Pastor Jacob Fields: Russia

Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Day 22 - A lot has changed in 2 years

Day 22 – Change over past 2 years

I have taken a Blog Challenge to blog daily for 30 days mostly about myself so that you and others can get to know me a bit better. Tell a friend about www.jacobfields.org this month, or like and interact with me on my Facebook ministry page at Facebook.com/Jacobwfields

There has been quite a bit of significant change in my life over the past two years and it has been an amazing ride. Here is a very simple explanation of all that has changed.

I worked at Preston Hollow UMC

I went to Russia for the first time.

While at Preston Hollow the Senior Pastor underwent quadruple bypass surgery so I got to fill in for him in the pulpit for 4 weeks, make hospital visits, and handle administrative responsibilities.

My wife and I got pregnant, but after 6 ½ weeks the baby’s heart stopped beating.

My wife and I got pregnant again.

My car got broken into while I was on a mission trip and my golf clubs were stolen.

I accepted the youth ministry position at Lake Cities UMC

I took a second job waiting tables to make up for a lower salary

My wife got her Physical Therapist Assistant License

My wife began working at Sandy Lake Rehab

We bought our first house

I officially declared as a candidate for ministry

I stopped working the second job.

We welcomed to this world a wonderful baby boy on January 3^rd George Wesley Fields

I became a Certified Candidate for ministry as an Elder in The United Methodist Church

We went to Disney World for the first time.

We got a new car

I applied to Perkins for Seminary, was accepted and have registered for classes.

I got my own website where you are now reading this J

I feel like I am leaving quite a bit of really cool stuff out even in a list this full. I trust that God will continue to shape my life in really great ways.

As Always thanks for your time and giving this a read. If you enjoyed it share it with friends, you can do so easily with one of the buttons below. I pray that you will embrace life in the Love and Grace offered to you through Jesus Christ, and that you will always remember Jeremiah 29:11. – For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, Plans to Proper You and not for harm, Plans with Hope for the Future.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Getting to Know me - A place I'd Like to Visit Day 13

Day 13 – A Place I’d Like to Visit

I have been so blessed so far that I have been to a lot of places in the United States and around the world. I have been to 7 different countries and 23 States. My favorite country as a whole so far is definitely Russia with Germany and France rounding out the top 3. My favorite state is Texas with my second favorite being Colorado.

If I could only go on one more vacation the rest of my life and price were no object I would go to:

Italy, I love Italian food and that has been one of my favorite parts of world travel so far is the food and how it fits within the culture. I would love to visit some of the sights in Rome but for culture sake I would want to visit Tuscany, Sicily, Verona, Florence, and Genoa. This trip would definitely give Olive Garden’s “Tour of Italy” a completely different meaning. Of course if price were no object I'm sure that I don't need to specify that my wife would be with me and that we would have flown first class and taken first class trains from town to town.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Samara, Trains, Restaurant Cars, and Escalators

So between leaving Novgorod and arriving back in Moscow this morning Not much was missed, and that was mostly covered in the quick posts to let you know we were safe and where we were going. However I will post pictures of the conditions on the train when we get back to the US and I upload the rest of the pictures. There really is not much to say about Samara except to pray for the people who live there, its pretty... ugly. Samara is a new city kind of it was formed as a hidden factory town when the Germans had taken over the western parts of Russia so it has a lot of world war 2 and Cold war era structures that make the projects in New York look fancy. The part of the city that they brag about is the river side and the beach where you will find wonderful views of crumbling concrete litter and broken glass mixed with a few sand volleyball courts and a beach soccer stadium (okay that was kinda cool)

I just want to tell two quick stories. The first story comes on the train back to Moscow from Samara. We had stopped to get food for the train at McDonald's but figured we would go to the restaurant car to have some thing to drink with it and a more comfortable place to sit for a few hours. Anastasia didn't come to the restaurant car right away and it was Alex, Bradley, Michael and I. The waitress was not happy that we couldn't speak Russian, so while trying to say not to worry we have a translator and she will be here in a few minutes she thought we were asking for chicken. She got frustrated and handed us off to another much nicer waitress. We knew the word for Tea(Chai) and Pepsi so we ordered that and began eating our McDonald's After a few hours of us sitting and drinking tea and talking this waitress had begun drinking, she had not been happy with us the whole time and we could tell. She began yelling at us that we were sitting there and had not ordered anything when in fact we had, so from that point on every little thing became a big deal. Alex went to use the restroom and she yelled "that restroom is for staff only" Anastasia got up and checked and there was nothing that implied that anywhere and we had seen many people use that restroom. Michael guessed that they just wanted to have a staff party and get rid of us and turned out to be right. Most of the staff on the train began showing up and started drinking, so we continued to sit and talk.

