Senior Stories

Friday

Today we have session two of the senior center… We have singing and games on the schedule along with an opportunity for the seniors to vote in the US Presidential Election. (The outcome was 24 Obama and 1 McCain… Boy -- the power of the Russian news.)

They enjoyed the singing and after tea and rolls we played Pictionary and Scrabble and some of the men played chess… I made the Pictionary game easy so they would not get discouraged while playing… They really got into the game and some will make up their own versions of the game to play at home.

We had coffee/tea after words with our dear friend Armenui. She is the one who keeps our work glued together. She is better than Radar as an office assistant… No detail gets past her sight.

We spent the rest of the afternoon goofing off and then Doris went to a friends home for the evening while I sis some other work and watched part of a tennis match… They don’t have the sports I enjoy here…

Saturday

A day off??? Well we went to Nashi Deti (Our Children) for a fall play… We have videos and plenty of photographs to share when we get home… Doris was in her element talking with the mothers and children… These children all have some form of a developmental disability, which is a big problem in Russia… They are often thought of as less than human sometimes… Our friend and client Natalia is doing a great job trying to change this attitude here in Ryazan… There were maybe 30 children in the play…

Next we went to George and Jill’s for a late lunch… They pastor a church in Ryazan… They are from the US but, after more than 10 years, have adjusted nicely to Russia… We talked about things happening in their church and the projects we’re working on here in Ryazan… It was a fine day for us… After that we spent some time with Natalia, her husband and two children… Sasha is their son who has cerebral palsy… I gave Sasha a gift – a KU stocking cap with a big Jayhawk on it… We rode the bus home and fell into bed…

Sunday

Armenui is coming for breakfast at 9:00 am… Off to church… We greeted the church on behalf of our Pastor and the Elders of Christian Fellowship Church in Columbia… I’m going to ask Doris to take it on from here… One additional thing I want to say is the church in Ryazan has loved us more than we could ever hope for… They have bent over backwards to make our stay here fruitful… It is a testimony to the love of Christ Jesus that lives in them…
We had lunch with Doris’s old friends--Vitaly, Inga, their children and Vitaly’s mother. We had fried chicken and salads and all kinds of good stuff… It was so fun to be with these dear people…

Monday

This morning we started our second group of senior center meetings… A whole new group of people attending… What fun it is to love on these people… They are so appreciative of our efforts… I think Doris may have found a woman in the Ryazan church that we may be able to work through… She is already caring for thirteen seniors in the church, originally providing monthly food supplies and meals out of her own funds… Later today, we went to a nursing facility and showed them our PowerPoint presentation about life in Columbia… They had many questions regarding life in the US… We, of course, had an opportunity to visit with the dear 97 year old woman that we made friends with back in the spring. (Her picture is on Doris’s facebook.) We are reviewing for tomorrow’s meeting and packing for our trip to Yekaterinburg on Wednesday… We certainly believe God is in this effort… The people just soak up every bit of kindness shown to them… We hope you will consider how you might help us with this work… We can assure you that everything you can do will go directly to a person who has a tremendous need…

Bob…

It’s no secret that I enjoy relating with people the most. A few hours with old friends, although physically exhausting depending upon how many of these meetings I have in a row, is emotionally energizing. No matter how much one loves leading larger meetings, it’s still exhausting, especially with a new group every couple days. The laughter and “a-ha!” moments make it worthwhile for me, as do the opportunities to stop and just listen to stories. Bob and I promised we wouldn’t talk about God in four of the meetings so that the social services director who’d sent us a group of people to fill out our meetings wouldn’t have problems with her boss. So Bob and I have been praying for a way to offer hope to people (many of the elderly suffered deeply in the war and from famine) within these restrictions. Today when we asked the group to share the joys of growing old, one woman responded about the peace she had from going on trips to Orthodox Holy places. The group discussed that, although the body is getting weaker with age, with age comes more free time and a concern for spiritual growth. From there, we moved onto issues of how to love our neighbor as our self.

One of the special moments in the nursing home was a conversation with four women at the end of the program. One woman, Maria, who was born in ’31, spoke of her dad having been arrested and family sent into exile because he complained to Stalin about the collectivization that caused an artificial famine in the area. In her words, thinking back to that picture of seven children starving under the Christmas tree and realizing that now she is full because she survived, she realizes that she has been given a precious gift. The family were believers (I’m assuming Orthodox), and, because of what they had been through and their roots, the Communist system never could root it out of them.

Another quite bright woman was in the nursing home of her own choice. Her son was busy with his family and couldn’t make room for her, so she moved into the nursing home. She reads everything about politics and current events that she can.

A third woman, Valya, age 63 and healthy, insisted she didn’t want to be in the home, although she said she was treated well. Her youngest son was murdered in ’91 (probably business-mafia related). Her older son died later. Then a beam in their (probably older) home broke; a month later her husband died. She was left without resources to restore her home (in absence of home insurance, which is not the norm for the majority of Russians). Her hope (and prayer request) is that someone would decide to develop the land, buy her home (and her neighbors homes) and give them apartments in return.

Although the stories are sad, we parted laughing and hugging one another, because these women really are glad just to be alive. Part of our job is to confirm to them how precious life is, how valuable they are, and how close God is to help.

Tonight when I was speaking with Karina, the lady from the church Bob mentioned above who cares for seniors in the church, I was amazed. She has much less money than the majority of us, but had been making care packages—staples, such as cooking oil, rice, sugar, soap, etc.—for the elderly and often inviting a group of 13 to her home for a very nice meal. She insists that they remain seated while she serves them, saying that she wants to honor them. When her money ran out, the pastors’ wife found funds from friends to cover this. I asked Karina why she does this; she answered, “I don’t know. I just love old people.” I told Karina we would pray for her and her husband Samuel. Life isn’t easy here, but I’m always amazed (and challenged) by those who have little according to most of our standards but still give out so much.

My apologies for the length, but I wanted to honor these people.

Doris


On to Tuesday…