Deanery Visit to Magadan

  In the first days of February, my duties as Area Dean of the Far East took me to Magadan and Sokol, a region I last visited in 2016. You can read about that trip here. In the two years since I have the impression that while the economic situation in the city might have improved slightly, in general the area constantly feels the effects of a tragic history, isolation, and continuing emmigration.
 The flight from Moscow to Magadan in northeast Russia takes eight hours; if going so far it might be desirable to stay for longer. During my visit I did not have as much time to explore the area as I might have liked, but meetings with key local leaders were at the center of my attention. The situation in the congregation in Magadan has occupied the thoughts and prayers many of us connected with the deanery lately; even before this visit it was relatively clear that we would be moving toward closing the congregation.

  St. Marks has run into various disappointments throughout the years in regards to spiritual leadership. At present the Magadan congregation is served by lay preacher Andrey Ozols; however during my visit I went to see Andrey at the hospital after a minor stroke. His age and health concerns, unfortunately, make it unreasonable to count on his being able to lead the dwindling congregation forward. Faith is very important for those few people who are left (picture, right), but it seems that it might be in their best interests if they could find a more vital congregation, even if it is of a different denomination.

In Sokol (below) the congregation is relatively vibrant for a a house church - approximately 10 people meet weekly in lay leader Elena Romanova's apartment. Here, too, however, but it is does not seem wise to invest the significant funds and time needed to develop the congregation when Elena does not plan on staying in the area for the long term and there are no other clear leaders on the horizon.

These conversations are not easy to have, but we held them in the context of thankfulness for what the Lord has given and that God brings us through death and in to a new and different kind of life. In the coming months I will continue to work with the people in the region to try to see that they find alternative sources of spiritual care and also to sell the Magadan congregations apartment and invest those funds in other parts of the deanery as the Lord and common sense direct us.

Just outside of Magadan from the air.

Clinical Pastoral Care in Russia

Pastoral care and Counseling is one of the areas to which our church has been dedicating special attention throughout the years. Russia and its neighbors have lived through upheals and historical shifts that have affected generation after generation. This fact has led to many people carrying trauma in their lives, with no real tools with which to move toward healing. Out of desperation, some turn to the church for help; experience has taught us that lives can be changed if we are prepared with the skills we need in order to respond appropriately to cries of help.

With that in mind starting in 2017 an experiment program was initiated in order to see whether or not the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) approach that is the standard for many churches doing pastoral training in the West  could prove fruitful here. This is the first time the methods of CPE have been attempted on Russian soil. While the “clinical” aspect of CPE was not as formal as it would be in America or Germany – after all, it is next to impossible to find institutions where our people would allowed to act as chaplains – in other aspects we were able to replicate the growth in knowledge, skills and self-understanding that is necessary for quality “care of souls” (using the literal translation from the Russian.) Having completed the first cycle of training seminars with 8 graduates of the program, I can say I could hardly be more pleased with our progress.

While students evaluations in Russia tend to avoid specifics, I saw a pattern of positive results in what they wrote: “I learned how to listen;” “I saw how important it was to avoid giving direct advice and to instead accompany the care-seeker as he/she finds his own solutions;” “I now realize that... empathy is at the center of pastoral care.” “My job as a pastoral care giver is to be a sojourner along the path of life that the Lord has given us.”

For some of the participants the seminar was transforming on a personal and professional level: “I understood that pastoral care is interesting to me, is a gift God has given to me;” “Before this seminar I saw pastoral care from a different perspective and what I learned is really valuable and important;” “This... was a turning point in my understanding of the means and methods of pastoral ministry;” “I thought about...aspects of my life that I hadn't considered before;” after this seminar “I feel healthier spiritually and physically. I've been sleeping like I haven't slept since I was a child. Many thanks once again for accompanying me on the way, for caring about the healing of my soul.”

I look forward to continue to work with our German friends and the Russian head of the pastoral care committee, Pastor Oleg Shtulberg, as we plan next steps in the further development of this critical area of ministry.

