Saturday in May

Yesterday, Saturday, was one of our better Saturdays here, probably because we were involved in giving service.  Yesterday morning we went to the Moscow Anglican Church about a ten minute walk from the Kremlin and helped to weed their garden in preparation for next week's service celebrating the jubilee of Queen Elizabeth's reign.  The lovely old building was built in the late 1800s and looks like it's straight out of Devonshire.  It was seized by the Communists for many years and returned to the Church in the 1990s.  There has been an English church on the site since the 1500s, dating back to an agreement between Elizabeth I and Ivan the Terrible.  An earlier building was burned by Napoleon.   (He didn't much care for the British.)  The pastor - an exceptionally nice man - told me that during the Communist revolution the Red Guards had a machine gun emplacement at the top of the Church tower, and the parsonage still shows bullet marks from the White Guards.

Yesterday afternoon we met one of my home teaching families at Red Square and took their four young children for a few hours while the parents had some time alone together.  It was a win-win experience.

Late spring and summer in Moscow are as delightful as the winter is dreary.  We are enjoying the long sunny days and green trees in the parks.  KLynn is getting into the throws of her new assignment as General Officer of the International Women's Club, and she is still on the board of the American Women's Organization for the next few months.  My work continues to be interesting and challenging.

Bob