But for this post, I'd like to present some photos that correspond with things we've already discusses. After all, on the Internet, I could just be anyone and how do you know this isn't all made up unless I provide some evidence to the contrary. And even if it wasn't on the Internet, you may or may not believe me then either. That's a lot of why I began these posts with a couple of major pieces of evidence to increase my credibility and also to hopefully convince you that I might be worth listening to and might have something worthwhile to say. But at this point in the game I confess that I'm getting a little nervous because it's risky for me to be so open about some things.
But for now, let's focus on these photos I've picked out from my modest collection.
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Pictures 1 & 2: Summer 1980
These two pictures were taken the first summer I began my intermittent work with Soviet emigres.
The first photograph was taken on an evening program we put together which included music, preaching and a skit. Here we are dramatizing the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:23-35), which describes a scene in which a lord asked repayment of debts from servants who owed him. In this process, one beseeches the master to hold off and he will pay him back, and, being moved, the master lets him go. But in turn, the forgiven servant goes asking repayment from those who owe him money. When of of his debtors similarly begs forbearance of him, however, he denies him his request and has him sent to prison. When the master hears this he calls his servant to him and reneges on his earlier kindness and has him punished for nonpayment of the debt. The message is that if we are forgiven, we should turn around and likewise forgive your offenders. I'm the one in the yellow t-shirt.
The second photo was taken on a retreat that we put on for the emigrants. Here we are in a group photo. I'm sitting down at the end on the left.
We did a lot of other things, including leading English classes, helping with material needs as we were able, providing a Russian library they could borrow books from, having Russian vacation Bible school, and the like.
That summer I was full-time, if only for the summer, but later on when I lived and went to school there I also helped out as I could, such as manning the emigrant center once a week in the morning and doing some visitation.
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Pictures 3 & 4: Sept. 1981, France
These pictures were taken during the ten-days I was a delegate with the Seattle-Nantes Sister City exchange.
The man in the front on the left in the first picture is Mr. Noyes, the one who physicist who worked with my father. He is taking with Lise, who is from Seattle, but worked in the sister city office in Nantes; she was also the one who picked me up the first night when I came in so late after that timing mix-up with the trains that I mentioned in an earlier post. Even though I was very wiped out after the long trip and short night sleep I still arrived in time for the official welcoming of the group by the mayor at city hall the next morning at 9 a.m. prompt, and there's a newspaper photo of the group from that morning which I should have somewhere.
The woman to the right who looks like she's talking was the mistress of the family who I stayed with after the first night. She came on several of the excursions with us as she was available to do so. They had 3 lovely children, and I remember meeting them for the first time the next morning (we had a long day and the kids were in bed by the time I got there in the evening) and they were all ready for school and lined up to meet me. They were very sweet kids.
The second picture was taken on one of our excursions, this one to the salt marshes where the famous "fleur de sel" is harvested. If you're unfamiliar with that salt, you can read with David Lebovitz has to say about it here: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2006/09/fleur_de_sel_de_1.html.
We really were taken on some wonderful excursion and treated to some fabulous food (and wine) while on that exchange. The mayor of Seattle was supposed to be with us, but the election was in November, and so he felt he had to attend more to campaigning.
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Pictures 5 & 6: Oct. 1981, Klender Dijk Park, Holland
When S., the Italian gal in our group and I went to Amsterdam on one of our long weekend breaks from studying in Belgium, we took a day trip to this windmill park, which includes trails and historic village-type buildings. (I really like those outdoor museums!). We didn't stick together as a group once the bus brought us there, and in the second picture here you see S. on a bridge over a canal as we wandered around the park.
I don't know what S. would think if she saw these pictures, because her major was photography and she had some lovely photos.
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Pictures 7 & 8: Oct. 1981, Madrid
The top picture here is of the 4 of us (I'm in the back on the left) at a restaurant in Madrid that we found and liked so much that we went back to it. Not only was the food wonderful, but with the strong dollar we got a full meal, with appetizers and dessert and wine for about $5!
Then in the second picture we were sort of given special attention and the musicians singled us out and played for us which was kind of fun too. It felt like a real local place that Spaniards frequented, rather than a tourist spot, which was an extra draw for us too.
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Pictures 9 & 10, Nov. 1981, Stockholm & Copenhagen
After our group settled down for another month of study, this time in Germany, we once again took advantage of the long weekends to travel around. This trip to Stockholm was the longest trip I took on a weekend break, but the weather was gray in Stockholm, so I didn't want to show you my dismal outdoor museum pictures from there. You'll just have to trust me that this picture of my exchange student friend was taken in Stockholm. We had train transfers in Copenhagen which gave a little time to explore around, and you'll probably recognized this famous mermaid statue from the harbor there.
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Pictures 11 & 12, Summer, 1983, Austria
These pictures were taken the summer I was on a short-term summer ministry, stationed in Vienna. Specifically, these two were from my work in the refugee camp at Bad Kreuzen. Austria had set up dorm-type apartments for refugees from all over, but many from Eastern Europe at that time. Hungarians, Poles and Czechs were amongst those we spent time with. We did a lot of different things while there including just chatting or going mushroom picking in the woods around the town. But we also had Bible studies and children's groups and helped with language learning and the like. We were always careful to time our visits after the meal times, because otherwise they were likely to give us the lion's share of their food out of their generosity.
The top picture is taken of me and a Hungarian women we visited a lot when I was with the refugee camp team. While each of the people in the refugee camps had various claims for requesting refugee status, this woman had a somewhat unique situation because she had to colored children, and because of that she wasn't well accepted.
On the week's we were at the refugee camp we actually lived in another nearby town in a gasthaus where our room and board were both provided. As we were preparing to leave for the summer our hausfrau, the woman that ran the house, gifted us a bottle of wine, which you see in this photo. I kept in touch for a long time with a bunch of people from that summer, including some of the people on our refugee team (and also some of the refugees we worked with).
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I hope you understand that I'm not just showing you these pictures just for the heck of it, but to let you get to know me more and to give you some more evidence to back my words so that hopefully my credibility will be built up as I continue on. I don't exactly have concrete evidence for every little thing I say, so I have to at least show you that my story is reasonably credible.
These pictures show fun times and fun things, but not everything along the way has been so pleasant.
