God works with friends

As I have mentioned before, I'm having serious friend issues; art school is one of the places where I have these issues. The neighborhood also is a trial sometimes. But what is quite fascinating is that in both places something weird happened. 

Let me back up a little. 

At art school I am most often teased by two girls, Julia and Tanya, and the main reason is because of my accent. The one girl who in particular seems to do it the most is Tanya. Recently she had started to not only 

tease me about it but fake an accent, as if it were very bad. It is not as bad as she acts, but the way she says it is very hurtful and it went so far as me having to tell my dad and my dad having to tell the teachers. It was on Thursday at painting class. On the way there I was with my dad; I told him of the teasing and what was really going on. I was very upset at the way I was being treating, because I hadn't expected to be teased just because of my accent. And he said he would do something. When we got there my dad spoke with the receptionist, who called my teacher, Polina Anatolievna (pictured right). 

The whole point of my dad talking with the teacher was to prevent further teasing by those two girls. 

The teacher caught me on the way to class and asked me to explain what the receptionist had told her, and I explained all the incidents of being teased, and she asked me if it had been going on on Thursdays. I said that it had started on Monday but had gotten on Wed. My teacher went and talked to my dad, and I went to my seat and started drawing what I wanted to paint. When my teacher came back, she went over and scolded Tanya for teasing me, and said that it wasn't good. I could see the reaction on Tanya's face that she wasn't listening, or if she was, that she didn't take it seriously. Afterwards, I caught her whispering things and making gestures towards me with Julia. Julia's expression afterwards I read as, "I'll go with that for now."

(Let me explain my previous relationship I've had with Julia Kim (pictured left). She was the other girl picked with me to go to the art contest. There she had acted best friends with 

me, but back in the classroom she was buddy-buddy with the other kids, especially Tanya. So most of the time she and I hardly talk at all.)

This entire time, Tanya's other best friend Lera (they even did homework together) had been looking at me with an expression that I could not read, having seen the whole thing. During the class I got up to sharpen my pencil. There was a sharpener there, and when I got there, Lera noticed I was having trouble figuring it out, and she showed me how to use it.  When I thanked her for showing me how to use it, she didn't thank me the normal way, which was, "you're welcome,"

 she said it with a truly "you're welcome" voice, as though she really meant it. Later, after class, we were outside waiting for our parents when Tanya and Lera came out. I had already been sledding on my bag of indoor shoes on a hill 3-4 feet high that had lots of ice on it that allowed you to coast a few feet further at the bottom. They came running to sled as well, but what was surprising what that Tanya yelled out, "let's go together!" The both allowed me to be in front, whereas they would normally argue over who would be in the front. But they were very gracious. I was very excited that they would treat me this way. 

The next Thursday, Lera and I sat together. In the middle of the class two other girls were sitting on the same stool, and it looked very funny, for it looked as if they had two heads and four feet sticking out the board on the easel. I poke Lera in the shoulder gently and pointed and said, "Look, a two-headed, four-legged girl." She and I both laughed, which was very surprising, seeing that it's very hard to make things seem funny in a different language. Tanya, sitting nearby, never once teased me. I'm praying for another good day at art school today. 

I'm very grateful to God for starting me off with a new relationship again. 

How much has Russia been through?

Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of the lifting of the German blockade against Leningrad. The blockade lasted nearly 900 day4s during WW2. On an average 42 people died every day during that time [Some estimates are much higher - Lyle]. Yesterday I went to hear a lady who lived during that time. She was 11 when it started and 14 when it ended.  

Interesting fact: they only got 125 grams of food a day. The used metal cups to put hot water inside. There was no t

ea or coffee. She said she very much respected these kinds of cups, because they would warm your hand as you drank. There was no electricity, and there were no candles, because they all ate them. She had a window overlooking the place where the city stored their sugar, butter, and flower to be distributed. But she watched it all burn up over a two-week period. There was no oil, but one amazing story she told was about her father, who collapsed on the sidewalk from hunger one day. A worker, dressed in workers clothes, came over, picked up her father, and dropped a drop of oil in his mouth. Her father was a preacher, and he said he believed it was an angel. Anything edible in the city was eaten. 