The second story is one of playing on escalators, now apparently escalators are serious business and fun is not to be had on them. So Friday the 24th as we were headed back the the hotel for the night after a fun day back in Moscow the group of us are in high spirits laughing and giggling Alex and Anastasia were holding hands from one escalator to the other and I made a gesture as if I were going to sit on the rail. There was an attendant lady at the bottom, and she saw me. Russians in general are pessimistic, you get bonus points if you can get a picture of one smiling. So instead of just saying, "Stop that" or "No" or something brief and to the point she proceeds to yell over the intercom while looking right at me all sorts of things in Russian as if I can understand her, luckily I knew how to say sorry in Russian which I did as I walked by while she was still yelling at me. Nastia explained to me that she was being very elaborate and trying to guilt me about playing on the escalator going as far as saying that I was going to cause the whole escalator to stop and that everyone would fall down and die not to mention the backup that it would cause in the flow of the people getting to the trains. Nastia then assured me while laughing at me that most of these women are very angry people anyways and it really is not as big of a deal as she made it to be. None of the Russians even turned their head to see what this lady was yelling about, no one seems to pay attention to the PA system or the Metro staff.

I promised Bradley I would include that last story in the blog so I wanted to do that before I fell asleep and forgot.

I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog so far, we leave for the airport to come home at 6:30 in the morning. I pray that we are not delayed and that we make our flight, Every time I have flown back across the Atlantic I have had to spend an overnight in the airport including 25 hours in Charles De Gal airport in France. So hopefully that does not happen this time. We should be back in Dallas by 8PM Saturday!!! I will post pictures to the blogs early next week.

ADDED:

I think Michael was the least happy about all the train rides on the shelf, poor guy was so tall it doesn't look like he fit.

Yes they managed to squeeze 56 beds into each train car and there was little to no air conditioning so it kinda smelled by the time we fell asleep.

Alex is sitting on her shelf and offering me a puff pastry with chocolate inside, it was delicious.

Bradley fell asleep very quickly... sometimes.

June 20th - Water-balloons, Kids, Yablaca Chicken and Saying Goodbye

Monday was our last day in Novgorod and it was the day we worked with the children for the end of the day camp. Our task was to entertain the children in a large waiting room while the teachers set up a Russian version of the Peters walk. They were going to begin taking the children in groups of 10 through the experience so we were to entertain the 50 or so kids for an hour and by the end of the hour we would only have a handful left. Unfortunately that is not how it worked out. We had about an hours worth of games skits and lessons planned for 50 kids with no teachers and just one translator. First the youth did a skit called hands where they acted out the parts of God, Man, and Woman and how we need God but some choose to accept him and some choose to deny him. I filmed it so once I figure out how to upload that I will.

Water-Balloons and Kids
The thing that the kids loved the most Water-balloon toss, I am not sure what gave Michael the idea that bringing water-balloons was a good idea but I am confident that it was an idea from God because they sure were a blessing. We ended up playing 2 rounds that each lasted about twenty-five minutes, apparently throwing water-balloons and getting your friends wet is something that transcends a language barrier. If you know how to do math you have figured out that by now we should only have a few kids left, so we planned to teach them the song Father Abraham in English and with the motions. Instead we tried to teach this song to all of them and of course there were several kids who just thought they were too cool for it and one little girl in particular became very curious about Alex and sat down next to her and began asking her questions. The kids then flocked from singing to ask Alex questions so we sat all the kids down and did a full question and answer session for another 30 minutes. The questions were hilarious like does it rain in Texas? do you have Tornadoes in Texas? Would you move to Russia? Would you move to another country because you like their food? How do you dance in Texas?

We were only able to keep order for a little while, and we soon learned that it was 50 kids and there were teachers but the teachers do nothing discipline wise. Chaos quickly took over the room and the kids formed clusters around each of us and began asking us questions as if we understood what they were saying. Anastasia was amazing going back and forth trying to help us have 5 separate conversations with a total of about 40 kids. Bigger kids were bullying the small kids, a boy with a mullet and a fake Adidas track suit was asking me about smoking drinking and dancing, one even pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and showed me. I figured this would be something a teacher would want to do something about so Anastasia (Nastia) helped me tell the teacher, her response was "It is okay, some of the kids are sick and need to smoke we don't worry about this. Are you surprised?" needless to say I was. The highlight of this time was a little boy who asked very good questions even about politics because he watches the news. We soon found out that he had already worked for the church a little bit and wanted to be a pastor when he grew up, we let the current pastor know about him because he wanted to go to the Methodist church but didn't know where it was. I am not sure how but we survived.

