Hot Dogs = Risky Business

Clint took off a few hours early from work on Saturday, which was a nice much needed surprise. We talked for a while trying to decide what we were going to spend our afternoon doing, he remembered the hot dogs that had been in the fridge for quite some time and suggested we go have a bon fire in the forest behind our village. Clint mentioned that he liked hot dogs at one point a couple of weeks ago so I decided to get some Russian ones to try. It was a little early for supper so we decided to do some exploring before we built our fire. We walked through the beautiful forest and sat by the river to talk a while. It was very relaxing, so nice to spend some time with my man outside of work. I didn’t capture the beauty of the forest while we were out there so I’ll have to post pictures of that later. But I do have a picture of the fire my mountain man built for us to enjoy. That was the whole reason for this post, just to brag about his awesome lumberjack skills.

My Lumberjack. ;-)

The fire he built. 

PS. The hot dogs passed his taste test. They weren’t Oscar Mayer for sure but they weren’t bad. 

Our Church

“Even if we only come to this church once we will see these people again” was my husband’s comment after we left our church the first Sunday we visited. It is amazing to me that we can find family anywhere we go on this globe. The community of Christians spreads across boarders, countries, governments and languages. We are like-minded and that bonds us together even if we don’t speak the same language.

It took us a while but we have found a church near our house. The first few Sundays we were here in Russia we went to the church my parents go to in Penza. There we talked to the pastors to see if they knew of a church closer to us since Penza is a bit of a drive. They gave me the home phone number (not his cell phone) of the pastor and the address of the church. Most of you know that I have somewhat of a fear of talking on the phone, that fear is just magnified when it comes to talking on the phone in Russian to someone I have never met, therefore we decided to put the address in the GPS on Sunday. We left home an hour earlier then necessary to account for getting lost but we had the GPS so that wasn’t going to be a problem. Ha, think again, the machine was telling us to turn where there were no roads and drive through buildings. We still had time so we parked along the road and started walking around to see if we could find this place. We found the right street and walked both ways on it but never found what we were looking for.  I then came to the sad realization that I was going to have to swallow my pride and call the pastor.

I don’t know what I was afraid of because he was a nice man that was patient when I didn’t understand him or couldn’t hear him. The next Sunday he met us by the police station (that Clint got taken to when he was arrested, but that’s a story for another day) and showed us the way to the church.

Our church, Dom Molitva (House of Prayer), meets in a small old house. There are 24 members total; one young couple with a three year old son, a Dad with three kids whose wife doesn’t come because she goes to a Russian Orthodox church but the majority of the members are elderly women some of which cant come to the Sunday services because of bad health. So an average Sunday has between ten and fifteen people. Each service lasts a minimum of two hours and we have had lunch and tea after each service so far. Over lunch they told us that their church was founded in the 1930’s. They had more members when it was illegal to practice religion in the Soviet Union. They had as many as seventy-five members but averaged fifty throughout communist times. There were also other churches in the area that no longer exist. Every so often all of the old believers would gather together in the woods for a worship service, two hundred or more would be there. They even loaded a piano into a dump truck so they would have music. It was incredible to hear about their faithfulness during persecution. The people are very welcoming and we are so thankful to have found some brothers and sisters in Christ close to home.

Our Church. 

The entry way. 

This is the area where the Sunday service is held, but after the service we bring in the tables and tea for a good time of fellowship. 

The road less traveled...

is less traveled for a reason!!!

All of the highways in Russia lead to or from Moscow. The ONE that goes through our Penza region is called M5. It is a two-lane road similar to any 55 mile per hour road in the states. We can get on this road about 20 minutes from our house and take it to Penza and all the way to Mega Farm. But that is not the road I want to spend my time talking about here. I want to talk about the roads in our village and the roads to get to the other farms. In other words the roads that we spend 90% of our time on. 

Our small village of Potodeevo has one main road that goes into the village center where the post office, school, our apartment complex and grocery stores are. It may have been paved at one point in time but it seems to be a dirt road now.  This road is not too bad. We can still choose where to drive to avoid potholes. The rest of the roads in our village are mud trails that only pictures can explain. Every time it rains these roads get paralyzed. 

