Volume Trois

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In the words of Hanmi Yang, who put it better than I could ever:

"...it [felt] as though i was in a place where time didn't exist... when i got home, there was a pile of mail on my desk, along with bills and some other things that i don't want to open just yet... and remembered that time didn't stop anywhere else. "

Our last weekend abroad felt like a stroll along the beach on a breezy evening... filled with joy, laughter, hugs, smiles, and tears... one final lap around the track before riding off into the sunset forever. This is the final volume of the diaries...

The Final Weekend | July 24-25, 2004

11:48pm

Better is ooooooonnnnee day... better is oooooooonnnnee day...
better is ooooooonnnnee... than thousands elsewhere...

You know, whenever I close my eyes and sing this song, I think of praise at Austin Stone. There's a member of that church that sits in a wheelchair in the aisle to the left of the center section, near the front row. He is physically/mentally impaired, can't stand up, and has to struggle with his every word and gesture. Most people, were they dealt the hand in life that this man was, wouldn't want to stand up and thank anyone for anything. Now I don't see this fellow for the other 167 hours of the week... but for that one hour, during praise time, this guy is seriously putting his back into it. My third week at Stone, I almost cried when I saw him giving his praise to God... I mean... it was just awesome. I remember saying to myself at the time, "Man... this is what praise is supposed to be all about... just giving Him everything regardless." At the time, Chris Tomlin was leading us in singing "Better is One Day", and when we sang that song during the praise portion of one of the devotionals this weekend, I closed my eyes and thought of that.

Saturday, July 24, 2004

With the craze of the 3-week English camp now on our heels, we basically played the part of American tourists on Saturday. Crazy 11-hour train rides... playing Texas Hold'em for M&M's (and for other much more disgusting things)... long random and heartwarming chats... card games for really disgusting punishments... stopping by the children's hospice with the adorable little Russian boys with HUGE eyes... yet another Russian museum (they all look the same ^_^)... Sasha the 9-year old violin wiz who is too good for any teachers to teach her anything... "this is a church... this is NOT Disneyland"... the hour-long boatride on a river that goes through China... and finally... FINALLY... Baskin Robbin's!!!

It was a really laid-back way to kick off our final weekend together. Through it all, I think there was a general sense among the team that a truly wonderful experience was winding down to an inevitable conclusion... and a sense that all of us wished for the ability to freeze time.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

On Sunday we attended the Korean worship service at Dongbu church in Vladivostok - where Heathsoul's father was the pastor! I thought the facilities to be quite impressive, but alas... the toilets were still ground-level holes. Albeit, they were really pretty looking toilets, but they were still in the ground. Some of us were joking that we'd rather have a cheap wooden SEAT than a jewel-laden porcelain hole-in-the-ground. :p After lunch at a so-so super-spicy neng-myun place, we did the bulk of our souvenir shopping in a local shop at a hotel and got some pretty good deals for our supporters back home.

Our Sunday evening devotional came from Luke 19:1-10...

Of the things that we do in a church...

Quote(s) of the day:

Pastor Jimmy Han, during his sermon at the Vladivostok church on the topic of worship in heaven: "You will NOT fall asleep!"

Dae's dad on killing dogs and other animals (regarding our impending encounter with boshingtang): "I know how to keeel!"

Monday, July 26, 2004

Guess what we ate for lunch today? . . . well... take this picture of Christine about to chow down on the mystery meat and imagine her saying a 2 syllable word that starts with a "p" and ends with an "uppy!"

Much of our final Monday was spent "debriefing", a course of action that was forced into one afternoon due to Hanmi and Hannah's plans to stay in Korea and not join the team in LA for the rest of the week. While we didn't have a great deal of reconciliation to tackle, there was still a bit of gentle rebuking to be done.

• • •

For dinner, we collected ourselves and showed our appreciation to the missionaries that had treated us like their own children for the past 3 weeks by taking them out to dinner [for once!] at a nice chinese restaurant downtown. The sweet-n-sour pork was excellent, as was the fried rice and the rest of the cuisine. Afterwards, we went around and gave our thanks to all of the missionaries in true "last-supper" fashion.

Afterwards, we returned to base camp and collected in the dining hall to share prayer requests with one another, as brothers and sisters of one body. Hearing about the lives of each of the missionaries and about the lives of their respective families was truly heart-opening. As we sat at those tables and opened up our concerns to one another, the tears were just flowing out of my eyes... I cried... and I cried... and I just couldn't stop crying... just an incredible bonding moment for the team and all of the missionaries.

By this point in our trip, safe to say our emotions were all over the place. We'd seen so much, and yet we knew that there was so much more for us to see. Returning to the "real world" of paying bills, meeting deadlines, and fitting back into the politics of the world and the church is not something I am looking forward to. For three and a half weeks, we've lived in a world that was not ruled by television and pop-culture and entertainment and distractions... Russian society has seemed to fill itself up with so much western heathenism. Without ample Christian influence, the people here have filled their lives with casinos, strip clubs, bars, massively insane amounts of vodka and cough syrup that tasted like rotten vodka, and yet... are we in America so different? Video games, sports, the Lakers, celebrity and electronics news, and the confusion in scrambling the proverbial rat-race... I mean... are we so different?

Perhaps that's one of the many questions we'll face up to when we return to our "normal" lives in America. I don't know about the rest of the team, but I personally feel like I can never go back to "normal" life again. For the rest of the evening, we cleaned up, packed, talked, hung out, reminisced... and enjoyed one final summer night in Vladivostok.

The Omega | a 36-hour July 27th...

began with a feast... a true feast... of king crab with chunks of meat the size of snicker's bars!

Our flight left Russia at around 4pm, and we would arrive in L.A. at around 3pm the same date (we actually spent a night on the plane, but crossing the international date line effectively knocked us back in time ^_^). In between, we said goodbye to two of the sisters, Hanmi and Hannah, whom I may remember as the cake-face twins =P. If you guys are reading this, I promise that I have never caked anyone before this mission trip!

Returning home is a difficult thing to do after a trip like this... but the challenge of doing so is one that is important for us to be able to overcome. Uncertaintly in job, school, ministry, and miscellaneous life situations await us in our respective domains, and they won't wait for us to adjust back to life as we once knew it. I look forward to seeing the commitments that we make for our lives in the coming weeks. I look forward to seeing where those commitments lead our 12 lives in the months to come. I know that for myself, there will be some pretty drastic changes coming about. I'm looking forward to the uncertainty of things to come.

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