Yablaca Chicken (Apple)
Nastia and Alex cooked a Russian dish made with apples potatoes and Chicken. Yablaca is the Russian word for Apple so we referred to it as Yablaca Chicken. It was amazing and they made enough for our whole group to eat. We learned wonderful Russian phrases associated with Yablacas so be sure to ask us some when we get home.

Saying Goodbye
After Dinner we went back to our host homes and packed our things and gave our gifts it was time for us to leave Novgorod. Our hosts came with us by taxi to the train station and showed us all the love you can imagine. We truly felt like we were considered family even though most of us could not speak with our hosts at all, (except Bradley could speak to Margarita in French).

ADDED:
The youth getting ready for the children to be unleashed on them.

Little do the kids know but Michael was about to unleash loads of fun on them in the form of a bucket of water-balloons. What better way is there to spread the love of Jesus?

This is a picture of all the children with us, it is by far my favorite picture from Russia.

This is the crazy par of the day where we are all having different conversations with different kids and Nastia was keeping up with all of us by jumping from group to group and we were just confused while she was with the others.

This is our friend who watched the news and knew a lot about the United States, he wants to move to the U.S. for the food. He would like to work for the church when he grows up, so take a moment to pray for him.

This was a set of twins that fell in love with Bradley, or at least thought he was cool because he had an iPhone.

This is a picture of one of the kids trying to talk with Michael.

Sunday June 19th - Church in Novgorod

This happens to also be the day that Bradley and I were served caviar for breakfast.

The Methodist Church in Novgorod is very small, there are maybe a few handfuls of members. They are unable to afford and maintain their own building, so they share a facility with another church, the other church is a bit larger so they use it in the morning and the Methodist Church uses the building from 4 to 7 PM. Between breakfast and 4PM we went for a tour of the city by boat on the Volga river, it was a lot of fun and we saw many people fishing for their food. The city of Novgorod was the first city in Russian history, it was a midway stopping point on the route from Northern Europe to the Middle East so the city became a marketplace for traders and began to grow. I will try to save you from a history lesson that you could just Google anyways and find more full information I just wanted to mention the importance of the river. After taking the tour we went to McDonald's for lunch and to use the Wi-Fi a bit which is where we last posted a full story, the Honorable Breakfast post. The day flew by and before we knew it, it was time for church.

The church in Novgorod was inspiring, the Methodist church and another came together for worship because we were going to be with them. There was between 60 and 80 people in attendance, mostly women, and mostly older, but all excited to be there. They sang a few praise and worship songs in Russian, I noticed one to be by Hillsong United and asked the translator and I was right. I have never in my life seen an 80+ year old woman singing as loud as she could, raising her hands and clapping as if she were 20 years old. In every single prayer they prayed there was an overwhelming theme of thanksgiving, even though in our eyes they had so very little. I pray desperately that their energy of worship and thanksgiving would be something we are able to bring back to Preston Hollow.

Back In Moscow

We have survived two 18 hour train rides and two 8 hour train rides and one 12 hour flight. That means all we have left is another 12 hour flight and a 4 hour car ride and we will be home. It surely has been an amazing experience. We have just arrived back at the Hotel Bega in Moscow and we are showering and eating then we will head to the Ismaliva Flea Market. The kids are very excited and tonight when we get back to the hotel we will post the story of some of our adventures. Val greeted us at the train station. It is very odd to see her in her natural setting, she is trying to act like she doesn't speak Russian.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Traveling Update - Pit Stop in Moscow

The train from Novgorod to Moscow arrived here in Moscow at 4:30AM and we stored our luggage at the next train station because the next train doesn't leave until 2PM so we are hanging out in a McDonalds for a little bit longer till more of the shops and stuff open and I am confident that the only struggle we will have with occupying this extended lay over is finding the energy to put one foot in front of the other. We are extremely tired, good thing we will have 18 hours on the next train, pray we can get good rest. There is no internet on the train so the next update will be from Samara. I will fill in more of the details of our days so far on the last day when we get back to Moscow, I will have more time a solid wifi connection and will be better rested. We are keeping track of it all with pictures and notes. Most of you keep telling us to "stay safe," we are safe and healthy (other than allergies) so pray for rest on trains and planes more than anything.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

June 19 - Honorable Breakfast

So today was a very special day. Bradley and I were served a breakfast of kings. Apparently we are considered very special guests. Unfortunately not everything that is considered an honor to be served tastes very good. We had crepes with apple jelly that was made by our host Margarita from apples that grow in her garden, the crepes were fantastic. The special treat was what we were unsure about. It was a small pastry that kind of looked like a miniature basket of apples, but the texture looked a little off. Our host did not eat with us so Bradley and I flipped a coin to see who would take the first bite. I lost. I took a very small bite and it tasted like I bit into a cup of ammonia. Our pallets just were not ready for it. So Bradley grabbed a small piece off the top of his and decided against a bigger bite. Turns out this special treat was caviar, and it costs a lot of money here. So later in the day when we showed our translator the picture and she informed us of this honor. We asked that she would explain how much we appreciate the gesture to Margarita and that we were sorry we could not eat it.