Last year, when my grandmother was here, I went to the Bread Museum,

 which explains the history of bread in Russia. One part of it was for the blockade. They had a small glass case with a piece of bread in it. It was made of dust specs, the wrong parts of wheat that you grind to make bread, and

 all sorts of yucky types of dust. Also with my grandmother, I went to the Leningrad cemetery. 

It had a small museum there, and we went inside. The most interesting thing about the museum was a little diary, made up of three or four pages, of a little girl's diary. On the first day, it said, "Mother is dead." On the second day, "Father and Uncle died." On the last day, it read, "All are dead; only I am left." No one knows what happened to the little girl, but one sad thing is that she might have died too. 

There were pictures at the Bread Museum of children looking skin and bone, barely any skin. You wonder if they ate the dead. One more thing the lady said: She was once at the train station; she was there with her mother and an older friend, when all of a sudden the Germans were firing upon them. Her older friend threw her into a ditch and covered her so that the Germans would not see her and shoot her. When it was all over, and the Germans had left, her friend got her out of the ditch and covered her eyes so that she would not see all the dead people. When her mother saw that her friend had kept her daughter safe, she knelt down and kissed her friend's feet. 

It hurts me to know that my country has been through so much. It makes me want to go back in time and help fight. But since I can't, all I can do is pray for Russia. My prayer is that Russia would grow to be a strong Christian nation, and that everybody who is depressed now would have hope. 

Tied up at the moment

Being tied up at the moment doesn't mean up in strings; it can mean other things too. In my case, I'm tied up about home issues. Right now, I want to see my friends, but also I want to stay here longer. I want to be able to be at home sometimes. But I don't have a good home. My home isn't Russia; my home isn't America. So how am I supposed to know which home is mine. I have a sinking suspicion that once I go back to America, that I'm not going to want to leave, and that once I get back to Russian I'm not going to want to go back to America either. The homiest place I feel now is when I am going to bed and when I'm with God. The tied up issue comes in when I don't know which home is mine, so I'm tied up about my home, even as odd as it sounds. You'd think that since I'd been in America longer than Russia, I'd want to be in America more. But no, that isn't the case. I might go so far as to say that I don't know which country I belong to.

At church, two families with kids around my age have come to Russia a few months ago. Now, believe me, I don't hold a grudge against them for coming, and I'm not mad at them for coming. I just feel a little awkward, because you'd expect me to want to hang out with them more than the Russians, but I tend to want to hang out more with the Russians. I sort of sometimes wish that my family was the only Americans there, because it was easier to handle things. Now that there are two new (American) girls in my class, the Russian girls see that I have someone to talk to, so it gets frustrating when the Americans try to be with me, when I want to be with the other girls.

The only problem is that the girls whom I am with at, say, art school, don't accept me as a friend, so I'm often lonely. (Russians have a problem with this, so it's typical, but that's not my point here.) My point is, I'm not recognized as who I want to be. I want to be recognized as a Russian.

Now that it's winter, I don't see the kids who live in my dvor as much as in the summer, except for one girl from the next dvor, Zhenya, who is being over-consistent with me. She will come over any day she doesn't have too much homework. The problem with that is that she has started to consider me her best friend, and told me so, and I don't consider her a best friend because she usually want everything in her control, and everything her way, and if I'm not able to play, then she will beg and beg and beg until my parents give us about a half an hour for play, and then when that time runs out, she will beg and beg and beg for another half an hour. I've been trying to get her to see that I can play with her all the time, but she is sort of not understanding.

Please pray for me in these situations, that I would feel at home in both places and recognized as who I want to be. And pray that I learn perseverance through the trials I have.

Present life in the family

While you've been hearing about other things, let's stop and go back. Starting in January, we'll go from youngest to oldest. Around December of last year, Simon was enjoying the snow and having a great time at Kindergarten. Kerith, however, was also enjoying his snow and his Kindergarten. Problems in the boys' adjustments, rated on a scale of 1-10: 3.

