After having our flight canceled from Charleston, WV to Washington D.C., Jeannie and I drove to Washington D.C. to catch the transatlantic flight.  There were no problems with the remainder of the journey.  We were greeted warmly in Moscow’s Domodedovo airport by our translator, Olga Danilova.  We drove to Ryazan and settled into our hostess’ home to rest for the night before getting started with Day One.

Economic Development

I met with the Russia Economic Development group. Andrey Dorohov, Dima Makiva, Valoyda Kochnev, Andrey Krylov, Pavel Zhirov and Tamara Saveliyua, and David Bess were present. Olga Danilova translated. No new loans are  being made due to the present economic climate.

The group agreed to the following:

• No new loans will be made until a strong leader is in place from Ryazan.
• Future loans will be made at 7% interest rather than 5% interest, and the 2% difference will be used to create a delinquent loan fund.

We discussed how to improve communication between West Virginia Baptist churches and Ryazan Baptist churches. Email (with Google Translate), Facebook and three-way Skype calls (with a live translator) were all discussed as options. I am determined to work on better communication between WV and Ryazan churches.

Word of Christ Church

At Word of Christ Church in Ryazan Jeannie and I met with the pastor Volayda Kochev and his wife Vera, as well as a few church members. He and Vera have been married 32 years, and have two children and one grandson. They have a small church of 20 members, but are very active. They have age-graded Sunday School classes and visit often in a nearby hospital for children with cerebral palsy. They have a strong prayer ministry. They are grateful for financial support from WV, and used those funds to purchase a new computer for the church. They also have a puppet ministry, which consists of making their own puppets and ministering with them to a nearby children’s hospital.