Reformation and Partnership

Rev. Dr. Joseph Kang

  From my first year in Russia I've been blessed by the presence of mission workers from the Presbyterian Church (USA) here. THE PCUSA has a very interesting vision of mission here; instead of trying to establish congregations of their own denomination, they put their efforts into helping those churches that have historical roots in the country. Most of their contacts have been with the Baptist and Orthodox churches, but they've supported the Lutheran church in significant ways, too. Two of those that have been most significant in my ministry - Joseph Kang's teaching of Biblical subjects at the Theological Seminary in Novosaratovka, and Ellen Smith's work partnering congregations.

  Ellen has been a good friend and colleague throughout the years, and together with her husband Al they have been really good people with whom to reflect on life and ministry here. We've had ideas about how to actually work together in the past, but only this year did it gain concrete form....and in two different ways within one week. More about the second of those in another post, but the first is related to my latest trip to the Northern Caucasus deanery near the end of March.

  Dean Sergey Maramzin and I had spoken about the continued need of folks in his deanery to gain a sense of what the Lutheran branch of the Christian family is and what it might mean for us to build up the church in this region. With that general idea in mind, we developed a couple of goals for a seminar through the "Equipping for Service" project: 1. To help congregational leaders become “local experts” on Luther and the events of the Reformation in this important anniversary year. 2. To make a first attempt to use the new deanery retreat center in Makhovsevskaya (Krasnodary Krai, not far from Maikop, Adygeya) as a place for educational events Sergey has been working very hard to construct (much with his own hands) a building that could be used for deanery-wide events or simply for individuals looking for a place of spiritual restoration. Having the seminar planned pushed Sergey to make the place livable by the date we had set, and he accomplished that, even if there is still work to be done.

Dean Maramzin, Pastor Pavel
Tkachenko and Ellen Smith
in the church in Novorossisk

  While we were planning, we learned that Bishop Dietrich Brauer had suggested to Ellen that it would be helpful if she try to establish partnerships for our churches, too, starting with the Northern Caucasus region. Ellen, Sergey and I decided that we could combine these things; she and I flew down, then, to visit two congregations (Krasnodar, Novorossisk) and to meet regional leaders at a day-long seminar.

  12 people (including the 3 pastors) from 4 different locations were in attendance; Dean Maramzin kept the number deliberately relatively low insofar as this first use of the retreat center was an experiment; more will get invitations in the future. As it is, though, we were together for most of a good day. While it wasn't too much time (particularly because some of us had to travel great distances - 5+ hours – to get home and the road conditions were poor), it was of high quality - we had fellowship, a meal, conversation, a short sermon on the occasion of the Annunciation (it was March 25, after all), and a basic course on Luther's life and the Reformation. Besides getting to know one another better, the participants also had a good chance to meet Ellen and to hear from her how PC(USA) envisions partnership.

  Sergey, Ellen and I, as we reflected on the weekend, were filled with hope for the potential of what God might do with us and the congregations with which we are in contact. The deanery retreat center has now been "tested" and Sergey mentioned afterwards that now he feels more comfortable using the space for other (education and not-strictly-educational) activities. This was a very important achievement, in my mind, and Dean Maramzin is to be praised for his hard work to make a place for retreat for the church. It is still certainly a work in progress and there is much potential to do more, but even now it is quite usable, with sleeping places (up to 7), seating (for more than twice more than that), a place to prepare food, wash, and a place for outdoor activities. Ellen was also able to get an impression of congregational members in the region and has already started praying for and sharing potential partnerships... and is already recruiting staff for the region's plans to do a day-camp this summer... For my part I heard from seminar participants that they appreciated the way Reformation-area materials were presented in a way that was understandable and accessible, that it helped them bring order to their scattered thoughts on the subject.

  Overall we can see that God has provided for the people of this region and, after a long period of stagnation, how something new is happening there. It is a blessing to be a part of it. 

