All's well that ends well.

Or at least that is the saying, right? My Friday:

Technically speaking, my day began with me walking home from the nearest tochka.ru internet cafe and bar. Even with the foul mood I was in at the time, it is rather interesting to see two portly fellows huddled around a screen 'chatting' with who knows whom at 23:45. When I came home, I journalled (yeah, I decided to keep one of those things for the year while I was abroad, as if a blog isn't enough) and turned on the TV. It was the first time I'd turned it on since last Saturday night. On all three channels were American shows with Russian voice overs. Except in order to get the sound effects and music, the English was still audible. Just what I needed - to start watching a movie at 1. It was pretty good, but I don't know the name and the actors were all familiar, but I don't know their names either. The two main characters were a father and a daughter, both lawyers. For most of the movie they were fierce enemies, but at the end they collaborated and collapsed the firm the daughter worked for by creating a situation in which a partner at the firm perjured himself. Nice movie, and when it finished, the station turned off for the night.

Up around 8 and made my list for the day. It wasn't all that ambitious - just clean the tub, buy groceries, figure out what to do for the evening gathering, and use the internet to catch up on emails. I completed half of it, so that isn't too bad, huh? My tub is clean, sort of. I ruined one of my little scrubby pads on it and there is still an impossible stain in it. But at least now I know that the sick yellow colored water isn't from a dirty tub. It took longer to prepare for the evening's meeting than I was expecting, but I'm glad that I spent the time I did. I decided to approach the meeting as an overview: a story (Mark 6:17-29), some poetry (Psalms 45:1-9, Ecclesiastes 9:7-12), and a guideline to live by (1 Corinthians 13).

Since I really did not know what kind of people would show up, I opted for the graphic, gross you out lead in that would get attention. Recalling the fondness for exotic dances expressed by some of the students, I came up with a nice title: Bible Belly Dancing. I spent a fair amount of time preparing three handouts. I figured that side by side English-Russian translations might be helpful, especially the beginners.

Fortunately, I caught all my trams and arrived at the school about ten minutes early. Opened the classroom and pushed the desks aside. Chairs in a circle, I waited for people to arrive. Only two people in attendance at 18. Free talk went well. In one of the classes I mentioned something about golfing and they wanted to know what golf was. More questions about life in America. I was running out of things to say, so resorted to the pictures. Fortunately, I had brought my laptop along to print out the handouts, so opened it up and showed a few pictures of the family, brothers, animals, girlfriend, etc. People were really quite interested in seeing and hearing about home. I suppose I should have thought about that and either scanned more pictures in or brought some real ones with me. By this time the group had grown to about ten. I was a little bit curious where my translating lady was, but we seemed to be managing fine. A medium old lady came in and was interested. Maybe ten till 19, she asked me if I studied the Bible in my university. I responded that no, I didn't because I attend a public university and religion courses, per se, aren't offered. Then I went on to explain how last semester I had taken a Jewish literature class and for part of the semester we looked at Bible stories. I failed to mention that the rest of the time we learned about the correct way to exorcise dybukks and other miscreants, but it wouldn't have mattered - there were quite a few blank stares at this point in time. She then asked if we were going to read the Bible tonight and I said yes, in 10 minutes. This provided a time to clarify for everybody that they should feel no obligation to stay, but they were welcome to. A few minutes later I mentioned that when I was in St. Petersburg I visited the Hermitage, but it was so huge I didn't remember very much. So when I got back to Moscow, I decided to visit another art museum and really take my time. While at the Puskin State Museum of Fine Arts I saw a number of engaging canvases. One was of a man standing behind bars in a jail-cell, arms extended after his recently disconnected head which was in the process of being carted off by some sword wielding soldier. Knowing that a lot of art from this time period was inspired by the Bible, I checked it out. And what do you know, it was a Bible story. Nice segue, huh? I didn't get the response I expected. People thought that it was pretty sick. Maybe my fascination with garnished heads on silver platters is a bit whack. One man asked what the Bible was about after we read that story, as he had had no exposure to it. I explained it was like a mini library with books of stories, laws, poetry and other such things. He was looking for some assurance that all of it wasn't about rolling heads of the innocent.

Another thing that I didn't expect was that everybody said the Russian translation was difficult to understand. To my knowledge there is only one Russian Bible translation. If I am wrong, would somebody please correct me. I would love to get my hands on a more accessible translation. I'm nowhere near the level I would need to be to make one myself, but if anybody might be interested in paraphrasing parts for me to use, I'd appreciate it. A little more discussion followed after the Psalms and Ecclesiaastes reading. It was kind of funny when the old lady asked me if I enjoyed wine. She caught me a bit of guard. So I responded, that I don't really drink, but the text seems to say that wine is a good thing, so if a person wants to drink, it was sanctioned by the Bible. People got a kick out of the fact that I liked kvas though (thanks Deric).

Next topic was the love chapter. Surprisingly, both the English and Russian were very comprehendible by the students. They liked it, but we unfortunately did not have time to discuss it very much. If I judged things correctly, I didn't offend anybody this evening, and interested most of them into coming back out tomorrow for another round of Bible. If I had it to do over again, I might have chosen a different opening story. Some good discussion did follow anyway. My translator never did show up, but I didn't mind too much.

I returned home and had a few tomato sandwiches for dinner. While I was beginning to type this, the phone rang. Who should it be but my translating lady asking where I was tonight. Great! Turns out that she was in one of the other rooms waiting for me. Three students were waiting with her, but they found me after about twenty minutes. Conveniently, they didn't go back and tell her where I was. So we were maybe twenty feet away from each other the whole evening. The difference was that I had ten people with me and it sounds like she had 1. My first time out I really did have control, nobody else from the church or school with me. I must admit that it was pretty cool. Tomorrow I will not have time to make up the dual sheets, so I'm thinking about choosing a few stories and having everybody act them out. Good way to practice English too.