Russia: Day 4 (Tuesday)

Since our original plan had been to take the overnight train Monday night instead of the express train, Kevin and I didn’t have a reserved room at the hotel until Tuesday night, so we slept in the Wolf’s living room (which would become Emily’s bedroom after left…she slept in Stephanie’s room this night).


The Wolf’s have a 2 bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a large apartment complex overlooking the Volga. No elevator so you get a nice workout going to and from.

Tuesday morning, Kathy fixed us all a wonderful breakfast and then we went for a walking tour of downtown “upper” Nizhny (Lower Nizhny is on the other side of the Volga).

Compared to Moscow, Nizhny was a spiritual oasis. We could sense an immediate difference in the people. More smiles and a more relaxed atmosphere. It would be wrong to say they are “open” spiritually, it is still very, very “rocky” soil, even compared to Ann Arbor, but compared to Moscow it was a pleasant surprise. We could see why the Wolf’s picked Nizhny. It’s third largest city in Russia (St. Petersburg is second) and strategically located a reasonably short distance from Moscow and closer than Moscow to Perm and Ufa, two other locations of Vineyard churches (more on that later).

Nizhny was a closed city during the communist regime because it was the center of the military industrial complex in Russia (tanks and MIGs were/are made there among other things).



The meeting hall the church rents is in a great location, right in the heart of the major pedestrian street, with a bus and trolley stops just outside.

After we checked in to the hotel, we went to an orphanage the church ministers to. It was great fun interacting with all the kids, who ranged in age from 4 or 5 up to young teen-agers. Many of the kids had one parent, sometimes even two, but were there because their home situation isn’t acceptable for one reason or another.




We brought a video to watch with the kids using the new projector we brought over for the church. Unfortunately, the video hadn’t been previewed. The Wolf’s knew it was evangelistic but after the gospel got presented for the 5th time by the various puppet characters, they were worried they might “cross the line”. The orphanage is at least partially state-funded and they must be careful not to push the limits if they want easy access to build relationships with the kids, which is important.

So we stopped the video after 15 minutes and it was an awkward moment…time for quick thinking and I won the “gumby” award that day for flexibility by immediately leading the kids in a game of “Bob Skazall” (aka Simon Says).


Kevin led the second round (it’s harder than it looks to think of ways to trip them up) and then we went to the gym to shoot hoops, play with some of the toys we brought and otherwise interact with the kids.


Tuesday night we had dinner with the Wolf’s and then off to bed.