On the Way (and There)!

I am sitting in the JFK airport in New York awaiting my flight to Moscow, which boards in about an hour. The flight from Indy was good. This morning (Friday) Kedra and I, along with Maddie, met Lester at the Cracker Barrel at 38th Street in Indy to celebrate Lester’s 20th birthday with a nice breakfast. Can it really be 20 years? No kidding - it seems like yesterday that Lester was born.

I had quite a scare in the Indy airport, probably not the kind you would think of. I had more than an hour before I boarded, so I decided to fire up my computer and check email. I was hoping to have some crucial correspondence from a person in Moscow (more about that later).

Anyway, I decided to save my battery, so I hooked up the charger, plugging it in to an outlet located next to a seat in the waiting area. After a few minutes I noticed that the battery was being depleted. As I investigated I discovered that the charger was not working. I started checking all the connections and discovered that it would work for a little while then quit.

"Oh no! What am I going to do if this thing is dead? How am I going to blog and keep everybody informed. How am I going to communicate?" These and a lot of other questions came rushing to my mind.

I called Todd, who shared my pain and concern. We tried to talk it through. Nothing was working. He finally said, "Go try another outlet." I am here to tell you that the man is brilliant! It was the plug! I guess it was shorting out. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to not have the problem I thought I had!

Coming into JFK we flew right over Manhattan. I could see Central Park, the Empire State building, and the United Nations. That was pretty cool! I couldn’t see the Statue of Liberty; it was on the other side of the plane. I guess I flew over Jerry and Cathy’s house, but I didn’t see them.

Well, if all goes according to plan I will post this from Moscow in a few hours.

I have been making some contact with Christians in Moscow. Darrell Simon knew some people over there, so I have been corresponding with a Nigerian named Israel. He works at least part time as a tour guide, so I may employ him to do a day trip to a monastery that I want to see. I THINK he is meeting me at the airport.

This is going to be a wonderful adventure! I hope you will check back often. Feel free to share it with your friends as well.

Love to all!

I am in Russia. It’s been quite an eventful day in this old land. No one met me at the airport, which was/is fine. This led to quite an adventure on buses and subways. Even though everything is written in Russia. I got the routes figured out pretty quickly (user friendly).

I had a hard time getting from my metro stop to the hotel. After standing on the street for about an hour trying to figure out what to do, and even asking several people who did not speak English, I just prayed for some kind of direction.

Next thing you know a guy pulls up in an old beat up car. He looks at me, and I look at him. He could tell I needed help, I guess. He spoke very little English, but we negotiated a deal for him to take me to my hotel for 200 Rubles (about 8 dollars). We had an interesting ride. (Yes, I was aware that I was riding with a total stranger in a very foreign land.)

We talked, if you could call it that, about icons and Andrei Rublev. He understood that part and said, "He genius." I said, "Yes." I tried to talk to him about the Orthodox church, but he could not understand me.

He let me out, and we shook hands. An angel, perhaps?

I am very tired. I didn’t sleep much on the airplane for some reason, so I missed a night’s sleep. I am trying to stay up a little while longer. It is about 7 p.m. here. We are 8 hours ahead of you.

More tomorrow...