the other, found one grumpy guy who took him to another cheerful guy who finally took him to a solemn, crabby lady who, like an ancient oracle in a knight’s tale, possessed none other than the stamp itself. She reluctantly stamped the spravka and with that Chris found his victory. The girl got her spravka and a couple days later she was in the embassy applying for a new passport. It’s all going to work out.

What about the key? I joined up with our friends later that day, we talked to the concierge and asked her to talk to the neighbors as they came through for help and call me if she found anything. Sure enough one of the neighbors had found the key the day before and knocked on the door several times to no avail. When we got there that night we bumped into all the neighbors at the same time. In a flurry of English, Russian, laughing, pointing and grunting we got everything figured out and made a few new friends.

This all happened in the first 48 hours that they were in the country. We are very curious about what the next four weeks hold. If these first two days show us anything we can probably expect that bizarre things are going to happen, the project is going to respond with humor and prayer, we’re going to have our hands full and God is going to have a great time restoring, redeeming and repairing not only our situations but also our lives.

In a couple of days I’ll post another story about what is happening on our campuses and the cool things God is doing there. Thanks for praying for us and we’ll keep you posted.