I, on the other hand, was totally hating Russia and wanted so badly to go home and couldn't stand going out to play at playgrounds, because little kids would crowd around me and saying things that I didn't completely understand. I now am doing very well with being outside and enjoy playing with the littlest children (which I will explain later). Problems back then, however, on a scale of 1-10: 10. I had also just finished an art course in January.

I don't know how well Mom was doing, because, . . . well, she never told me. I think she was both excited about being here and missed her home. Dad, however, was making friends wherever he went, including the farmer's market. I think Daddy was excited about being in Russia and didn't want to go home.

January: mixed feelings. Kerith and Simon are still having a B-A-L-L. I am not even excited about our trip to Finland to renew our visas - wanting to stay in Russia. When we get back to Russia, I sit down and wish that I could stay forever.

In July, we are in Germany again for visas, and I have made three of my best friends ever. What's amazing is that I never knew any German, and two of them only knew a few words of English. The other girl knew a lot of English, so she could translate. We came back to Russia on the very same day we arrived in Russia in 2007 for the first time.

Around September, I had my birthday, got my guinea pig, and I'm still totally, radically, wishing to stay in Russia. Updates from March to this point have stayed the same. Points on wanting to go back to America: 4.

I am different now in wanting to work with the orphans a lot more, and I am having a lot of trouble with friends, which I will now tell you about. From my entry about learning Russia, Zhenya and I have not had a good experience since she got back from her grandmother's, and, unfortunately we've settled on not being friends. Or actually, she has settled on not being friends with me. She is buddy-buddy with another Alena (not the one from my last blog about friends).

The other Alena in the dvor is a consistent friend. The only problem is that I don't see her very often. I have met another girl named Zhenya, and she claims to be my friend but is never really available to play. They are pictured here to the right.

So I have settled on the little ones to play with. They go to a Kindergarten that is next door (right). In the morning I try to go over there when they get out for break. The teachers are starting to get to know me there. The children there I think enjoy playing with me. They have started flocking to me whenever I come. All I could do was dodge the snowballs when it snowed a coupld of weeks ago.

I pray constantly for a friend my age, though.

Hushabye Baby

I had been having trouble falling asleep at night almost every night for a long time since moving here. Then dad finally came in to help me pray and fall asleep. We prayed and God gave me a picture of dad leaving and I would tell myself a story of what heaven would look like. So this I did after he left. And you know what? It really worked! The next night I prayed, and God told me to imagine hell. You wouldn't think it would make me sleepy, but it did help. In other nights I have imagined my neighborhood without the beggars and poverty, and it became so beautiful, it felt as it was really true. God has helped me to fall asleep through my prayers (sometimes humming, sometimes singing). Also lately I have been able to talk to God as I go to sleep, which has been a great blessing for me.

Daddy has written about this here.

Learning to love Russia

Yesterday was a day that wouldn't be enough to talk about, so I will talk about yesterday's life - you could say "last year's life." How far have I come? Last year, I was new to Russia. I didn't understand why I was in Russia. What was Russia? The last few months before leaving America were hard to realize that I was leaving and not coming back. I experienced a lot of good-byes during that time. I couldn't understand, why did I have to go? It was difficult, because in those last few weeks, I really started to understand that I wasn't coming back, never. And now here, I think, "Did I really love America, or was I just used to America?" Now here I understand that I didn't love America; I was just used to it. Here I love Russia. I feel like I can love Russia and not just be used to it. I don't hate America; it's my thoughts about America that are different. I didn't know hate in America until I came to Russia. I didn't know love until I came to Russia. In America, people have a sense of what is right and wrong, so they just do it without thinking. They don't really love when they do it. They do it because they know it is most likely the right thing. In America, people don't think about doing wrong. In Russia, most people, not all, don't have an ounce of that sense. They see wrong as right and OK. I can give many examples of things that are sad in Russia, that I see practically every day.

