Siberia

For the time being I am staying at the church with the lovely young couple who are working at this church. Sasha preaches and his sweet wife teaches at the school here, and takes care of all the goings on in the church. She prepares snacks, and cleans, and helps teach the children on Sunday...and does all the "preacher wife" stuff. (all of you married to preachers know just how much work this is!) We were sitting at breakfast Sunday morning talking around the table. He had dropped by McDonalds for an earlier breakfast and was sitting with us talking as Helen and I ate our breakfast. He brought us breakfast sandwiches, not McMuffins, but more like a Sausage Biscuit but with "salad" on it. I don't know for sure, but I don't think any of our breakfast sandwiches have lettuce and tomato on them. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never seen it. Now, you might ask what Siberia and McDonalds have in common, I will be glad to tell you. I was making the point to him that breakfast was basically the only thing I ate at McD's, I just don't care much for their menu. He was telling me the differences in US menu and Ukraine menu. As he was going thru the list, he mentioned fish nuggets. I'm not really a fan of any kind of fish from McD's but nuggets sounds like fried bread with fish parts to me! As the conversation went on, he said he really didn't care for fish too much. They lived in Siberia for two years and he ate a lot of fish....a LOT of fish. As he was talking about fish I thought about Bubba Gump...smoked fish...pickled fish...fried fish...baked fish...grilled fish...FISH. It was what they had plenty of and in the winter, pretty much all they had. His telling of the hardship there...negative 73 degrees celsius in the winter...ummmhhhh...NO! I'm just saying...that is NOT where this Texas chic wants to be in winter! And the mode of transportation to get there...looooooonnnnngggggg train ride, then a bus or van then on to a motorcycle with a DIY side car because there were no longer roads of any kind. Wow. His father wanting to be with the family and eventually wanting to share the Gospel with them. His family came from a Jehovah Witness background. When they actually looked at scripture, from watching TV preachers, they realized that some of the stuff they believed wasn't in the Bible, so they started searching for themselves. They went thru several denominations and ended up at the church of Christ. His father didn't force him to convert, just answered his questions for a long time. Because his father worked odd and plentiful hours, they communicated by him writing questions and his father answering them. Eventually, Sasha obeyed the Gospel. His father now preaches here in Ukraine, and Sasha went on to preach himself. I hope I got all the details correct, it is a fascinating story. Sasha ended up at Sunset here in Ukraine following a pretty young girl named Helen! Now, you may be wondering what McD's, fish nuggets, and Siberia have to do with each other. Funny you should ask! Because of Siberia, he doesn't like fish, McD's has fish nuggets that he likes, I commented "why do you like fish nuggets from McD's if you don't like fish?". "Because they don't taste like fish." There you have it, if you don't really like fish...go ahead and try the fish nuggets 'cause they don't taste like fish any way!