Saturday, October 17

After finding out yesterday that my exit visa is finally ready for me in Rostov, I was able to follow through on my plan to fly from Omsk to Moscow and then, from there, to take the train south. I'm writing now from there...at least until my battery runs out. The day was pretty uneventful, as tomorrow is likely to be – simply being on the road or waiting for the road, while Monday, besides getting my visa, I'll try to do as much possible to prepare for the next step in getting my Russian “green card” - getting a whole bunch of tests at a local hospital, getting a tax idea number... And, so, the blogging will stop until something particularly interesting comes along.

Friday, October 16

My sermon for today was not prepared when we were all held in the room, and so I was working on low sleep this morning. Again, though, I felt like I was given the right words for the situation and the people, and hopefully everyone received a word of comfort.
We spent part of the day continuing to talk about what had happened the night before – it was really important for everyone to be able to express their feelings and care for one another. Then I had anticipated that we would close off the day by trying to do something practical – make a few Sunday School lessons based on what we had covered in the days before. As it turned out, as each was describing the Sunday school situation in his or her own church, it became clear that they also had a lot to share, especially about common problems. This, too, it turns out might be important for the future, insofar as it might be the witness that was needed that makes the church do a bit more on the regional level to meet Christian educational needs in congregations (esp., it seems, in training Sunday school leaders).
The day ended with a common worship service. While my liturgical leadership was far from ideal on my lack of sleep, it was good to be together...ah, and I also need to say how, by the end of the week, I was “converted” by the song book that had been used by the congregation in Omsk on Sunday. One of the seminar participants, Denis, someone I've known a long time, did a lot of music leadership during the week; he showed me that among the 2000 (!!!) hymns collected there, there are dozens that a just fine theologically. It, in fact, made me rather sad to see that the new ELCROS hymnal had missed many good opportunities to bring out different theological aspects that still fit into the Lutheran tradition, as well as bring some musical variety – it's clear after that seminar that the new hymnal will not be able to compete with this other pan-Protestant one (“Songs of Renewal”) in terms of songs that are full of feeling (though I must say that the ELCROS hymnal is pretty good at depressing songs) and more popular with young people.
After the seminar, I had good, in-depth discussions with a couple of the students, and had the opportunity to spend a second evening with Andrey and his wife Lena, and that was a real treat...
Off early in the morning!

Thursday, October 15

Today was an interesting mixture of experiences. On the other hand, we continued our fruitful work with the Bible (not NT); in addition we talked a bit about Luther's Small Catachesis and how it can help us understand God and creation. After that, we talked about a small section of a document the Orthodox church put out - “The Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church.” It opened up a whole bunch of things, in particular, related to the ethics (environmental ethics, personal property, social justice) and ecumenism. While the latter didn't get very far, the former was one of the most open and interesting discussions about ethics I've had here – for students at the seminary, we eventually get to the point where they can speak about Christian ethics in a helpful way, but it is usually very difficult to get to that point. After that, we talked just a bit about prayer and then had a very moving time of prayer together.
On the other hand, the day was very hard. At our lunch break I checked my email and there I saw that my grandparents were in a serious (11 car) accident while on the way from Montana to visit my uncle and his family in Denver. We are blessed that they survived; I couldn't tell to much from my parents' email exactly how Grandpa and Grandma are feeling now, though it appears that their injuries are not too serious. Of course, I'm worried, though.
And then, as the day was ending and everyone was going back to their rooms, we learned that two of the girls had had their telephones stolen from their room. They were rather in shock and Dieter and I were sitting and talking with them when others among the church staff decided that they would call the police. When the police came, they rounded up all of us who were there and put us in one room, while trying to scare the thief into the open. It was rather crude theater, though I can understand it, considering it did really look like an “inside job” (the rooms are on the third floor and someone from the outside would be taking a big risk to go up there, besides the fact that they would have to know that we were all at the seminar and that their room would be open and empty at that time). I can even understand why they singled out a few individuals (the girls' roommates, a young many who would be leaving the next day) as suspects, but it seems to me that they went too far. One of the girls was questioned for about two hours; none of the rest of us could leave the room for 4 hrs.
The police eventually left and the phones, not surprisingly, were not found; we all felt pretty rotten after the whole experience... the last day of the seminar will be interesting.