June 17 - The Great Novgorod

Today we arrived in Novgorod really early in the morning. We began the day with breakfast in our family homes then met back together and took a tour of a Russian Orthodox Monastery, Alex is getting a new appreciation for the United States and the Methodist Church because of how differently women are treated and viewed. After touring the Monastery we toured a wooden history museum that showed life in the 1880s in Russia. We then had lunch in park at a very nice little restaurant. Things in Novgorod are much cheaper than in Moscow, for example a taxi in Moscow could cost 10x what a taxi cost in Novgorod. Once we had finished lunch we toured the Kremlin which we figured out basically means fort or castle and we led on the tour by a native who teaches English and History, she was full of wonderful information. Novgorod is the oldest city in Russia and was very important in the history or Russia itself, so the 1000 year monument to celebrate Russia's 1000th birthday was built here. It is a bell shaped piece with all the influential figures in Russian history. We learned many legends about Russian and specifically Novgorod history. After the tour we headed back to our host family homes and ate dinner. After eating we all met back at Natalia's flat (the pastor of the church here) and hung out with two Russian college students and played games, charades was interesting playing with different languages. Lots of fun was had by all of us.

Day In Moscow – June 16th

We had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel. We discovered that what they call pancakes us and the French would call crepes. It was buffet style breakfast with plenty to eat including lots of fruit. The front desk of the hotel allowed us to store our luggage with them for the day and we walked about 15 minutes to take the Metro. We got all day passes and headed off to Red Square. The Kremlin building was closed when we arrived because there was going to be a ceremony in front of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We just happened to be walking by the perfect spot to witness that when we began to notice a crowd start gathering, so we took it all in. After watching the ceremony we visited the underground mall and had lunch at Sbarro. After lunch we continued into the actual square and walked past Lennon’s Tomb, and took many pictures of St. Basil’s Cathedral. We took a tour of the inside of the cathedral and were amazed by such a wonderful church. We got to see a room of relics including a bible that was printed in 1682, and heard a men’s choir singing in the main worship space. As we were leaving St. Basil’s we noticed there was a movie being filmed right next to us. We guessed it to be an old war movie based on how people were dressed. There is a very large Russian Orthodox church nearby called Christ Church which is where current Russian leader Vladimir Putin attends worship. We decided to go and check it out, however Alex and Anastasia did not have head covers and Bradley and I were wearing shorts so we were not allowed in. From there we took the metro to the Methodist Theological Seminary of Russia in Moscow. They were very glad to have us visit and showed us around the facility including the office of the Bishop. After the tour they invited us in to the dining room for some tea and cookies. Thanks to our wonderful translator we had some excellent conversations. Before we knew it, it was time for dinner so we went with our new friends to “MY-MY” pronounced Moo Moo. It is a cafeteria style restaurant with a big dairy cow statue out front. It was our first experience with actual Russian food. As soon as we finished dinner it was time to get back to the hotel quickly to collect our luggage and get to the train station. We finally found a minivan taxi once we had gotten within a block of the hotel, there was plenty of room for all of us and our luggage and we made it to the train station in plenty of time.

The train ride was an adventure itself described best by the pictures that will be uploaded, it was basically a car full of bunk beds. The train itself didn’t go very fast but was surprisingly smooth which for me made it easy to sleep. We arrived in Novgorod at 6AM on the 17^th and were greeted by Natalia, Sasha, and Margarita, they would be our hosts for the next several days. We are now in our host homes and getting ready for breakfast.

ADDED:
This is Lenin's Library, we did not go in, it was just there when we came up from the subway.

The kids are confused again because they don't know where they are, they can't read the signs and are starting to believe the joke they started that we were trying to sell them.

This is the history building that makes up part of Red Square

This is Lenin's Tomb, Bradley was confused as to why one of the Beatles was so highly honored among the Communist leaders.

We were there on some sort of military holiday and they had a celebration at the "Eternal Flame" which is essentially the same as the tomb of the unknown soldier.

