Tag Archives: cold weather

A Parade!

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This morning I awoke at the house of my friends Roxie and Daniel, who live in Biella.  Roxie is called la orsa che abbraccia—the hugging bear.  She has earned this name because she gives big, warm bear hugs that make you feel very welcome and loved.  Outside the window, it seemed unusually bright for six AM.  It had snowed overnight, and as I write this, it is continuing to snow.  Roxie fixed me a fantastic (and fantastically big) breakfast and a sack lunch to take with me on the train.  Then she and Daniel drove me to the train station.

What a difference being in the train station!  At their house we all praised God for the beautiful snow, which is a gift from Heaven to water the earth in winter.  But in the train station I have heard nothing but whining about the snow, the cold, and illnesses.  Of course, illnesses don’t come from cold weather, but from viruses.  Besides, as believers, we should never say, “I’ve got a cold (or the flu or whatever type of illness).”  Pastor Fabio’s sermon yesterday was about how when Jesus said, “It is finished,” and bowed His head, all the curses from original sin were paid for—including sickness.  If we can manage to wrap our heads around the idea that it has already been paid—all of it!—then we can truly begin to live the victorious life of true freedom in Christ.  These are the days of miracles and wonders, if we can only believe it.

On the train to Santhiá, where I am at this moment, it has continued to snow.  Here I have about an hour between trains.  No sooner did I sit down to wait, then I heard music.  It was a band marching down the street toward the city offices across the street from the train station.  On what most people here are lamenting as a dismal and cold winter day, there is a band celebrating something.  I grabbed my camera and took some pictures—the only person to do so.  Again, it seems like the contrast between believers and unbelievers is as plain as black and white, darkness and light.

The Bible tells us that the world will fall into ever darker darkness, but the beautiful thing about that is the contrast between darkness and light.  Therefore, go and be the light of the world that you were created to be.  The people lost in darkness will be attracted to the light of the Son like moths to a flame.  And if there’s no parade, start one!  Our celebration has only just begun! Parade on a snowy day

From Russia with Love

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Greetings from Berlin!  I just got back from Moscow, which is an amazing city.  It was everything I had heard, and nothing I could ever have imagined.  Our hosts were very kind and welcoming, grateful to have people coming to pray for their city and country.  They love and hate Moscow, tending to see themselves through a very ugly and distorted mirror, no doubt a legacy of Communist rule there.  I think this is probably why it was important for us, as outsiders from across Europe (and the US!) to come pray for and with them.

The pace of life in Moscow is astonishingly fast.  New York City is slow by comparison!  Moscow is the 5th largest city in the world, with a population of more than 11.8 million—far ahead of New York, at number 19.  And it covers 969.5 square miles.  The Moscow Metro has 12 lines and 172 stations, serving more than 7 million passengers a day.  The metro trains travel at breakneck speed, and the distance between stations outside the city center is easily double that of the metro stations in New York or Milan.  The Muscovites walk much faster than any group of people I have ever encountered.  Normally I have no trouble keeping up, and often have to moderate my speed to match that of my companions, but not in Moscow.  This led to difficulties in the crush of people in the metro stations, where often people stepped between me and my guide.  He finally grabbed my bag, apparently believing it to blame for my inability to keep up.  Later he commented on how little I had brought with me.

Our first day there, October 22, was warm at 15 degrees Celsius (59 Fahrenheit).  The next day it dropped to 0 (32 F).  And there were snow flurries in the air throughout the day, but nothing on the ground.  Happily, I had come prepared for cold weather.

My hosts, Pasha and Lena, live on the outskirts of the city in a high-rise.  Near their building is a very modern looking glass building with many windows broken out.  Pasha told me that it had been built in 1990 as an office complex, but it was not built to code, and so it was never opened.  Perhaps the builders had hoped to bribe somebody into signing off on it, and lacked an amount sufficient to buy off the official.  That’s all my own speculation, however.  So the building has sat for over 20 years as a hulking eyesore to the neighborhood.  Despite the protective fencing, gangs of teens have entered and climbed up in it, using it as a place to party.  It staggers the imagination to think of the dangers that must exist inside:  open elevator shafts and crumbling stairs without banisters, for example.  And if you add alcohol and drugs you can get a very deadly combination indeed.  Pasha says that they have never demolished it because of lack of funds to do so, even though it sits on prime real estate near a metro station in a nice part of town.  It is all sadly typical of Eastern Europe.

And yet, all this contrasted with the grandeur of Red Square and the many beautiful cathedrals in the city.  Clearly Russians have an eye for beauty, be in architecture, such as St. Basil’s Cathedral and the many lavishly ornamented metro stations, or in arts like the nesting dolls or Faberge eggs, or in performing arts like the Bolshoi Ballet.  It is as if the Communists tried to tell the Russian people that they don’t need beauty.  Perhaps that a factor in the fall of Communism:  you can’t take beauty away from the people.

I love you, Russia!  I hope to return someday!  But in the meanwhile, never forget that God is good, and that He loves you!