Ohch Rooski

I remember it was September-ish that I heard about the opportunity to go to Russia. I wanted to share this with you, dear reader, because I think it might be cool for you to see how God orchestrates events.

To begin with, it starts with taking Greek. Which, that decision was made because it was either Greek or Japanese. And since Japanese met five times a week at 8/9am, while Greek met three times a week at 1pm, I felt like the decision was fairly easy. haha. And the reason I wanted something different than the usual Spanish or French (the two languages most often taken in college to meet the foreign language requirement), was because I figured, when else would I have the opportunity to take this? When would arise another opportunity, pre-seminary, for me to learn from a good professor, this ancient language?

And who knew that by my sophomore year, the Greek department would open up a Greek language-based minor that could be satisfied by only four more credits than I had already completed thus far? This then, would open up my schedule by nine credits--6 of which would be Russian, and 3 would be Hindi.

Honestly, I didn't know why I picked Russian, except that I knew I wanted something different (per usual). German was a close possibility, but again, I think it was a time issue. So Russian it was, and I liked it so much, I took it for a second year. I found it very helpful that I had taken Greek before, because not only was the alphabet similar, but the grammar is nearly identical!

When I moved to Arvada, it turned out that the area has a large Russian immigrant population. To be honest, I haven't done as much as I would have liked with this, but I have run into a few Russian speakers. And I still have my second year textbook, which I review ever so often.

Amidst all of this, I was involved in Campus Crusade for Christ at Northwestern. I have many friends who then continued on post-college to go on mission trips across the world for a year or two. One friend was raising support around September. I got a letter from Cru in response to having the privilege to contribute to that support, and inside was information on another group, under Cru, that would take short trips across the world to work with teachers. I wondered if they went to Russia, and investigated.

It was a short investigation, because they went there ALL the time!! So a quick little email of inquiry, which was followed by 20 minute phone call shortly thereafter (from the headquarters of this organization in Colorado Springs--convenient), and I had no excuse. I mentioned the trip to my parents, as well as my host family here in Denver. I asked my boss about the possibility of going, and the weeks worked out perfectly. Really? It's that easy?

Yes.

And don't get me started on the support raising because that's just crazier, but I'll get to that in the next one. I've never been a fan of super long blog entries. I get bored too easily...