Russia Update

Hello All!...so this is long, so read it if you want...but its super exciting...:) and update on russia
Ok sorry I haven't written yet....actually its only been a week. A week! Its only been a week. I seriously feel like i have been gone for so stinkin long. I guess that might be because I haven't been in Canada for a while.
So much has happened in this short time. We left New Zealand on the 2 of April at about 1 pm. We had a 10 hour or so flight to Singapore. Oh I love Singapore. We had about a 5 hour layover there and it was pretty fun. Then we had a 12 hour flight to Frankfurt. That was real long and I sat in the middle of a German couple...why on earth they wouldn't switch seats with me who knows. So I couldn't really sleep. So by the time I arrived in Frankfurt I was flippin tired. At the airport we left the airport for a few minutes and breathed German air:) then we went back in. Our Next flight was less that 2 hours to Helsinki. It was short and sweet and I think I slept more on that flight that I did on the 12 hour one.
At the airport in Helsinki, our Finland contact Heidi picked us up along with this guy named Slava (the guy who was gonna drive us to Russia). They drove us to a hostel...its so cool its the stadium where the 1952 olympics were held and the hostel is like built into the stadium. It was pretty cool. At that hostel I got my first proposal of the trip, they warn the people in like Africa and Asia that they might get proposed to but not in Europe...but ya it happened in Helsinki. But it was this guy from Cameroon :) He told me that if I wanted to invite him to live with me he wouldn't turn me down. It was quite amusing...we were like oh boy.
Ya we drove to Russia in a big van (haha so weird to say that i just drove to Russia) like there weren't enough seats so we had a couch in the back and some people chilled on that. It was about a 6 hour drive all together. Within the first 15 minutes of driving we got stopped by the cops. Ya apparantly we had hit this womans car but noone noticed. It was pretty funny I tell ya. We were all like praying hardcore I tell ya. But praise God (Slava Bogo) that the lady chose not to charge us. The reason why it took so long from Helsinki to St Petersburg is becuz we were at customs for about an hour and a half. The first check point we went through was the Finland border, that was pretty easy. We just presented our passports. then was the actual Russian border. We all had to get out of the vehicle in the freezing cold and we had to fill out forms and present passports and ya. This one girl had her passport taken from her and we were like what the crap is going on. It turns out that her Russian visa said that she was a boy. They had never had that happen before. They were trying to get us to pay them money, and we prayed and prayed right in front of the customs office. And us being the people we are we prayed quietly cuz we didn't want to get arrested at the Russian border (oh by the way there were a lot of people with guns walki ng around) but Slava the guy we were with prayed loudly and kept saying Slava Bogo (which means praise God) He totally wasn't afraid which was cool to see.
Ya finally we got through and we didn't even have a van check which is a really really good thing becuz we had a ton of stuff in there. we were bringing stuff over the border for this prison ministry and such that we are doing easter weekend. So ya we finally got to where we are staying, its this sweet little appartment. K St. Petersburg is so, I don't know grey, dark, like the legacy of communism is still alive. You walk down the street and noone smiles (my dad even smiles more than all of these people :) haha i thought i was funny) Like its a very joyless place it seems. And the buildings are all very grey. Its really hard cuz i am a person who likes smiling at people and ya noone really smiles back. But it is soo beautiful and the people are beautiful. the next day or something we left St. Petersburg and we went to a village. YWAM St. Petersburg has a little house thing/ cabin...it actually looks like my house at home a lot. And ya it has no power or water. Becuz people are really corrupt and the town thinks that the building is a cult so they change hardcore big ammounts of money to these people. But we stayed there for like 4 days I believe. Besides the no running water it was a lot of fun. It was one girl on my team, her first time seeing snow. So it was exciting for her, she made her first snow man and it was really cute. We did a program for old babooskas (old women) it was so fun, Russian old woman are not like the ones back home. They are a special breed I tell ya. They were so cute and they didn't seem to understand the concept that we didn't speak Russian so they would keep speaking and speaking to us. But they were sooo adorable. We also did practical work duties in this house we put up siding...I was soo good at it :) Cuz I've had experience doing before, or at least experience watching it. But ya I even worked a circular saw and when the generator wasnt on I sawed by hand. I think I want to become a carpenter now :)...Just jokes.
