The church sign in front or Ressurection church.

Church was a wonderful experience. I attended Church of the Ressurection in Voronezh today. It is a great little church. Almost a dozen of the young adult leaders were absent today, but there was still a majority of youth. There were many visitors today as the youth camp starts tonight in Voronezh, and people who are coming from far away came in last night.

Yulia, who was an exchange student in Kane, met me at church. She could have done a much better job at translating, and she chuckled a few times. But the service was very good and she also enjoyed it.

There are many African students learning Russian, and I believe they all worship at this church. We sang songs, prayed, and read scripture in Russian, French, German, and English. The pastor used to work at the university teaching Russian - I think it is a great testimony that many staff members have followed her here!




The African students regularly sing together for worship.

The camp is beautiful. There is still much work to be done, but it's in a beautiful location just up the hill from one of the cleanest rivers in Russia. I have been swimming every day, some days twice. I swam last night in the rain. It was great.

My Russian, although ugly and minimal, is passing. I sometimes feel like I am playing a great trick on people ... but then I remember that I really do speak Russian and I really am communicating with them. I've come a long way in a short time with this language stuff - I have a long way to go to consider myself "conversational" - but I feel your prayers.

I am reminded every day by the confirmation of God that I am called to be a missionary. That's what this internship is all about ... to make sure that this is what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Quite frankly I couldn't imagine doing anything else!

Love, Michael.

I'm having a great time in Voronezh. We are working on a building that was in shambles when we got here. It's starting to look pretty good. There's a lesson in that somewhere.

It's been fun to be surrounded by Americans. It's an interesting mix. Church in 6 minutes. Gotta run. Much love, Michael.

So, funny story. I read the times wrong on my train ticket. Now, thankfully I gave my ticket to a Russian person a few days ago so they could plan when to take me to the train station. I assumed when we left the house several hours earlier than I expected that we would make several stops and visit several people on the way. I was more than a little embarrased when I realized that my train would arrive in Moscow at 8 AM ... that I would have 12 hours to find the next train station and that I had no plans in the meantime.

So, I'm at the seminary now. I went to the bookstore that sells English language books and bought enough for the next week. (I had finished all of the books I brought with me and had begun to read footnotes and index pages on all of them!) One of the girls from the seminary will be on the same train as me tonight, so we will walk to the train station tonight.

My Russian is passable. As long as I know the person, the person is willing to try very hard to understand, the person is not afraid to act out any word I don't know, and the person can understand when I act out words. My Russian is passable.

Love you all, Michael.

Hello dear friends,

I leave in about 2 hours for the train station. I have an overnight train ride to Moscow. In Moscow I will fight rush hour traffic on the metro (with all of my luggage) to get to a different train station where I will meet a team from America. Then I will take an overnight train to Voronezh.

I have no idea how often I will find internet there - it could be everyday, I have been pleasantly suprised every stop so far. But, with a team of 10 Americans, I doubt that we will all get to use it every day. We will be working to repair buildings at the newly purchased United Methodist church camp. I'm very excited about it. This will be the location of all of the annual conferences for Russia eventually. It's very exciting work.

Just in case I will leave you with some prayer requests.

* Pray that I make all of my connections (as I don't have my ticket, my team does.)
* Pray that we accomplish a lot.
* Pray for the Tver church. I love the city of Tver (having visited it on my first trip to Russia) and I found out this week that the Tver church has an average weekly attendance of 3.
* Pray that some of my german will come back (I took 3 years in high school) and it would be nice to remember simple phrases since half of our team will be East German.

I pray for all of you, that transitions will be smooth and that God will keep on showing signs of hope.

This isn't a staged picture. When Anna (the woman in charge of the center) talks, people listen.



Gala is one of the workers, she bakes great pastries!



This picture was posed. Haha.

I've had a rough couple of days here. I have been sick. My boss said that it was probably bad strawberries. She was sick too. I imagine it was the cold liver paste I ate for breakfast the other day, but no matter. I was sick. Now, these next two sentences might seem strange, but they're both true. I never have any time to myself. I'm incredibly lonely.

I was more than a little depressed the other day, what with being sick and feeling very alone. It's difficult to not be able to express - I'm an expressive person and it kills me to only communicate on a basic level. I read Dostoyevsky and Pushkin at night to combat this, but it still doesn't make me feel like I have communicated.

