Notes From Tula, Russia

It's Monday evening here in Tula. Shannon is resting while Dana does laundry. Vernon is on Expedia getting us set up with rooms in the hotel in Moscow for Wednesday night and following. Lorna is napping and I'm on Shannon's computer trying to get this blog to work. I've already gone through email withdrawal as I have found it impossible to access my account for mail, through the internet connections. Sigh. Writing this blog is my e-methadone fix I suppose.

Saturday Alex Sereogin assisted us in getting train tickets to Tula and by mid morning we were on the road, or perhaps I should say, on the tracks. The car was empty, the ride was smooth and quiet, and what is usually a stop and start ride for over three hours turned into a pleasant 2.5 hour express trip. Below you can observe how we relaxed in transit.

 

 

 As I stated above the ride was pleasant and we arrived in Tula and took taxi'x to the hotel and got settled in short order. Misha (Michael) had said to call him when we arrived and he would be glad to help us so call we did. He came over with Sasha (Alexander Masleninakoff (sp?)) and helped us contact Eugene for a meeting. By the time we lunched at McDonalds, met with Misha and Sasha, made phone calls for meeting with Eugene and called all the contacts we had in Tula to invite them to Sunday worship, and arranged to rent the conference room to meet in it was just about time for a snack and back to our rooms to collapse.

 

The meeting with Eugene and his wife Nina came off famously. We met downtown at the Paradise Mall in the food court which on Sunday morning was deserted so we had the place to ourselves. Eugene outline a brief history of the church in Tula and it's problems. It appears that in the beginning of 2011 there was an economic "crisis" that hit this area when prices for everything skyrocketed and many lost their jobs at the same time. This caused a number of the saints to have to leave the area looking for work while at the same time the rent kept getting raised on the meeting place where the saints worshipped until those that were left simply couldn't afford it. Between the discouragement of the economics of the city, the Christians leaving till only the poor pensioners were left (with just a couple of men with jobs), and losing their meeting place this groups of saints gave in and gave up. Several are still in contact with one another and others we contacted were happy to hear we were in town and wanted to come to the meetings, but as a rule the church has not been meeting together in Tula for about eighteen months. 

Eugene is an ex-military man and well traveled with his job. He has observed growing church works in other countries and would love to see that happen in Tula. I'll share more of that plan for church growth when I return home but we were struck by his desire to pull the church back together and grow as God's kingdom, exercising a good influence and sharing the gospel in this "small town" of about a million souls. Below is the conclusion to our meeting in the food court with Eugene and Nina.Yes, that's Eugene in the middle in the red sailor shirt with his wife Nina on one side and Sasha our friend,  brother and translator on the other.

Worship went well Sunday evening as Eugene showed up with songbooks, communion ware, juice and bread. Sasha translated the service and as well, we were joined by Vallia, one of the Christians in Tula. There were three or four others who were out of town or scheduled elsewhere who expressed their desire to be present but we were happy for the church in  Tula, if only four of them, to meet and praise God and begin to think and plan about how they can re-coup, re-group, and renew their service to the Lord. Below is our Sunday evening worship group.

At this time were are also scheduled to have open Bible studies this evening, Monday, and tomorrow evening here in the hotel where we have rented a conference room. Our plans tentetively are to head back to Moscow on Wednesday to spend a little more time with Alex and Natasha and then for some of us to be in Tula for our last Lord's day here and some of us to be in Moscow. Monday we regroup and Tuesday we fly out.

I'll share some of the serious and not-so-serious things we are seeing and doing, next time. But, I will leave you with this view of Russian inventiveness. If the parking space is too small or you just never learned to parallel park perhaps you can take lessons from the parking job of this guy below. Dadvedanya comrades. Leave replies if you would wish.