We also did a youth/child program. It was fun. And also the babooshkas had us over to one of their appartments. Ok so the babooshkas meet for bible study twice a week, and they all walk to this house, the path that you walk up to it is quite long, but like we didn't realize how far these deadly old women walk for bible studies in the snow and ice. probly about a kilometer each way. It was so cool cuz we totally had our prayers answered that day, we were going to their house without a translator, and we prayed that someone would be given the gift of understanding of the language. Cuz russian is completely different from english, we barely have the same words. But ya I was the translator, like I am really starting to understand this language, like I had conversations, and told the group what the women were saying and they were so shocked and so was I. but they kept filling our plates more and more, and then we realized there is a rule that if your plate is emptied it will be filled:) Well it was definately filled I tell ya. But it was so much fun. And then some more babooshkas walked us back to our house, it was so cool. They are adorable. I can't even describe it.
Then back in St.Petersburg, we did a ministry to soldiers. I have to admit I was a little nervous about that...I mean this was and is still a pretty closed country, but it went pretty good. So ya the people who ran it were these cliche americans. they are the reason that people dislike americans, and christians. they had worked in Russia for 12 years....and still didn't speak the langauge. I probly could say more than the man. And in the first 2 seconds of talking to him, he started talking about back in Nam, and when I was in Korea. I honestly wanted to throw something at him. But I refrained. But k there was this one military guy who spoke some english, and he said he was a dancer, and we were thinking break dancing, so we were like ya go dance (me and this other girl) well turns out freestyle does not mean break dancing. He was a male stripper, so he did this like strip dance in a church! The flippin funniest thing EVER! Oh my goodness I nearly peed my pants...for serious. And we rode the metro for the first time...its this underground train, and flip k this train is so far underground, we ride this huge GIGANTIC escalators, and ya seriously they take like 5 minutes to get down, like they are crazy, from the top you can barely see the bottom and vice versa.
But today was the best yet the worst day. We went to a childrens hospital. Its actually a place where children get dropped off, and its the holding place until an orphanage opens up for them. So we did a program with some kids who were 4 to 15 I believe and like it wasn't so bad, it was sad, but like it wasn't that heart breaking. So when we were done, they were like ok we are going to a different floor. And ya it was the hard floor. Babies. Most of them were sick. So many babies. And like the conditions aren't very good, I mean they get changed once a day maybe. Like it was really hard. I was playing with some babies and like ya, I walked with one and he was adorable. But then I went to like this maybe 3 year olds room, and they were the kids who couldn't leave their rooms cuz they were sick. And ya this one boy, I guess I am the first person he ever like sat in the lap of. Like he never responds to people, and I got him to laugh. It was soo hard to leave him, he was just opening up, his name was Daniel. He cried when I left, I am actually tearing up right now. Like I knew it would be hard, but I didn't like think it would be that hard. Like its different when its little babies, cuz they don't really remember you ya know? But this boy was so sweet. Oh my heart just breaks for these kids. Like ya I really want to help them. I've always wanted to adopt, maybe I will adopt a Russian baby...But I will probly wanna adopt some kids from every orphanage we go to. But we gave some of the older kids like the 4-10 year old kids some stickers and they were so happy.
One last story, I am the food person on my team, I am in charge of shopping for all our food and planning all of our meals. And the first time I went to the store with 2 other people they thought we were completely retarded, I mean we didn't know any Russian at all, but yesterday when I went yesterday, this one woman who used ot glare at us, she smiled and laughed with me, as she taught me the numbers and I taught her the numbers in English. And they also gave us a discount card, which was really cool cuz usually you have to ask for it. But they just gave it to me. They like me haha.
Anyways I should go, I will talk to yall later...sorry this is so long, I probly could have summarized it, but really I didn't feel like it.
Angee
"For I can do all things through Christ Jesus who gives me strength." Philipians 4:13