Belarus Bound 2012

Christina Foucachon's Journal (4 April 2012)
Well today Megan and I had to wake up super early, and after breakfast we took a Belarusian bus! It was so packed, we could hardly breathe, but it was a funny and memorable experience all the same. When we got to the university, we spoke to an English class that our host sister attends, and it was interesting to see their point of view on Americans. When that was over, Igor, a member of Spasenie, led us to an orthodox church. Us girls had to wrap skirts around our jeans to respect their traditions. The inside was beautiful. Anyway, when the rest of the team arrived, we drove up to "old brest", the fortress and museum. Igor explained that not many Belarusians know the history of Brest, and talked about the wars and how there was freedom of religion back then. We visited the sites, the ruins of Old Brest and witnissed high school teens, marching in uniform. We had a very nice lunch waiting for us at the community center when we got back and we had team time after that. Jacob led us and talked about forgiving people, even if we ourselves have been hurt by people, to just really pray and go to the core of the problem and forgive one another. We then worked outside on the construction site for a few hours and had a good time even though most of us were sore from the day before and very tired. To finish off the day, we all piled into Sergue's car (in Belarus, you do not have to wear a seat belt and you can just squeze as many people into the car as you want); and we each went to a home church. Their home churches are like small groups for us. I had a wonderful time with mine as we all shared our testimonies, our struggles with non-Christian friends and we read a passage and discussed the vanity of humans and material things. It was amazing fellowship and I felt like people here have blessed me so much more then I have blessed them even though I was the one on the mission trip. Thank you Lord for this amazing experience! SPASIBO!