How I got to this place... (Part 3)

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ESV)

Continuing on from yesterday's post with the 3rd and final installment...

In late winter 2003, Aleksei came to the U.S. for the first time, on a trip to St. Louis as part of the the LCMS' Apple of His Eye ministry. Our pastor helped fly him to Texas on his way home (I had never met him in person and he stayed at my house) and visit with the congregation. While he was there we forged a “sister congregation” relationship with his in Moscow.

I should note here that also that in the fall of 2003 the same principal who had hired me two years earlier gave me permission to offer a one class (30 students maximum) Russian 1 course in the coming spring semester, even though I wasn't certified to teach secondary Russian (I did certify on my own in secondary English after becoming certified to teach ESL-- at the time I was teaching ESL and junior English). I successfully recruited over 60 students who were interested in taking Russian, then had to face my visibly irritated principal who told me the counselors would be paring the number down to 30 by seniority, upperclassmen first. But the inaugural Russian 1 class started in January 2004; by the end of the year I was certified (not an easy process for a "Lesser Taught Language" in Texas). When I resigned my teaching position to come to the seminary, I was a full-time Russian teacher (all levels, including Advanced Placement). The Russian language has been a central thread, at least until this past June, in the colorful and sometimes confusing tapestry of my life...

In the summer of 2004 I received a Fulbright-Hays educator grant to spend a graduate semester at Moscow State University. I hand-carried a love offering of $2000 that my congregation raised to help the daughter of one of Aleksei’s families that had been badly burned in an accident (and needed surgery). I was able to worship with his congregation in Moscow every Sunday while there. It was then I was certain that God was calling me to use my Russian to give back in His service.

In 2005 I wrote a letter to the president of the LCMS, explaining that I felt God gave me the second language of Russian for more than military work, and that we had missionaries of all colors, cultures, and languages, but nowhere in the U.S. was there an LCMS Russian-language outreach. Our district office made a call to the seminary here in Ft. Wayne and I was accepted into a 30-course, non-traditional online program designed to lead to ordination, which I completed in 2010. It was during this program that I served as a vicar (pastor intern); I led Russian language worship services (and when our only pastor had major surgery, the congregation allowed me to fill in for him while he recovered). Some Sundays I arrived at church at 6am and left at 5pm—it was tiring, but a good tiring and GREAT experience! (Our pastor and I “tag-teamed” a bilingual marriage ceremony for two members in the congregation—American groom and Belorussian bride—and I was even afforded the experience of guest-preaching at a number of congregations in the area).

In the summer of 2008, during my last trip to Russia (with a few of my high school Russian students), and I was invited by Aleksei to give the sermon during a Sunday evening worship service in Moscow (I was still a vicar), one of the singular, coolest things to have happened in my life-- to preach in Russia to Russians in Russian (and in front of a few of my students who asked if they could come along with me to church)!

Fast-forward to the present and here I am on the cusp of a year as a full-time seminary student. I can't help but look back and notice God's hand in the events that brought me to where I am now. Actually, I think I can single out some of the more salient "God moments" over the course of the past half-decade:

• Being born into a loving family bruised by addiction; my father's alcoholism led me to a strong relationship with my uncle (who passed in January; I received a call from the seminary that I had been formally accepted minutes before the start of his funeral) and to the United States Navy, where...
• I showed up one Saturday morning to enlist to go to air traffic controller school (the recruiter promised), but after a series of tests was asked whether I would like to learn Arabic, Chinese, or Russian and get paid a signing bonus ($1,500, which was like a million dollars to a 17-year old)...
• In the summer of 1981 I called my father from a payphone at the Defense Language Institute nearly in tears because I had been put on academic probation; thankfully, my primary Russian teacher (a very kind woman whose family had gotten out of the Soviet Union during WWII and emigrated to the U.S. from Germany-- I'll never forget her) took a liking to me and my three buddies...I think she cooked the books.
• I was barely 22 in January 1985 when I met a 20-year old girl upon return from a submarine deployment on the base in Japan where we were both stationed; she was Lutheran (which meant little to me then) and we were married by an LCMS chaplain 9 months later and last fall we celebrated our 30th anniversary (in a generation where divorce is rampant)...
• I returned to the same school for Intermediate Russian in 1986, but my Russian was so bad that on the first day when the Russian-speaking dean asked me-- in Russian, in front of the class-- if I was getting warm sitting by the heater (I knew he said this because he had to repeat it in English), all I could muster in summer white sailor suit was "Thank you!" in Russian, which elicited laughter from the other students and probably made me look like a strawberry parfait. That was a turning point, too...
• After completing Advanced Russian in 1990 (6 different classes each day with 6 different Russian native teachers, some who could say three words in English), I was sent begrudgingly to instructor duty in Maryland, where I showed up the first day to take a seat at my desk in the middle of an office of the Navy's best Russian linguists. I was really nervous and felt unworthy of the job the Navy had assigned me. While I was there, I fell in love with teaching, got top scores on all my required proficiency tests, and finished my bachelor's degree with a Russian major...while the Soviet Union was collapsing, so...
• I volunteered for recruiting duty to get us back to Texas, where we bought a house and where I would become Lutheran.
• The fall of the Soviet Union meant that I would not be able to reenlist at he 17-year mark as a Russian linguist, but would have to take another type of duty precipitating my request to retire at 20 years exactly and return to our house in Texas, where...
• I applied to teach high school English at the regional service center in Ft. Worth, but was turned down because my major was Russian and, they said, I would need 6 hours of upper-level English to meet the minimum requirement for consideration. That was the start of about 5 months of job hunting that was a downward spiral...
• Sometime after I left the service center, somebody saw on my application that I was a veteran and sent my paperwork to the Troops to Teachers office in San Antonio which, in turn, sent it to a woman who was starting the state's first private alternate certification program; this woman had retired from the district that hired me and was an acquaintance of the principal who called me while I was still in Baltimore (I found out all of this well after the fact)...
• In August 2010 I flew up at my own expense to the seminary from Texas for a theological interview (the last step in the seminary's certification process for ordination) and, though I had prepared, was really nervous. After giving the wrong answer to the first question, the rest of the interview was a disaster. I couldn't understand how I could do so well in the prescribed 30 courses and then tank in front of two professors in a 45-minute Q&A session. God's plan for me at that point was lost on me...

God's Grace is indefinable. Along the road of my life there have been persons who have not given up on me, even when I began to give up on myself. And along this road, since I graduated high school and joined the Navy, the signs have been in Russian. Until now-- or so it seems, which puzzles me. I wonder if the Russian language figures into my future? Maybe God has decided that after 35 years, it's time for an entirely new direction...

I just don't think so.

And that's how I got to this place. What a long, strange trip it's been, but to God be the glory! Through all the trials and tribulations, the achievements and celebrations, the disappointment and discouragement...my faith has grown from an acorn to a mighty oak! I believe, deeply in my heart and soul, that with God in Christ I can weather the storms that are bound to come before my time in this world is up. And that, brothers and sisters, is the moral of the story-- God's story in my life, which continues with the start of my seminary program on Tuesday!

С Богом!

P.S. Coming tomorrow: She called her pastor to come bless her house (because of spooks), but her pastor told her he wouldn't do that until she got someone to "smudge" her home...