Tea with Milk, Paul with Luther, Bashkortostan with Sisters and Brothers

 It is hard for me to say which part of my ministry I enjoy more - returning to congregations where I have already been (which gives me the chance to see how God has been working there since my last visit) or coming to a place for the first time. The latter not only gives me the chance to meet new brothers and sisters in faith but, almost without exception, teaches me something new about the country where I am serving. This is particularlly true, I've found, when visiting regions of the country with significant regional ethnic and/or religious differences. This was the case when I visited Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, a majority-Muslim region in the eastern part of European Russia. 

In just a few days there one could feel some differences - in the way people looked, in the architecture and pace of life, in the tea they drank (everyone had it with milk)... in short, Ufa showed me that this huge country can continue to surprise me.
  The Lutheran congregation in Ufa, however, fit in to a pattern I have seen in many places around the country - a strong lay woman, inspired by her faith and driven by a God-given strong will, accomplishes the miraculous.  In this case her name is Elvira; she (not single handedly, of course, but certainly as the leader of the charge) was able to get the local government to return the congregation's historical building. 

The Church Building Before Restoration

Not only that, she is able to find sponsors - in this case many of them local - to restore the "kirche," and today it is a small but beautiful church snuggled in Ufa's historical center. But the story doesn't stop there. Elvira was able to find a way to dismantle the warehouses that had been built in Soviet times on former church property and have built in their place a new congregational center. As sometimes is the case here, while all of these practical concerns have been on the front burner, congregational life as such has been given less of a priority. A clear witness to this fact - Sunday worship in which large parts of the liturgy are translated from German into Russian; hardly a satisfactory worship experience for anyone new, and certainly unnecessary when there there are no exclusively German speaking people in the congregation. 
  I learned all of this during the past month, after long discussions with congregational leaders finally lead to my first seminar in the region. The idea began to take shape in conversation with an extension student from Ufa at the Theological Seminary and started to take on concrete form after speaking with the congregation's at the pastors' gathering in Crimea in September 2016. We agreed then that the February Men's Day holiday weekend would be the best time, and we were not mistaken - free days without many obligations led to us being able to attract a good-sized group of participants.

  Pastor Igor Zhuravlev joined me for this seminar to help me teach on " Paul and Luther," insofar as I have wanted for quite some time to give him the opportunity to teach and to put to use the Master's degree in theology that he earned at the Christian university in St. Petersburg. Originally I had thought that it would be the two of us teaching, but in the end Anton Tikhomirov joined us to take part in two days of teaching. While these changes led to greater cost for transport, this seminar's overall expenses were kept low thanks to local contributions (which covered room, board, and local transport).  

Dr. Anton Tikhomirov giving a lecture on the early Luther
in the conference room of the congregational center.

  Our time in Ufa was broken up into a number of segments – teaching for members from the Bashkortastan and Orenburg deaneries, a public theological conference on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, a youth group meeting (the first time I've led youth group for many years; I chose the theme “Be yourself, be free”) and worship.

Igor Zhuravlev reading a paper ("Preaching Christ in the Post-modern Age")
at the theological conference in the restored church building. 

  The seminar was well attended, with 18-23 participants engaged at various moments. The conference (with speakers arranged by the local congregation in particular through ecumenical and scholarly contacts) had seven speakers and around 30 participants. 
  The wonderful facilities and hospitality in Ufa created a very positive environment for such seminars. There seemed to be a hunger there to expand and deepen congregational life and, while the topic was challenging for those who are not used to dealing with theology, I found that the participants were  good, engaged listeners. I pray that as they look forward to their next steps I can help play a positive role in their journey of discipleship. 

Equipping for Service in Perm

The art museum has a large collection
of wooden carvings of Christ, all set
during his trial. I've never seen anything like
this anywhere else in an Eastern Orthodox
context.

   It promised to be a long week.