I'm no mother Teresa. I don't have that SupraCompassion that she exhibited. One of the patients at the Rehab center cut himself ... now 50-80% of the patients have AIDS and I don't know which ones do and which ones don't ... and I absolutely panicked. I watched him struggle to open a bandaide for 5 minutes without helping. Some days I wish I had that extreme level of compassion ... but most days it simply isn't there.

Love, Michael.

To all of my Supporters

Russia is a vast country and I am just beginning to explore! I have slept in 10 different beds these last 20 nights. Here’s a little update on what I have been doing these last few days. For more stories and updates you can visit my blog at michaelairgood.blogspot.com

I spent a few days getting adjusted to culture and language by visiting old friends in Konakovo, where I was a high school exchange student. It helped to bring back many words. Language is still a daily struggle as I wasn’t that great three years ago when I left and haven’t studied since.

I spent one week in Otradney. Patrick Whaley and I helped run a children’s camp. The children were wonderful to work with – and the children’s director was superb. Every day she ran most of the programs, cooked two meals for 12 people, and scrubbed every floor in the church. She begged me to come back after I graduate, what an ego boost! We also spent time with the un-churched husbands of church women. The pastor translated for us. Our goal was for the men to get to know him. We succeeded and maybe a few of the men will join their wives in church.

Currently I’m working at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Samara, Russia. There are a dozen people living at the center. It is a one year program. There is no smoking, drinking, cussing, sex, drugs or non-Christian music, TV, or movies. There is a lot of prayer. We wake at 6AM for prayer, breakfast, prayer, work, Bible study, lunch, prayer, work, dinner, and then the really intense prayer and Bible study begins. No fooling around after dinner – it’s a time for serious worship, prayer, and preaching. We go to bed after prayer, usually around midnight.

After church on Sunday, we went to a park to feed the homeless, as I have done on many youth trips. Arture and Andrey talked with two of the homeless men for quite a while. Arture shared his testimony of drug addiction and recovery. When our car came to pick us up I was very surprised when the two homeless men also got in the car. I couldn’t image where we would drop them off. Half-way home I realized these men were coming to the rehab center with us. I have few doubts that in a year both men will be drug and alcohol free, passionately serving the Lord. What a tremendous witness the United Methodist Church in Russia has; to not just feed the homeless but to offer them a new life!

A dacha is a country home surrounded by vegetable gardens. Every Russian who has shown me their dacha has faithfully pointed out every row and described what was planted where. I could care less. Here at the rehab center I have worked every day in our garden. I now understand why Russian people are so eager to share every row and plant with me – where I have seen endless greenery they see hard work, sweat, and blood. After putting in my own time in the garden, I get it. I hope in this letter you don’t see row after row of meaningless activities, but that you can see a little bit of the hard work, sweat, and prayer that goes into every day.

Next week I will travel to Voronezh to work with a team of Americans remodeling the United Methodist church camp there. Following that I will be headed to Khirov – Kira Volkova is a 24 year old church planter working to start a church in Khirov. She is training university students to start and lead a small group – the goal is that when these students leave the university for home they will have the skills and faith to start small groups in every town and village across the region. It’s a brilliant strategy and reminds me a bit of how Methodism was founded. I and two Auburn students will be working with her for a few weeks. Love, Michael Airgood.

(Oleg, the man who speaks a little English, praying at night.)


My first day at the rehab center went well. We traveled to another rehab center to visit the people there and encourage them.

Anna, the woman in charge, tells me that our model is the first church as described in the book of Acts. We work very hard to ensure community - by praying together and reading the Bible every day. "Church isn't on Sunday, it's our life."

I had one of the best conversations of my life last night. It was one of the best because it was entirely in Russian and I understood almost everything, and I think that Ilya also understood. We talked about how we became Christians and that his brother isn't a Christian. We read the Bible together and talked about the verses. We prayed together. It was completely a "God moment" because my Russian is still barely passable.



(Me and a friend at one of the rehab centers.)

One of the men at the rehab center speaks a little english. He mispronounces almost every word, but he tries so hard and I'm quite good at guessing ... I can see it makes him so happy when he can communicate. I'm pretty sure that our language skills are on the same level, but people tell me that I speak quite well with very little accent ... and as long as people speak slowly, address me by name before asking questions, and use the forms of the words I know I can understand quite a bit.

