Unaware...

I don't know about everyone else, but one of my greatest desires is to make a lasting impact on someone. I suppose I should qualify and say that I would prefer the impact to be a good one! Sometimes I make acquaintances with people and it stays pretty much that - superficial, nice-tah-meet, soon you raccoon. Then I have the occasion to develop a relationship with someone and these are the moments I live for. During my two years at UC Davis, I met a lot of people. Seeing as I was a Russian major, 95% of my classes were in the Russian department. And I'm pretty sure you can guess that most of the people I met were Russian! These relationship meant so much to me. They were all healthy and I am proud to say that I am still in contact with these people today. Zhenya, Zhanna, Mila, Katy, Sabina and Anna. Each of these ladies contributed something to my life and I am so grateful for their friendships. We've laughed, gone on picnics, talked for hours, done homework together, camped, shared ideas on relationships and God and so many other things. But, what is most rewarding to me is to know that I gave something of myself to these girls. At least, during my time in CA, I tried. Well, today I got an email, from one of these lovely ladies, thanking me for my friendship and advice offered. Wow!! I was so happy. I didn't know how much our conversations meant to her. Sometimes, we can take ourselves for granted. And this only reminds me to keep myself focused, positive and on the path to reach my goals in life. No one knows when their conversation, actions or attitude can impact someone. Hopefully, it's for the good and you see the effects down the line.

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Church Search

Some time ago, D and I decided to visit some of the neighboring churches who practice our faith. Coming from a fairly large church ourselves, the adjustment from a congregation of over 1000 to only 30 has not been easy, to say the least. But, out here I don’t think the church attendance reaches more than 200 anyway. So, back to the subject at hand, in the first congregation we visited we found ourselves in an old church that could have leapt from the pages of a history book. Perched on a hill, its a-frame topped with an old steeple making it the highest point on the block, the brick building seemed tired and in need of a face lift. On this particular evening we happened to come late, I googled the church and the times of the services and apparently they were wrong. So, we tried to slip in quietly. Have you ever tried to slip in quietly to a church that has twenty pews and 10 people in attendance? Yeah, we didn’t slip in as much as we marched in, banging the back of the pew with Roma’s car seat and Cylas asking loudly where we were at. I tried shushing him sternly, but his curiosity is not easily abated. So, I pulled out all the books, toys and coloring books I could to quiet him down. The preacher was an older man with a head full of dark brown hair, a rather large pair of glasses, reminiscent of the 80’s, and a lisp that made the sermon so much more interesting to listen to. We were greeted with smiles from a sweet faced lady, who we found out later was the pastor’s wife. Shortly after we found our seats, the lights clicked off and the front of the sanctuary was lit by the beam of a flashlight. The preacher held the flashlight and waved it around trying to emphasize how important it was to ‘punch a hole in the darkness’. We left that evening with smiles on our faces. It was a cute church, but we wanted to visit it again on a Sunday to get a better idea of what their church was like. I suppose I should write about our Sunday morning visit in another post along with an account of what happened when we visited the second church…