   When Len and I went to St. Mary's Lutheran in Perm on the first morning of our four day seminar, we found that the pastor (Area Dean David Rerich) had come to the morning session. As had Lilia, a faithful member of the church council. That was all. A large amount of the material we had planned to use would work most effectively only if there were at least four people in the group. I was wondering if we would have to move to “plan B,” which was my doing Bible study lessons around the theme of “hope.” While I would not have been opposed to doing this, I really hoped that the congregations could take full advantage of having the unique opportunity to hear from Len – after all, God willing they'll be able to hear from me some other time!
   The first meeting, though, was not indicative of the rest of the week. After the slow start, by the evening session planned on that first day attendance had increased, and that meant as the week went on we had the chance to cover a full (or at least reasonably full) “tool box” of activities that the congregation could use as part of a concerted effort to work on transformation. Having adequate time allowed us to present more than just a snippet of the process (in contrast to other places on our trip), but instead to show the material according to its natural flow  – starting with the Bible and then moving from there to speak in a wider sense about the ways in which it is possible to live out the Great Commission...or, rather, in the ways this congregation can live out the Lord's call to mission in their particular place. 
   Their place, as it turns out, is really quite wonderful. I was really surprised at how much I

enjoyed the city itself - its history, culture, architecture, and natural surroundings - and congregational members were happy to show us around. They felt blessed to live there and that God has provided them with a historic church building in the city center; they've responded by taking great care of the building and have begun to use it for concerts as well as worship. They also have what is one of the only a few parsonages to have survived the Soviet era. They have room there for the pastor's family to live as well as other space that can be used for various purposes – including, this time, for housing me and Len. They have an active church council and a group of lay leaders outside of the council, some of whom are young and many of whom are well-educated. They've also benefited by having stable leadership; while Pastor Rerich (far left in the picture above) is moving toward retirement (not without some bumps along the way for him and for the congregation) having a reliable leader throughout the years has allowed the congregation to weather the storms that it has faced. 

  Stability, though, is not an eternal or absolute value. Change is also necessary, ,and after our visit to Perm I feel confident that God brought Len and me to the right place at the right time, “equipping for service” in that place for the work God has for them as they move in to the future. I feel privileged that I'll have the opportunity to follow up with them to see how their plans (including living in their draft mission statement and trying new ministries in December and January) have worked, whether they be successful or “excellent failures” (i.e., those failures from which we take something useful for our future development). 

Transsib |trænz-SÍB| verb [intransitive]

   The title of this entry includes a word that, of course, exists in no other dictionary than the one in my mind. But some words virtually demand to be brought into existence. Riding through northern Asia on the train is certainly a unique mode of travel, and after celebrating its centennial recently I think that the Trans-Siberian Railroad deserves its own verb. 
   Len Dale and I were not on a leisure trip, of course – if  we were we would have found a train that left Khabarovsk at a reasonable hour and whose wagons would have been new and modern. As it was, however, for us the scheduling of congregational events held priority and that meant getting on the train after midnight and putting up with an antiquated system of heating the passenger cars that slowly roasted us over the next few days and nights. 

   I had ridden significant portions of the Trans-Siberian before, mostly in my time in service as a pastor and acting dean based in Novosibirsk. In western and central Siberia it can seem like the birch forests and fields of cereal grains go by at 50 mph for  whole days at a time. There was some birch in the east, too, but also a greater variety of hills, steppe, thick coniferous and mixed forests, rivers and streams. On this trip stops between Khabarovsk and Chita (our next destination) were even less frequent than in other places of the “magistral” – about twice in 24 hours there was a stop of 20 minutes or more, with 1-2 minute stops every four hours or so. I knew that this area (“Zabaikalsky krain” and the “Amurskaya oblast”) was among some of the least densely populated areas along the Trans-Siberian, and we rode through abandoned villages with some frequency. At the same time, there were enough people living there that I thought of what life must be like in rural Siberia, and it made me miss home. 

