If John Robbins Can Do It, I Can Do It

Blog, that is. I'm cheerfully doing this (at least until Melissa no longer has that gun pointed at me).

I think one of the biggest impressions I've come away with thus far has to do with the older orphans I have worked with. Not in the sense that the others on the team have worked with the kids--crafts, Bible lessons, and so on--but that I have literally worked with in the construction work we are doing at 1st Church Tomsk. Think about our kids, and I speak as a father of two, when they are asked to do a chore, especially an unpleasant one--like carrying pieces, large pieces, of stone stairs down to the next landing, or carrying ten pieces of sheetrock up to the third story without damage. There's a lot of, "Do I have to?", or "What will you give me if I do?", or "That's too hard." You ask these guys to do something and they do it, period (and while I understand very little Russian, I can detect griping and complaining in any language).

And when they are tasked to get us to the church from the orphanage, they don't try to play tricks on the old guy Americans (I use "old" only in the sense of in comparison to teenagers because Garth and I aren't really old because . . . but I digress). They take us straight to the bus stop, pay the fare from the money George gave them, and get us off at the correct stop. I trust each one of them completely to get me to the church and back, and George trusts them with the money he gives them. It is a trust well deserved and earned.

There is great hospitality shown by all the Russians with whom we come in contact. My greatest regret is not being able to speak Russian well enough to converse with the kids and the other Russians we have met. I've never been good at languages, and my college French isn't coming in too handy here. I'm lousy at charades, too, so I'm reliant on the interpreters. I have gotten pretty good with, "Ya ni panymayu" (I don't understand), although I can pretty readily get out a "spaceba" (thank you), "privet" (hello), "izvenite" (excuse me), and a few others that my brain occasionally stumbles across, often a minute or two too late. But you string all those together and you can't get much of a conversation going.

Finally, you can't believe what you have to go through, and the ends of the earth to which you have to travel to find a shop-vac in this town. I'm just sayin'.

It's been a great trip so far, and with the generosity and understanding and cooperation of all we and met, and a little perserverance, we have gotten a lot accomplished at 1st Church, and had a good time doing it.

Bill Routon