Retirement……LOVE IT!

After a somewhat long hiatus from blogging, I’m finally able to post about my trip to Belarus.  In order to tell all about it, I’ve decided to break it up into several parts.

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Belarus:  What can I say?  It was beautiful, inspiring, thought-provoking, uplifting, historical, challenging, exhausting, C-O-L-D, fun, and full of the most heartwarming, sincere people I’ve ever met.

This was my first trip to Belarus, and my decision to go was “last minute” as a result of someone else not being able to go.  Like most people in my situation, I was expecting a “parting of the sea” or a “burning bush” moment where I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was calling me to make this trip.  There was no such moment; there was just a constant “tugging” on the strings of my heart to go and teach conversational English and share the love of Christ with the people of Belarus.

After traveling over 24 hours, we arrived in Minsk, Belarus, in the early morning hours.  As I went through customs, I was pulled aside by customs agents to have my luggage put through the x-ray machine.  I told myself, “Be calm; you have nothing to hide.”  Yea….that worked!!  <<sarcasm>>  They said something in their language, and, of course, I didn’t understand.  Then the customs lady asked in broken English if I had coins, and I answered that I did not.  Then they took me around to the screen and asked me what all these small dots on the screen were.  I was perplexed at first, as they asked me to open my suitcase.  Now I am beginning to get somewhat concerned, but I was amazingly peaceful inside.  God was showing me He was in control and He would provide for all  my needs during this trip.  Suddenly I realized what the “dots” were!  As I began unzipping my bag, I explained I had occasional back spasms and the “dots” were my Therma Care heat wraps that I had brought with me in case my back acted up.  I took several out and showed them the packaging with the pictures, and explained it was the little “heat” packs that showed up as the “dots” on the x-ray machine.  They were satisfied and said I could go.

We were scheduled to take about an hour riding tour of the city and some of the historical sites.  Since I hadn’t really slept at all while traveling the past 24 hours, I was very tired and the last thing I wanted was to ride around in the extreme cold in a van with a heater that couldn’t manage to put out much heat.  However, as we drove and listened to some of the history of this country, my exhaustion melted away and my interest in this country and its history piqued.  God once again provided for my needs in a most unusual way.  Here are a few pictures of Minsk.

The National Library

The house where communism was “born.”

Monument honoring those who fought in the war.

KGB building.

Memorial to the Jews that died in WWII.

More of the memorial to the Jews that died in WWII.

Well, that’s enough for today.  I’ll tell more about my Belarus trip soon!