   As we approached Chita and saw the spreading urban development, I couldn't help thinking about what it is like coming in to Billings – a place that is not very large in terms of its population, but important insofar as it is the biggest town for many miles around. Chita, though, is bigger, older, and draws in people (for shopping, trade, and work) from an entire time zone. As with Magadan, Chita has a reputation in Russia as a city where the people (as the joke goes) have been in prison, are in prison, or are planning to go to prison in the near future. Our experience there, however, was wholly positive; we stayed in the charming older part of the city which, like with almost all Russia cities, has a mix of new buildings, restored older buildings, and buildings that are still occupied though they should be condemned for safety's sake. 

The oldest building in Chita, now a museum, formerly a
church used by the Decemberists who were exiled to Siberia

   We spent three days with the tightly-knit, multi-generational Lutheran congregation there, made up of two or three extended families and explored with them how God might be calling them to develop their ministries. We introduced ourselves and our work there by reading the story of Paul's meeting with Christ in Acts 9, using the very simple method of asking three questions about a text: “What is God doing here?” “What are the people of God doing here?” “How does this apply to us?” These discussions helped us get a sense of what was important to them, which was, most of all, raising their kids (which are many!) in the faith. One of the men there, Viktor, shared how he taught his kids to pray in part because his parents never taught them, and he knows his own life has been enriched thanks to prayer. Together with them we realized that God had put among them a desire to grow in discipleship and Christian education at all levels.
  That is a long-term goal; Len and I were able to meet some of their immediate needs by leading worship with Holy Communion, baptizing a newborn, and preaching at a mid-week worship service arranged to coincide with our visit. Congregation members provided hints that their worship life has suffered recently, mostly due to a lack of a clear leader in spiritual questions. Dean Manfred Brockmann in Vladivostok has made efforts throughout the years to support the congregation by sending interns there, but one of their clear needs is to develop their own lay leaders; Chita is not moving anywhere closer to any other city and the nearest full-time pastor is still two time zones away (in either direction.) I hope that I was able to provide them with the resources they need in order to take steps toward resolving this issue for themselves. We left the city knowing that there is much more to do there and with prayers that they can gain strength both through developing internal resources and by finding new ways to relate to those outside. 

   Then Len and I hoped on the train once again, continuing our westward journey another day to Irkutsk, where Pastor Thomas Graf Grote met us VERY early at the train station. He was our kind guide around the area for the day we were there, taking us to the amazing Lake Baikal – where our walk turned rather meditative as we stopped trying to shout over the wind – and to the impressive museum of wooden architecture, Tal'tsy.

   As we drove around the area and as we conversed with Thomas in his home, he spoke to us about his ministry. This helped prepare us for meeting congregational leaders in Shelekhov, an Irkutsk suburb, late that evening. We began only at 8 pm, since a number of key people were busy until that time either at work or at their (para-church) ministry with developmentally challenged children. (This ministry, together with the other aspects of Pastor Thomas' story, are worth a separate blog post some time...)

 The group of congregational leaders gathered that evening once again brought us hope – they were clearly people who cared deeply about their faith and were open and energetic enough to think creatively about the ways the church might develop. Len spoke with them about congregational life cycles and re-assured them with words he repeated frequently throughout our travels; they sound something like this when translated back into English from the Russian - “God gives you everything you need for mission in this time and this place.” Insofar as the congregation anticipates changes in the next few years, it was a timely conversation, even if it was only a start. From discussions with Pastor Thomas both immediately after the meeting and when we met again a couple of weeks later I learned that in Shelekhov they intend to continue their work together in order to grow in their sense of the Spirit's leading. 
   From Irkutsk we needed to make it quickly to Omsk in order to take part in the last day of the ELCUSFE synod assembly. Regretfully, then, we exchanged the train for a plane in order to catch one of the relatively few flights that directly connects Siberian cities with one another. While the flight was fine, I already missed the train's rhythms, the gently swaying cars, contemplating the scenery for hours on end...everything, actually, except the heat. It was good to know that, though the longest trips were behind us, we still had plenty of transsibing to do before the month was through. 