This is the main street in our village looking from our house heading out of town. 

This is the main street in our village looking from the edge of town towards our house. The pink building is one of the two grocery stores. The building at the end of the road houses the post office.

These three pictures are of roads that web off of the main street into Potodeevo. Rain makes them impassable. We have had rain here 4-5 out of 7 days every week since I arrived. 

Most of the roads we drive on to get to fields and other farms look like this one below. The only thing you can do is go slow and try to choose which potholes are going to hurt less. In some cases the main route has become so bad that the locals have made a driving path in the ditch or the field next to the road to have a smoother ride.

Because of these roads our car is always filthy. However we only wash it when we have to go to Penza and even then it may only be the license plate as to not get stopped by the police. Its not usually worth the trouble. Fifteen minutes down the road you can't tell that we even put the effort into scrubbing every inch.

Where in the world are Clint and Haeli?

These maps will give everyone a better idea of where we live. 

This is where our region is in relation to the Moscow, the rest of Russia, and a few surrounding countries.

This is a closer view of our region and the farms that Clint has to go to. He has a meeting with his boss at the main office in Penza every Tuesday and has to go to most or all of the other farms each week. The blue dots are the smaller, older farms. These farms are left over from the days of collective farms. The red dots are the bigger, western style farms with more cows and more land. We live in the village of Potodeevo near the northern most farm called Norovchat Dairy Farm. The closest farm to us is a 40 minute drive, its called Arshinovka. Mega Farm is the  the furthest from us in Kuznetsk. It takes us 4 hours one way. I travel with him most of the time. 

Our Neighbors, the Monks

Some time ago we were told there were caves near our house. That defiantly got our attention not only because we like to explore nature, but because we live in a fairly flat, swampy region not ideal for caves. Clint and I decided to go explore. Driving in the direction we were told to go, in about fifteen minutes we came to a village with a monastery and convent. There was a sign that said “the pearl of Penza land’ monastery caves.” (Side note: In Russian they use the terms “monastery” and “monk” for both male and female, but for simplicity I am going to use “nun” and “convent” when referring to the female portion of this monastery.) We did not know that the caves were associated with Eastern Orthodoxy but we were curious so we walked up to the monk at the gate to ask about them. He was friendly, talkative and very surprised to see Americans there. He informed us that they were done with tours for that particular day and to come back tomorrow (Sunday).

The next day we asked Michelle if she wanted to go see the caves with us. She, always up for adventure, said of course. The same friendly monk was there to greet us but he was upset with me because he had told me to wear a skirt and head scarf when we came back but I had forgotten about the skirt. They had skirts for us to tie around our legs. The tour cost us $1.30 plus $0.50 for the candle we had to carry for light in the cave. At the top of 144 steps we saw our guide.

He lit our candles and led us through some of the 2198ft of tunnels. At the widest points were 7ft high and 3ft wide. We learned that a village had built the tunnel of caves in the 13^th century but no one really knows who they were or when they left. In the 17^th century the monks came and made it a holy place for hermit monks to live.  The walls were soft sandstone and there were icons and praying corners along our way. The rooms the monks used to live in had a stone ledge for a bed with a stone pillow and were only high enough for a person to kneel in specially designed for prayer. There used to be a church above the cave but it was destroyed during communism.

We also learned that in Eastern Orthodoxy when a person becomes a nun or monk they become “dead to the world” which means they don’t have contact with their families or friends from home and they rarely see people outside of their “sisters” and “brothers”. When a westerner thinks of a nun they think of someone who not only devotes their lives to religion but also takes part in outreach and helping others. That’s not the case here. The main goal of life for a Russian nun or monk is oneness with God, so they seek solitude. Our guide told us that they live in small wooden huts in the forest alone and come together for meals and liturgy. According to our guide, they spend their days in prayer and doing manual labor to keep their monastery going. Also, cutting their hair and beard is a sign of loss of self-control so they don’t cut their hair. That is all we learned this time but we will be going back for more visits I am sure.

A view from the top of the hill at the modern church they have liturgy in daily. 

The 144 steps up to the cave. 

The doorway from the caves into the church that was destroyed during communism.