Wednesday, October 14

I'm not sure what to think about the way the seminar is going in terms of the materials we are presenting. For example, we talked about the two creation stories in Gen 1 and Gen 2 and about the different time periods these stories come from... I would have expected some resistance to the idea, actually. But I guess a key element here is the approach we took – we didn't come in with some highly academic theory as to what the sources of OT texts are. Instead, we looked at the texts and compared them, then looked at the history of Israel and its religious development. After that, the idea that different texts were written for different times (and were written for different theological purposes (answering questions like “why?” “who?” and “what does it mean?”) instead of attempting to give accurate and scientific detail (answering the question “how?”).
The most difficult thing today for me was leading and preaching at morning prayer (which happens daily for those who work in the church center in Omsk); I was nervous and am afraid the sermon wasn't well understood. On the other hand I find that working so intensely with a group (from 9 am to 8.30 pm) is really beneficial in understanding what message might be able to reach them.

Tuesday, October 13

The theme of our seminar is “I believe in God the Father;” while at first I had had in mind to do quite a bit of work with them about the relatively difficult to grasp questions about God's existence, the Trinity, etc., we've seen that the students varying levels means that we need to stay closer to the questions that arise directly from relevant Biblical texts. As it turns out, I see how fruitful it would have been if I had started this way with my students in Novosarataovka, too, in those days when I taught Systematic Theology. Knowing the Biblical base and the wide variety of Biblical voices as the texts speak about and describe God helps in a lot of ways – it makes us humble in our claims to “know” what is really unknowable about God; it helps us open up new sides of the witness of the faithful about God (i.e.., when looking at OT names for God, I saw that Hagar calls God “the God who sees me;” it is an image that I really like and that will stay with me for a while); it helps us understand Jesus and his witness about the Father. At any rate, I'm liking it.

Monday, October 12

Yesterday evening I met the seminar's participants, and was a bit surprised by our small numbers. Last year we had around 20, and it looks like this year we'll have around 10. It seems that there are a number of reasons for this, but the prime one being that not many places got the invitation on time. After today, though, I see that our small numbers are not really that much of a disadvantage – we have a few people in the group who are really new to church life (in addition to being quite young), so I'm happy we'll be able to work with them in a smaller group and address the various levels among the students. There were 4 people back from last year, all of whom are quite experienced; I hope we'll be able to make it interesting for them. One of them, Andrey, is a preacher in Magadan, in the northeast part of the country. It turns out that he was on the same flight as I was yesterday. That means he flew first 7 hours to Moscow to the west and then 3 hours to Omsk to the east! Apparently that's the cheapest way to go – there is no train service up there...and don't even ask about roads.

"I Believe in God the Father." Seminar in Siberia. October 2009.

Since I did not have regular email access on my recent trip to Omsk, I've decided to publish my daily thoughts on the trip a week late. Hopefully, these entries will give a bit of insight into what daily life is like when I'm teaching seminars here.

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As with my travels last year to Omsk, the days rather run together on this trip. Public transport got me to the airport just in time to make my flight to Moscow...where I had to wait 7 hours in the Vnukovo airport before the plane from Omsk was to take off. Vnukovo isn't the type of airport where you can really find things to do for 7 hours, so I tried to read and make suggestions to drafts of student thesis and forget about the clock. The flight took about 3.5 hours, and was relatively unremarkable except for the large quantity of food that they gave us and the scariest moment I think I've ever had in an airplane. At one point, about an hour from Omsk, it felt like we were just plan dropping. Three times in about 30 seconds there was a a loud swooshing... followed by a free-falling sensation. What was particularly strange is that no explanation was given... it did remind that I am thankful for life. :)
My former student, Andrey, picked up me and others at the airport; Omsk isn't a big city (somewhere in the range of 300,000 people?), but its airport is particularly small; what is more surprising, however, is that when you fly in, a bus takes you to the edge of the airport territory and just drops you off outside – you can go over to another building if you have baggage to claim, or simply walk through the airport territory gates.
Omsk is 3 time zones east of Moscow...and that puts you only in western Siberia. The country really is enormous. At any rate, this made it morning but, since I hadn't slept, I was happy that I didn't need to get up except to make it for the Russian language service at 2 pm, which would be just in the other side of the Christ Church Center, where I'll be sleeping for the next week in the “Erlangen” room.
The congregation gives a good impression – their friendly and well-organized and today's preacher (Dean Dieter Grimmsmann, with whom I'll be teaching) was good. The only hard part for me at their services is the hymns they sing. The problem is not at all with the musical style (which I don't know how to describe other than “Baptist,” meaning not classical, yet not quite contemporary piano music played at quite a lively tempo), but the theology of the texts completely contradicts what the Lutheran church tries to teach. I'll have to talk with Grimmsmann about that...