Transsib |trænz-SÍB| verb [intransitive]

   The title of this entry includes a word that, of course, exists in no other dictionary than the one in my mind. But some words virtually demand to be brought into existence. Riding through northern Asia on the train is certainly a unique mode of travel, and after celebrating its centennial recently I think that the Trans-Siberian Railroad deserves its own verb. 
   Len Dale and I were not on a leisure trip, of course – if  we were we would have found a train that left Khabarovsk at a reasonable hour and whose wagons would have been new and modern. As it was, however, for us the scheduling of congregational events held priority and that meant getting on the train after midnight and putting up with an antiquated system of heating the passenger cars that slowly roasted us over the next few days and nights. 

   I had ridden significant portions of the Trans-Siberian before, mostly in my time in service as a pastor and acting dean based in Novosibirsk. In western and central Siberia it can seem like the birch forests and fields of cereal grains go by at 50 mph for  whole days at a time. There was some birch in the east, too, but also a greater variety of hills, steppe, thick coniferous and mixed forests, rivers and streams. On this trip stops between Khabarovsk and Chita (our next destination) were even less frequent than in other places of the “magistral” – about twice in 24 hours there was a stop of 20 minutes or more, with 1-2 minute stops every four hours or so. I knew that this area (“Zabaikalsky krain” and the “Amurskaya oblast”) was among some of the least densely populated areas along the Trans-Siberian, and we rode through abandoned villages with some frequency. At the same time, there were enough people living there that I thought of what life must be like in rural Siberia, and it made me miss home. 

   As we approached Chita and saw the spreading urban development, I couldn't help thinking about what it is like coming in to Billings – a place that is not very large in terms of its population, but important insofar as it is the biggest town for many miles around. Chita, though, is bigger, older, and draws in people (for shopping, trade, and work) from an entire time zone. As with Magadan, Chita has a reputation in Russia as a city where the people (as the joke goes) have been in prison, are in prison, or are planning to go to prison in the near future. Our experience there, however, was wholly positive; we stayed in the charming older part of the city which, like with almost all Russia cities, has a mix of new buildings, restored older buildings, and buildings that are still occupied though they should be condemned for safety's sake. 

The oldest building in Chita, now a museum, formerly a
church used by the Decemberists who were exiled to Siberia

   We spent three days with the tightly-knit, multi-generational Lutheran congregation there, made up of two or three extended families and explored with them how God might be calling them to develop their ministries. We introduced ourselves and our work there by reading the story of Paul's meeting with Christ in Acts 9, using the very simple method of asking three questions about a text: “What is God doing here?” “What are the people of God doing here?” “How does this apply to us?” These discussions helped us get a sense of what was important to them, which was, most of all, raising their kids (which are many!) in the faith. One of the men there, Viktor, shared how he taught his kids to pray in part because his parents never taught them, and he knows his own life has been enriched thanks to prayer. Together with them we realized that God had put among them a desire to grow in discipleship and Christian education at all levels.
  That is a long-term goal; Len and I were able to meet some of their immediate needs by leading worship with Holy Communion, baptizing a newborn, and preaching at a mid-week worship service arranged to coincide with our visit. Congregation members provided hints that their worship life has suffered recently, mostly due to a lack of a clear leader in spiritual questions. Dean Manfred Brockmann in Vladivostok has made efforts throughout the years to support the congregation by sending interns there, but one of their clear needs is to develop their own lay leaders; Chita is not moving anywhere closer to any other city and the nearest full-time pastor is still two time zones away (in either direction.) I hope that I was able to provide them with the resources they need in order to take steps toward resolving this issue for themselves. We left the city knowing that there is much more to do there and with prayers that they can gain strength both through developing internal resources and by finding new ways to relate to those outside. 

   Then Len and I hoped on the train once again, continuing our westward journey another day to Irkutsk, where Pastor Thomas Graf Grote met us VERY early at the train station. He was our kind guide around the area for the day we were there, taking us to the amazing Lake Baikal – where our walk turned rather meditative as we stopped trying to shout over the wind – and to the impressive museum of wooden architecture, Tal'tsy.