At the end of the day I am so exhausted I can barely think, but I know that God has so much to teach me through these people and I don't want to miss out on it because I am lazy. I remind myself of the fact that if I wasn't lazy I could be communication much better by now ... it motivates me to work harder. I'm still lazy, but I'm doing better.

I have the slowest internet imaginable, so I probably will only post once a week, but keep coming back, I might suprise myself.



(the statue of Lenin on the grounds of one of the drug and alcohol rehab centers. Since the state still owns the grounds it can't be taken down.)

Pray that my Russian will improve and that my heart will grow. Love, Michael.

Lisa

Lisa is eleven or twelve. She has pigtails and wears large bows in her hair, so it is easy to mistake her for eight. She's a little off. She talks loud, laughs louder, and doesn't quite fit in. She stumbles around during games, forgets simple rules, and occasionally cries when the boys tease her. She also makes new friends quickly and easily.

When we read "You Are Special" by Max Lucado, Lisa quickly grasped the meaning of the book. I could see in her eyes that something had clicked.

We lunched with Lisa's grandparents anв mother yesterday. They like that Lisa is interested in God: it isn't for them, but they're glad she's having fun and doing good. Her grandfather said that Lisa can make friends with anyone. They just bought a new Dacha (a small wooden summer house surrounded by a quarter acre of garden) and already Lisa is friends with all of the other children who summer there. We gave Lisa's mother the Max Lucado book to give to Lisa.

Today Lisa's shoes broke during a game of soccer. Shoes in Russia are very expensive. They are the cheapest quality imaginable and go for almost as much as high-quality name brands in America. Lisa cried because she was afraid she would get in trouble. The Pastor asked me if I would buy her new shoes. Since Lisa's family doesn't go to church I wanted to make sure they were not angry at the church for playing rough games. I was more than happy to buy shoes for Lisa.

We walked for a quite a while to the nearest children's shoe store. Pastor Roman held her hand the whole way, like a good shepherd. We found a good pair for only $30 dollars. (Practically a miracle!) Lisa was so thrilled to have new shoes to replace the broken ones.

I see in Lisa a great future. I see a wonderful church planter - easily making friends and easily sharing the good news of a God who uses awkward people to accomplish great things. When she tried on the shoes I was reminded of a verse I love dearly ..., " How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the Good News." I pray that she will continue to grow in the faith in this church and will one day live out the great future God has planned for her - a future of bringing the good news to a people in need of hearing.

New Plans.

So, there have been some major changes in my itinerary. I bought plane tickets to St. Petersburg to attend their Annual Conference, but a new door has opened here and I will stay here.

For the next few days I will be working and living at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. Many of the people living there have HIV/AIDS. I've been told that we wake at 5AM to pray and then we begin work. I will have very limited computer access for a while, but will post any chance I get. I will also have very limited access to indoor plumbing, and will use that every chance I get.

I'm very excited about this oppertunity. Sometimes God throws you into the place where your heart desires. This is one of those times. Please pray that I may be effective. I have been working on my Russian every day, but I will have no one to translate for me and will need to totally depend on God to give me understanding.

Sometimes the Russian United Methodist Church is viewed as a cult by the Russian people. Today I have a better understanding of "why." The UMC in Russia believes in a God who transforms lives. The UMC in Russia believes in a God who sometimes asks us to sell everything and give it to the poor. The UMC in Russia believes in a God who sometimes asks us to open our home to the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak, and the sickest of the sick. The UMC in Russia believes in people who do this everyday. слава Бог!

I think I'm teething. Yep ... I'm pretty sure my wisdom teeth are coming in. We start the children's camps tomorrow.

I had dinner with the Russian Elizabeth Taylor last night. Riiya looks like Liz Taylor and has the personality to match. She made a huge cake for us. Probably the biggest cake I have ever seen. The frosting was honey and butter. So tasty.


Riiya dances along with the music in the video of her brother's wedding.

We went to the river and had shishkabobs today. It was a great time and a lot of fun to meet all of the church women's husbands. There were 40 in worship this morning ... 5 of us male (2 americans 2 clergy and 1 husband) In Russia, church really is a woman's thing. But, we're working to change that.