Our recent CRM conference in Langkawi, Malaysia eludes a perfect description — at least from me (Diana). But there is one aspect I will attempt to share with you, and this about “perfection.” When one travels, one should never, ever expect a perfect trip. Although most of us would include in our definition of travel…

Lydia started tearing up tonight as I put her to bed (when we always have our best conversations, though they drag on much too long!) as she began telling me about the plight of the little Christian school where they all attend part time. It suffers from two (no doubt) related matters: first, she and…

While at Hope Children’s Village yesterday, I got to talk with our hostess’ neighbor Ira, who also has 7 children, some biological, and some under foster care. I asked the two of them some questions about the state of foster care in Russia, and they turned out to be a good source, as they teach…

Today we visited a most unusual community, artificially created around a theme. If that weren’t unusual enough here, the theme is even more so: foster care. Some rich Russians actually got together with a heart to do the right thing, and created a foundation, and this community is the result. There are currently 10 families…

Russian is not hurting in the grand scheme of things as far as having access to a lot of good Christian literature. My problem is that much of what I see as critical for effective ministry here is not available. Part of the reason is that much of what I use in my discipleship and…

Dormant in my long list of dreams is the desire to start one or more businesses that would be a complement to the overall strategy of empowering Russian leaders toward a sustainable indigenous missions movement. My first run at this goal happened just one year into our new life here in Russia. God connected me…

If you have been thinking that all of our ministry is in Russia, then you may be surprised today. This summer Diana and I had a wonderful diversion from our normal work in Russia to serve a school in Indonesia. Let me tell you how God pulled that off for us to do something so…

As if our troubles on the way to Malaysia this month weren’t enough, our next leg of our Asia tour was even more fun. We arrived in Jakarta Saturday night the 24th and had to pass through the same two hoops as a week earlier on our way through to Malaysia: buying a visa, and…

We arrived today in Langkawi, Malaysia, for our missions once-every-four-years worldwide conference. There must be some great things in store, because I would hate to have experienced what we did to get here in vain: 5 flights over 44 hours having to completely start over, rechecking all our luggage 4 of the 5 times kids…

I’ve had an amazing number of letters responding to my recent newsletter on the crisis in Russian adoptions. As I’ve written back sometimes, it’s a blessing that God is bringing these issues to the surface so that His Body can cry out for a breakthrough. Here is one of these letters, which I thought I…