   As we drove around the area and as we conversed with Thomas in his home, he spoke to us about his ministry. This helped prepare us for meeting congregational leaders in Shelekhov, an Irkutsk suburb, late that evening. We began only at 8 pm, since a number of key people were busy until that time either at work or at their (para-church) ministry with developmentally challenged children. (This ministry, together with the other aspects of Pastor Thomas' story, are worth a separate blog post some time...)

 The group of congregational leaders gathered that evening once again brought us hope – they were clearly people who cared deeply about their faith and were open and energetic enough to think creatively about the ways the church might develop. Len spoke with them about congregational life cycles and re-assured them with words he repeated frequently throughout our travels; they sound something like this when translated back into English from the Russian - “God gives you everything you need for mission in this time and this place.” Insofar as the congregation anticipates changes in the next few years, it was a timely conversation, even if it was only a start. From discussions with Pastor Thomas both immediately after the meeting and when we met again a couple of weeks later I learned that in Shelekhov they intend to continue their work together in order to grow in their sense of the Spirit's leading. 
   From Irkutsk we needed to make it quickly to Omsk in order to take part in the last day of the ELCUSFE synod assembly. Regretfully, then, we exchanged the train for a plane in order to catch one of the relatively few flights that directly connects Siberian cities with one another. While the flight was fine I already missed the train's rhythms, the gently swaying cars, contemplating the scenery for hours on end...everything, actually, except the heat. It was good to know that, while the longest trips were behind us we still had plenty of transsibing to do before the month was through. 

Learning in the Northern Caucasus

      It all felt vaguely familiar, until it felt not that familiar at all. The rolling hills, the scrub brush, the empty roads... Yet roaming this landscape were Saiga Antelope instead of the Western Pronghorn of my Montana home.

 

When we did see people, it became clear that not only was I far from the American West, I was far from the Slavic-majority parts of Russia. Instead of the churches (many of them new) dotting the landscape over the previous hundreds of kilometers from St.Petersburg, here the places of worship were Buddhist temples - Kalmykia is the only region in Europe where Buddhism is the most widely practiced religion.

Buddhist temple in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia

     As daylight faded away, we moved further south and west, closer to the Caucasus. It didn't feel like the mountains yet, but as we drove through Budyonnovsk in the pitch dark, we felt close to the region's recent, violent past; we have family friends that witnessed the terrorist occupation of a maternity hospital there in 1995. In the coming week again and again we would find ourselves in places which caused cognitive dissonance when we met with peaceful people in idyllic surroundings (Nalchik, Beslan), knowing the horrible tragedies that had happened there. We wondered frequently – have things really called down, or is it dangerous? Have the peoples of the Caucasus really decided that they feel better as a part of Russia than outside of it, or is the whole region a powder keg?

       But my family and I weren't there primarily to learn about politics; we had come to the Northern Caucasus at the invitation of area Dean Sergei Maramzin in order to take part in congregational events...and only second to get acquainted with the region's nature and culture. We arrived in the small city of Prokhladny (“cool” as in “cool weather”) in Kabardino-Balkaria in time to get settled and have some rest before guests began to arrive for the deanery gathering. That first morning two of our stereotypes were confirmed – yes, there really were a lot more Ladas (Russia-made cars) in the south than in the north. And, yes, Caucasians really know how to do hospitality – the congregation had a refrigerator full of food waiting for the guests who had come from afar. Reflecting back, however, it seems to me that it was only on the roads (where traffic police seem less informed about anti-corruption campaigns than in other parts of the country and where drivers tend to have rather vague understands of the traffic laws) where our stereotypes of the Caucases were once again confirmed. As a rule, we found ourselves surprised...
     One of the ways was through getting acquainted with the congregation in Prokhladny. 
While I knew that some German Russians had formed colonies in the N.Caucasus, I hadn't known that the foothills of Kabardino-Balkaria had become a gathering point for those who wanted to leave their places of Stalin-imposed exile in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

Caucasian generosity on display among Russian Germans in this picture
from the congregations annual harvest festival. 1970s.

