New Year - New Teams

This year we have a long-term team of 11 and two teams of interns working with students in Moscow!

For a long time we have been praying for more laborers to be involved in bringing the gospel Moscow students.  Our prayers have been answered.  This summer our team expanded from 5 staff to 11.

Created for Impact

In October, we learned that we would not be having our traditional Winter Bible Conference in February.  Our leaders felt that it would be better for each team to pursue local opportunities for sharing the Gospel with students.  Soon after, our team, along with our intern team, decided to hold a winter retreat for our Moscow students.

We were so excited about the vision that God had given us!  We wanted to host a retreat that would allow our students to experience what it is like to live in great Christian community, would give us as staff, multiple opportunities to share about Christ with those in attendance, and would also be lots of fun!  Rachel and Anne got to work on a theme, I was in charge of administration, Dan would be our speaker, many of our stinters began prep to lead small group discussions, and Angela would be the emcee of our meetings.  This was something our team had never tried before, and we were trusting God to show up!

About a week before the retreat, we had about 12 students signed up to come.  But then we started getting text and Facebook messages from students, saying they could no longer come.  Our team was struggling with what to do.  Do we hold the retreat if only 8 students come?  What if only 3 students come?  After much prayer, we decided to move forward in faith.  We knew that we would never find a perfect time when all of our students would be able to come to an event, and we felt it was worth it to try something new and see how God used it in our ministry.  Even if only one student ended up coming, they were going to be challenged with the truth of the Gospel, be loved and cared for, and experience great community.  Even one student was worth it!

The final days leading up to the retreat were busy.  Full of planning and praying, Dan putting finishing touches on his talks, staff and stinters polishing up the workshops and discussions they would be leading, buying food and game supplies, and packing up.  Almost daily our registration list changed.  Some students ended up not coming, but we had a lot of last minute additions too!  I was most excited when one of our student believers, Dasha, signed up to come, and also signed up two of her friends to come along with her!  In the end, we had 13 students attend the retreat!

The theme for our time together was, “Created for Impact.”  The first day and a half of the retreat we focused on how we are each created uniquely.  We used several instruments to discover more about our personalities and the unique ways that we had been created by God.  The second day and a half of the retreat, we focused on how we can uniquely impact the world around us.  Through various workshops and tools, we helped the students to discover their unique contribution to this world.  They even had the opportunity to write a personal mission statement.  One of my favorite workshops during the retreat was when we each drew a life map.  This helped us to see how our past had shaped who we have become today.  I enjoyed hearing from my small group members, and had the opportunity to share about my decision to surrender my life to Christ, and how I felt that had changed the whole trajectory of my life.

Interspersed throughout the retreat, Dan taught us about different ethical systems.  The final morning of the retreat, he shared about Christianity, and why it’s the only ethical system that really works.  Students really listened attentively, and many of them took notes.  Each person in the room that morning got to hear that they must make a choice to believe and follow Christ.  We are very excited to continue to follow up with these students!

I am so grateful to have gotten to serve alongside my team and our stinters, to do something that we had never tried before.  It was clear that God blessed our step of faith to hold the retreat, even when we didn’t know what the end result would be.  I truly felt God’s spirit working among us as we ate meals together, discovered more about how we were created, talked and shared together, played hockey, and ate yummy snacks too!  Our teams are now considering holding a second retreat in April.  We hope that the attendees from this first retreat will come and invite all of their friends too, and that it will help us to build momentum toward our summer projects.  We praise God for the results and give all glory to Him!  

Kim

Meet Our Stinters

We are so thrilled to be joined this year by such a wonderful group of stinters/interns!  We'd love to introduce you today to the women on the stint team.  I hope you enjoy getting to know them as much as we have!

The  STINT team mission statement is to see six students at the Moscow State Pedagogical University, specifically 2 men and four women, being transformed by the power of Christ and passionately running after other students for the glory of God.

from left to right...

Anne

Bonjour ! My name is Anne, I am coming from FRANCE - and I am actually the first French person to join an American team of STINTERS abroad ! 

In university, I studied Economics and International Relations, and got a Master degree in International Trade (in the univeristies of Sciences Po and La Sorbonne).

Daily life in Moscow is filled with funny and crazy moments, so it's hard to pick one... and that's the beauty of living in another culture ! Every day is an adventure ! 

I'll always remember the day when the Internet guy came to install WIFI in our flat. It was my first week in Russia, I was alone at home, not speaking more than 5 russian words, he was a HUGE Russian guy and didn't speak any English... and well, installing the Internet is a little bit more complicated than pointing to fruits and vegetables on the market ! We had to communicate thanks to google translate, miming, drawings, calling friends... it felt like we were playing a game !! 

I also love taking the Marchoutka (city mini-van) : people are so squeezed into the mini-van, yet the driver still stops every 2minutes to let more people get inside ! Drivers drive like they were in a "mario cart" video game, while sending text messages and receiving money from all the passengers and checking that everyone did pay their ticket fees ! And here's an advice : do not sit by the driver if you don't want to spend the whole ride passing people's money back and forth :)

Mattie

I am from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where I studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. I love Oklahoma! Boomer Sooner! My craziest, most embarrassing moment in Moscow so far would be the time during rush hour in the Metro that I decided to cleverly avoid the crowd that was waiting to ride up the escalator out of the underground by walking up a stationary escalator not in use. However, because I did not take into account that this was one of the longest, tallest escalators in the Metro system (even riding it takes a solid 1 minute and 30 seconds!), I was completely out of breath and needing to sit down when I was only 3/4 of the way up. Needless to say, it took all my strength to crawl up that last bit at a snail's pace, huffing and puffing, with the people who've been riding up the escalator casually passing me. I've never felt so many stares; that silly American!

Angela

I am from Yukon, Oklahoma and studied Early Childhood Education at the University of Central Oklahoma. This is my third year on staff with Cru/New Life. I was previously on staff at the University of Oklahoma. 

One particularly Russian moment I've had so far was when our heat was not working, so our landlord sent a man to fix it. He spent around 3 hours in our apartment, most of it waiting for a part or tool he needed. He didn't speak English and we didn't speak Russian. After he had been there a while, I wanted to offer him some water, so I whipped out the little Russian I knew to ask him. He looked at me blankly and responded, "I do not speak English. I am Russian." Wah, wah. Even my Russian sounded like English!

Lauren

I am from Dallas, Texas. I studied at OU, the University of Oklahoma #Boomer!, where I studied Elementary Education. The most impressionable moment I have had so far have actually been a collection of moments. Almost every student I have asked, "What is the main point of the Bible?" they cannot tell me and usually say, "I don't know." How much that must make God's heart break for His creation, that Russians would truly know Him.