November 9-10 Moscow for CoMission and Children at Risk Conference

After being dropped off from my taxi ride, I met with the organizers of the conference. It was good to finally meet the people who invited me to Russia. Almost immediately, I was put to work. There had been a mix up regarding accommodations for conference organizers. In communicating with Russia, rooms had been ordered for specific "nights." Our dear Russian friends took that as the day we needed to check out. We were stuck without an apartment (we had a lot of people and apartments are cheaper than hotels in Moscow) for the last night. After looking at many different options, we settled on a three room apartment.

Now is when things get interesting. Andrew was arriving in Moscow and he was "slated" to stay with us. I could not go to the airport and I did not want him going through the mess of bargaining for a taxi. I arranged for him to be dropped off at this new apartment me had rented. Andrew arrived before I could get to this new flat. He was left standing outside in snowy Russia. WELCOME buddy! Anyway, we ended up finding him, things worked out fine.

Now we have five men and three women who are supposed to stay in this three room flat. This is not a three bedroom flat, but a three room flat. We had a room with a couch and two bedrooms with two double beds. Late in the evening, another woman had problems with her apartment and she also had to stay with us. Nine people stayed in that small flat that night! Andrew and I ended up sleeping on the floor, together, on a really small mattress. I believe that this was a great introduction to three years in Russia for my friend.

The Conference then started the next morning. All in all, I would say that it went smoothly. The speakers were good, the ministries represented were interesting and the I liked being back in Russia. The first day was in Moscow. We met a the second baptist church of Moscow. I was in charge of making sure everyone was on a bus list and all of the luggage was stored properly. This meant that I was the first person people met at this conference. I loved it!

Andrew and I greeted people all day. Then that night, I really got to work. None of the buses wanted to drive up to the church. they said they could not make the turn and the tree branches would break the skylights. Now we had to get just under 300 people to the buses. This was a logistical nightmare. The road was several hundred yards from the church. These people had bags and other items that needed to get on the bus. After devising a plan, we got all of the people on the bus. We now had another problem. We had $25,000 dollars of sound equipment to move to the buses. These large soundboard crates could not be carried by hand for such a long distance.

As I stood by the rush hour packed streets of Moscow, I new I had to do something. I bus load of people were waiting for me to make this happen. At that point I saw a "gazelle" in the middle of the street. Gazelle's are the equivalent of an American pickup truck. I ran out into traffic to see if I could hire him. He was not available. Another gazelle was several car lengths up. I weaved through traffic. Sure enough, he was empty and he agreed to move our stuff.