St. Basil's Cathedral

This is a former government building that even housed offices of Communist officials, During the Communist Era the churches were forced to stop preaching the gospel and to take down their crosses, yet if you notice this building this specific entrance which is right across from Lenin's Tomb has an Icon of Christ above the entrance that remained in place the entire time. On another note the building now serves as an upscale shopping mall.

Is this what the sky looked like when Jesus got Baptized?

The other side of the History building, could you have guessed that its part of Red Square?

This is a statue of Alexander the Great right across from the Christ Church.

This is Christ Church, the Russian Orthodox Church that Vladimir Putin Currently attends

Another Picture of the church

And another... I think I just really liked the way the sky looked

Alex was tired of walking, and was not very happy with the Russian Orthodox Church because they wouldn't let her in without covering her head.

These two Babushkas were singing about God while begging for money for food, not to far from the Russian United Methodist Seminary. We gave to them, but they touched our hearts.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Russia Update - A night on the town - Moscow

Tonight (Wednesday night for us Wednesday day for y'all) we went around Moscow and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Our waitress Olga spoke great English and gave great service, we will be eating more frugally for the duration of the trip but from now on our wonderful youth will be able to tell their friends "I had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Moscow." After dinner we walked the city center and were entertained by the various shops we walked by and the street performers. We are back at the hotel now and about to sleep for the night most of us are exhausted. Tomorrow will be more touring of Moscow followed by an overnight train to Novgorod. Our next update will probably be Friday in Novgorod unless we are able to find a hot spot. The weather here is absolutely prefect by the way.

ADDED:

This is a picture of Arbot Street it is the main tourist street in Moscow, only foot traffic and a lot of street performers. This is also the street that the Hard Rock Cafe was on. In case you were wondering, this picture was taken at like 9:45 PM

This is a picture of the view from my window at the Bega Hotel in Moscow, we were on the 11th floor. This building that you can see is one of 7 identical buildings throughout the city that are reffed to7 Sisters (if you Google it search "seven sisters Moscow")

In an effort to try and figure out the Russian Alphabet, I took this picture of a Russian blackberry with a full keyboard. Unfortunately I still haven't figured it out

Russia Update - Arriving In Moscow

So the flight was wonderful, we were well fed and taken care of. There was so much available in the in flight entertainment module for each seat that most of us watched at least two movies and a myriad of other entertainment options including music and games. I read up on the culture of the people and tried to study some Russian... I do not think it worked, it is still as if they are speaking a foreign language. Needles to say that there was so much in flight entertainment that not much sleep was had, except for by Bruce and Michael. Bradley, Alex and myself got the least amount of sleep. We collected our bags and got through customs no problem and met our translator Anistasia. We sent our luggage with a driver to the hotel and took a series of train and taxi to get there ourselves. Now, the thing is that there are 6 of us when you include the translator, and vehicles in Russia aren't like the SUVs we are used to in the states, most of the cars are what we would consider compact. So 6 of us plus a taxi driver piled in to a single taxi. Let me tell you, it was amazingly comfortable and we have pictures to prove it. I will try to get those posted later tonight. Tonight for us that is, It is already 7:09PM here and its only 10:09AM back home. We are freshening up right now in the Hotel Rooms, then we will be hitting the town for dinner and some tourism. We might even have dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe tonight.

All that being said, what really matters is that we are here and we are safe, and so thankful to have a translator with us. Pray that god would continue to take care of us and teach us something new each and every day.

This is a picture of the the Youth excitedly on their way to the airport in Houston.

This is a picture just after getting off the plane and through customs. We have met our translator, Anistasia( the one in pink) talking to Bruce (the one in grey) and we are waiting on the driver who will take our luggage to the hotel.

You can see how awake they are, this is the WE ARE IN RUSSIA AND I'M EXCITED picture

This is in line for the train tickets where the Youth's level of fatigue was probably at its worst... it probably didn't help that they couldn't understand what anyone was saying Bruce and I was acting like we were going to sell them to the Russians.

This last photo is after the adventure in taking 7 people in a very small Russian Taxi - That picture is on Alex's camera I will load it as soon as I get a chance. We are in the lobby at the Hotel Bega and there is a visible difference in their body language I think they are relieved to finally be at the hotel.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Russia - at the airport

So we are at the airport now we are checked in and thru security. Singapore airlines greated our group with a gift. We have had amazing customer service so far and we haven't even gotten on the plane yet! Next time we will be able to update will be tomorrow. We land in Moscow at 2pm which will be about 5am here in Texas!!! Keep us in your prayers

We are on the road to Houston then straight to Moscow!!!

Trip To Russia

For Pictures and regular updates of our Youth Mission Trip to Russia... Check Here Daily!!!