For example (this is reality!), there are two benches in our courtyard. They are very close to each other. Many people sit on them. But there is one guy in particular who sits there all day and goes back and forth between them, sitting on one or the other, one or the other. There is obviously something wrong with him, and my entire family knows the answer. He is drunk; never is he not drunk. He can sometimes be not as drunk, but he is still usually drunk. I shouldn't say "most of the time" but "all of the time." We cannot do anything to help him. He is so addicted, he can't even concentrate on things. During the Easter game we played outside, we all were looking for one of the clues Daddy had hidden, and we found him lying so drunk on the ground, he didn't even realize that his entire forehead was covered in blood. My dad picked him up and put him back on the bench. He looked right into the man's face and asked him, clearly, "Do you want help?" The guy was so drunk, he didn't realize he needed help, so he said no. We probably should have helped him with hydrogen peroxide and bandages. But the guy was so out of it, he didn't realize he was bleeding. But head wounds do heal quickly, but there was a lot of grime in it. So he is still alive, but there are probably thousands of germs crawling in his head.

Another time, my Mother and I were coming to a metro stop along the square and we saw a huge crowd gathered in one area. We could see through the people and saw legs and a face on the ground. This was a guy likely dead from alcohol. The legs were dark purple, and the part of the face we could see was a bright red mass. Then, near there, there was a long line of old ladies, who are there every week selling their last possessions, because the government only gives them about $120 a month. But they have to pay not only rent, food, transportation, and then pay off the mafia who control begging and selling. I could name a hundred other examples, but I have other things to say.

The pain here is undoubtedly noticed by others, but most people can't do anything to help. What frustrates me is that the government most likely notices what they are doing to these poor ladies, because they are the ones giving them the $120 a month, and they don't do anything to stop it. The government here is most likely not all influenced by somebody making them give unjust pensions. They could do otherwise, but they won't. They wouldn't for all the 120 dollars in the world. They probably only do it for 15 millionaires money, which makes me so mad, I want to be in charge of the government, but I know I can't, so I do what little my family can do.

For my birthday, my dad gave me 4 jars with the start of my allowance. One jar is for pocket money. Another is for saving. Another is for the poor. Another is for the church. I get 40 rubles every Sunday, and I put ten in each. You can bet that most of the time the one for the poor will be empty from usage.

You are probably wanting to know how I can love Russia through all this. This is a simple question. How can God love Russia through all this? I love it as God would love it. God loves it more than I do, but I love it as well because He made it. I did not make it, but I love it because it is a unique country, not because of the pain, since many countries have pain, but because it is wonderful to see love. Every day it is a joy to see love because it is not often that you do see love. Would you please pray for Russia to become a Christian country with more love than it has now?

Grandma visit

My grandma came here for a visit a few weeks ago. She came with a group on a cruise. For a few days she had to be with them before she was released. But we saw each other periodically during the last part of her cruise when they got to St. Petersburg. We were very excited to see each other and we spent a few days also with her friends, Elaine and Dennis Connally (left and right). Then after they left, Grandma came over to stay with us - in my room!!!

We went a lot of places. We went to a nearby park, to some cathedrals, a cemetery (right), and a museum (left) that we had never even been in. She explored the city with us, but we spent a lot of time at home together. I wanted to show here everything I could. I wanted to show her the secrets of our house and the secrets of our neighborhood. These included the special places we like to play at, not necessarily playgrounds like the neighboring Kindergarten where we play a lot on the swing and a soccer field - not exactly with grass and the white markings. It is more of broken glass on sand in a big area in my courtyard.

I liked feeding her food like tvorog (a rough dry cottage cheese). She liked the different pickled salads, jams, and soups like borsch. And then one time she cooked breakfast the Southern way for us, because she is Southern. It was a trip down memory lane. She also cooked a wonderful dinner that was also Southern. It was a trip up memory lane. We took her to our hugongous grocery store called O'Kay. She was very surprised at the variety and how large it was.

It felt weird to be in a place where I knew and she didn't, becasue in America she knew at least the language and the food. There is nothing much to show her there. Now it felt strange. It was odd to show what I knew as home and have someone whom you knew in a place they didn't know but that she was excited about and exploring. We had discovered it all, and it was like trying to be excited when your little sister is going into first grade where you have already been. It was different to see her excited about stuff we knew.

Sometimes it felt like we were in America where she lived because with her there, it changed some things. It made me feel priviledged to be here, but at the same time wishing to go home. When she left it was very sad, but we all knew that soon comes the other grandparents (at the end of September).