Awake, oh sleeper! - part 2

University!  Remember the excitement of moving away from home and starting up life as your own person?  Perhaps the random bits of culture shock from those days still bring a smile to your face. Or the dread of having to decipher the dials on the ancient coin-fed laundry machines as you washed your clothes in an unfamiliar laundromat.  Or the sudden wonder at meeting an old acquaintance on campus where you thought you didn't know a soul.

Becoming a Bear!

For me, most of those new experiences centered on the marching field.  Three months following my graduation from Brooklyn Center High School in Minnesota, I could be found with 100 other students rehearsing formations under the merciless August heat of Central Texas.  New friendships formed and sweat poured off freshmen and seniors alike as the 1997 Baylor University Golden Wave Marching Band prepared for football season.

The dreams of 1995 were still marching around in my heart.  I dove into my class work with passion, knowing that the Russian language, Slavic history, and science courses each played a vital role in preparing me to join the work of proclaiming Jesus in the former Soviet Union.  With the same zeal I sought out a church where I could continue to grow in my newly blossoming faith.  High school had shown me the importance of community, and I knew that if God brought me across the country to give me an education, He certainly had a fellowship in mind with whom I would grow spiritually.

It would be another five months before I found my church home.  Highland Baptist Church, which started Antioch Community Church two years later, reminded me of the people I had worked alongside on my trip to Tyumen, Russia.  This fellowship worshiped 'in Spirit and in truth' and carried a brilliant passion for the nations to know Jesus.  I was honored that Abba had shuffled me their way.

Life beyond classwork filled up with fellowship, discipleship, and outreach as older believers challenged my friends and I to live out our faith.  Waco provided ample opportunities for learning to love, if one was willing to pop outside of the "Baylor Bubble".  Ministry to inner-city kids.  Half-night prayer meetings.  Joyful times of spontaneous worship  This was a beautiful season!  Antioch soon became my home away from home.

It would be with this new family that I again stepped into Siberia.  In July of 1999 a small contingency from the new Antioch worship team opened up their mission trip to Russia to any who wanted to love and serve alongside them.  With flute in hand I returned to the nation that had filled me with wonder, this time to eastern Siberia.

Team at Red Square in Moscow, Russia

Again I found myself immediately at home, building friendships that would last for years, and rediscovering the overwhelming love of God for those who do not yet know Him.  We began our journey in Irkutsk, on the western shore of breathtaking Lake Baikal.  At a picnic with Put k Istinye, the local Russian church, a girl joined us out of curiosity and a desire to practice English.  By the end of the day she had surrendered her life to the Lover of her soul.  And the rest of the week my friend and I spoke truth to her and began to teach her what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus.  This was why I was here!

Picnic with Путь к Истине, "Way to the Truth" church

Ladies from Путь к Истине, "Way to the Truth"

After ministering and making friends in Irkutsk for a week, we boarded a sleeper car on the Trans Siberian Railway bound for Ulan Ude.  This was my first train ride outside the United States, and I enjoyed soaking up every moment of it.  Laying down on the top bunk I watched the Taiga fly past our window in shadows and sunbeam-lit shades of green.  Soon we passed a village of perhaps 50 homes; wooden cottages with intricate, brightly colored shutters gave a break to the verdant display.  Soon the forest resumed its place.  Some time later another village emerged from behind the foliage, only to be swallowed up by the next stand of trees.  Again and again the same scene repeated.  And by the time the sun was slipping below the horizon a question rose up in my heart.

"Abba, who is going to these small places?  Is anyone remembering the villages?"  I could tell you of many believers making Jesus known in cities around the world, but did not personally know who was working among the 'least of these' when it came to remote locations.

As the dome lights inside our sleeper car overpowered the dwindling sunlight, I could no longer make out the forest beyond our window.  But my heart had been forever marked.

Quiet tears ran down my face and desperate pleadings for laborers filled my heart as the rhythm of the rocking train lulled me to sleep.  "If you don't have anyone, Abba, please send me."

And Abba drew near, caught my tears, and listened.

Awake, oh sleeper! - part 1

Dreams.  I hope you have one or two.  I hope they are bigger than you.  And I hope you have not given up on them.

Dreams ~ Photo take at St. Basil's
Cathedral Moscow, Russia 1999

What did you want to be when you were 5?  When you were 12 what did you imagine yourself becoming?  At 18, with your first steps into adulthood, in which direction had your dreams pointed you?

May I share my dreams with you?  It is my joy to do so - for this is a story of dreams coming true.  And the amazing thing is, more of them keep being added to my "about to check off the bucket list" list.

The road to these realizations has been long.  Many dreams were added along the way, like pretty pebbles picked up along the beach.  I wasn't always certain what would become of them.  Sometimes pebbles stay in your pocket.  Later they fall out in the wash.  Then they get picked up and put on a shelf.  They look pretty, but are they useful?  Will they ever become something more than a hoped for destiny?

My dreams probably began earlier than I can remember.  According to my grandmother I wanted to be a missionary when I was 6 years old.  Sometimes we forget our dreams.  God is good at remembering what we forget.

My earliest memory of my dreams began on a lazy summer day in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota in 1995.  One month past my sophomore year found me busy reading the books I loved and delving into various artistic expressions.  As I worked away on some new craft while sitting on my bedroom floor, stories poured from my radio to fill up the silence.  A doctor was sharing about his experiences on his recent medical mission trip to Russia.  My ears perked up.  The Soviet Union had collapsed three short years before this, producing a sudden interest in all things Russian across our nation.  The change in the political climate of Moscow also provided me the opportunity to study Russian as my foreign language the previous 2 years.

I caught only a few more words as the doctor shared his story.  Now pictures were flooding my mind.  Faces of men, women, and children.  Faces that I had never seen with my own eyes burned their way into my soul.  I could identify them as being from the former Soviet Union.  And I found myself weeping.  They didn't know Jesus yet - they probably had rarely if ever heard His name.

Central Asian girls in Moscow

My own journey with Jesus was only a couple years old.  Although I had prayed to accept Him when I was six, it wasn't until I was 14 that I learned to talk with Him and discovered what it truly meant to follow Him.

My own recent beginnings with Jesus made me keenly aware of the dichotomy between life with and without Him.  And I found myself weeping over faces and hearts that had not yet had the chance to know this Lord who gave me Life.

Shaken and shocked by the experience, I sat on my pink and green rug hugging my knees.  "Jesus, they don't know You, do they?  Do You want me to go tell them?"  I had to get to Russia and find out what this was all about.

One year later I landed with a group of passionate teenagers in Tyumen, Russia, the 'gateway to Siberia'.  And I fell in love!  The taiga forest, the lakes and rivers all reminded me of Minnesota.  And the people!  God again filled me with love for these people I did not know but whom He had loved since the creation of the planet.

And what a joy to tell them about this life that I had found in Him, inviting them into joy and peace and relationship with the Father.  Little time-worn babushkas, rough construction workers, ladies who served us tea in their homes, farmers tending their potato fields, children playing on dilapidated jungle gyms.  All listened as we shared this good news of life in Jesus.  And although only a handful responded, they all got to hear!

Leaving Tyumen nearly broke my heart in two.  What do you do when you dive into a dream bigger than yourself, but have to leave before it is completed?  I was learning what it meant to put my dreams into the hands of the One who calls Himself the Beginning and the End.  But I also asked to come back.  Three summers would pass before I walked in Siberia again.