The congregation was apparently visited by Bishop Kaunis from Latvia (center).

     The congregation that formed upon their return was strong in the pietist “brother” tradition, much like the congregation I served in Novosibirsk; when it was registered in 1971, it was the biggest Lutheran congregation in the Russian part of the USSR. It had become a gathering point for ethnic Germans since many found it impossible to return to their homelands (especially on the Volga). In Prokhladny Russian Germans purchased a single-residency home and transformed it into space for worship where probably 150 people could sit if they were willing to be stuffed in; they built on and added places for another 50 or so, but old timers told us that many times people would not find a place in the building and would participate in the service while standing in the courtyard. 
     Today the congregation, celebrating 45 years of existence, is small. They were hit hard by a very early wave  of emigration (already in the 1970s), but they did their best to remain true to what they knew. With time they moved the worship service into Russian (with the exception of the hymns, which still are usually taken from the Wolga Gesangbuch), and they try to be good stewards of what they have – taking care of the elderly, of their buildings (including a parsonage – very important if they are going to have a chance to attracting a full-time pastor), and their faith. One advantage they have over “brother” congregations in other places is that that in the Northern Caucasus valuing one's elders and one's heritage is considered very important. For that reason many more young people show up in church than in other comparable congregations; from my short contact with people there, I think that some of them are there to stay. It was a privilege to have a chance to talk with them (and with guests from neighboring Maisk and from other congregations in the region) about critical aspects of Reformation history that might be relevant for congregational life today.

Valery with the older boys at the amazing feast of local, Chechan
food that our new friend and host Said arranged for us.

     Part of long weekend together with believers in the region was a day trip to into mountains; our guide for the day (and our family's great helper for the rest of the week) was Valery Fogel, the head of the congregation in Maisk. Valery has played an important role in the region (and as a synod council member for the whole ELC-ER) for decades; he was born in Kazakhstan and still loves his hometown of Almata, but he's come to appreciate life as in the Northern Caucasus. He has great respect for those who take their faith seriously – whether they be Lutheran, Orthodox or Muslim. He knows the region and its people well; he showed us many sides of life in the region – from the Tsey glacier on the border with Georgia to the moving (beyond words moving, actually) monuments in Beslan (where over 300 children and adults where killed when terrorists occupied the school) to the quaint beauty of Nalchik to Grozny, the pride of the Chechen people as their republic is being rebuilt after the war. I learned much from each of these visits, and I also had a wonderful time growing to know Valery as a brother in faith. 
    A week's visit, though, certainly couldn't give me a clear and full impression of the Northern Caucasus. I was confused (and remain so) about how in Grozny there is now no sign of or memorial to the war that flattened the city just over a decade ago; in Northern Ossetia I wondered about the revival of traditional (shaministic?) forms of faith at the expense of the Orthodox church... I noticed time and again the tensions among the  Caucasian peoples – is there a chance for long-term peace when people have such heightened awareness of tradition (including traditions of disliking certain neighbors)? Why did we see so many positive images of Stalin in the region (on vodka bottles, car stickers, mountain murals) when so many of these very peoples who honor him were targets of repression?… On a less serious note, I still don't know what to think about all the drinking of and bathing in mineral water that seems to be a big part of local understandings of health...

A museum in downtown Grozny with tradition clan defense towers.
It seems that it, and everything else in the city, is brand new.

Martin testing out a mountain
mineral water bath.

     I'm not sure thaat I gained a handle on what is going on in the Northern Caucasus, but after visiting there I'm happy to join Dean Sergei Maramzin's encouraging words - “I wish you a happy upcoming Reformation anniversary, dear Church! You are young, fresh and fit, like a daughter of the Caucasus mountains!” With God's blessing, Sergei, Valery, and others will continue to work so that the message of peace and God's steadfast love continues to echo throughout the mountains and foothills of this beautiful and very interesting region.