PROPOSED CULTURAL EXCHANGE TO SIBERIA IN FEBRUARY

I would like to propose a cultural exchange trip to the Far East, Oceanside (Primorskoye) area of Russia, to the city of Vladivostok and its suburbs; and to the city of Khabarovsk in Siberia, about 800 Miles N/NW of Vladivostok .. an overnight train ride. The purpose of the trip will be to fellowship with Eurasian folks with a cultural exchange presenting workshops on American musicals like "Oklahoma!", "The Music Man", "Carousel" and "Camelot" to kids and adults in drama clubs and ESL schools.

For one month in the spring of 2010, and for two months in the winter of 2011, I was blessed to stay with a friend I have known since childhood. At the time she was the Cultural Affairs Attaché at the US Consulate in Vladivostok. During that time, as you may remember, I was working on my Doctorate of Ministry in Missional Evangelism. My doctoral project was to develop a Seminar in Basic Christian Spiritual Practices in Russian for the people of the former Soviet Union. One goal was to see the connections between Russian Orthodoxy and the Social Holiness Movement of Methodism.

Along the way, in both 2010 and 2011, I attended a special meeting called an English Olympiad at a private foreign languages school near the Vladivostok Airport, with my friend, the Cultural Affairs Attache. It was delightful to meet and interact with the students who were between the ages of seven and seventeen. They were very interested in American plays and musicals, so I was enchanted to see their enthusiasm.

In addition, the first time I went to Russia on a UMC VIM trip, I arrived in Moscow in December 27, 1993. I was escort-interpreting for a group led by the chaplain from a college in Indiana that had been founded by the Methodist Church. We had exchanges with children, teens and adults who were involved in youth groups and special interest clubs including music clubs, English language clubs, archeology clubs and geology clubs.

There was much joy and enthusiasm as we spent most of their winter holidays with them in a town called Obninsk that was the center of the Soviet nuclear power research and development. It is about 180 Miles S/SW of Moscow in the Kaluga Oblast (like a county in the US). It is home to the first Soviet Nuclear reactor, six of which were built partly from plans of the first US nuclear reactors, plans that were stolen by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were incarcerated and then became martyrs to their cause.

Another of the first six Soviet nuclear reactors was the one near Chernobyl in Ukraine that destroyed itself in the spring of ‘86. Again, as you may remember, my special interests when I was an US Air Force Intelligence Officer were Soviet political and military affairs, space, missile nuclear and advanced weapons developments. That sheds a bit of light on my particular interest in Obninsk from my pre-Ministry background.

One of the highlights of the VIM trip was singing Christmas carols to and fellowshipping with patients in the city hospital in Obninsk. At the time there were dire deprivation conditions because of the break-up of the former Soviet Union. The system had failed in such a way that there was very little food and there were almost no pharmaceuticals. The hospital staffed focused on treating patients with cancer and doing research. Nevertheless, at the time that we were there, they had less than thirty patients in a hospital that had more than 600 beds.

Of course, for the 35 Americans on this VIM trip, we had pretty much emptied out drug cabinets to come omg the trip, so we were able to share everything we had left. And we made reports to the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries and its emergency mission and aid arm, UMCOR about the problems. From that time the UMC was very involved in helping the people of Russia and the former Soviet republics.

Besides singing the Christmas carols on Epiphany, which is also the celebration of the Nativity for Orthodox churches, I read the Christmas story from Luke’s Gospel in Russian. The Bible that I used was one that some Americans had tried to smuggle to Russia in the packaging of some pipeline coating materials that the company my father worked for was selling to the Soviets from the late 60s. (This was in the pre-Detente Era, and was accomplished with permission of the US Government, and with the aid of the Italian government and Italian businesses.)

A Christian organization was operating in and around New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to smuggle the Bible’s to Russia. When the Soviets first detected the Bibles making lumps in heavy polyurethane wrapping around the stacks of boxes holding the pipeline coating materials together on the main deck of an ocean-going barge, they threatened to cancel the mult-million dollar deal.

At that time I was working on my BA in Russian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, so it was very special that my father was able to give me one of those Bibles and that I was able to read from it the first time I was in Russia, twenty-five years after I first began to study the language and culture while I was a junior in high school.

I hope people will want to join me on this cultural exchange trip. Being from the warmth of the US Southeast, they may be wary of going to Siberia in winter. However, it is really beautiful and it would mean a great deal to the Russians to see that we would make such an effort in the winter.

Houses and buildings are very warm, and when it is sunny in the city of Vladivostok, tucked into The Golden Horn inlets and islands off the Sea of Japan, even the air at 20 below zero Fahrenheit is very fresh. There are sports and celebrations like Ice Sculpture shows, and the Russians are wonderful hosts.

The city of Khabarovsk is about 800 miles North/Northwest of Vladivostok, on the longest of the great Siberian rivers, the Amur. It lies on the border with one of China's NE provinces. The weather might be 30-60 below zero Fahrenheit, which just means you need to bundle up and especially have good thick water-proof boots. On a sunny day ice crystals sparkle and float in the air.

The Russian cuisine is delicious, but the cities have a lot of international and cosmopolitan restauranrs as well. I am sure we would enjoy fellowship with the people we meet. There will no doubt be opportunities for concerts and cultural/historical tours as part of what we would do.

What do you say?

SOME OF MY MEMORIES OF MILITARY SERVICE

Always think of my dear friends with whom I was blessed to serve in Alaska.

From January 1983- February 1986, I was one of the wing intelligence officers serving the 21 TFW of the Alaskan Air Command and the pilots and staff its two squadrons -- the 43 TFS with F-15s; and the 5031 TFS With T-33s. 

Before that, I was blessed to be assigned on Patrick AFB from November, 1981- January 1983, as an air intelligence officer at the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC). I helped monitor the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and other nuclear treaties. Our shop also provided intelligence support to the commander of the Eastern Space and Missile Center. I took part by briefing intelligence aspects when missile test operations took place, including the Naval Ordinance Test Unit on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station when the first US solid rocket fuel submarine-launched ballistic missiles developed for the Ohio Class subs were tested down range into the Atlantic Ocean.

I also briefed on intelligence concerns before manned and un space missions. Then, for the same missions beginning with STS-4, I flew as a non-rated aircrew member flying with the pilots and aircrew personnel of the CH-3 squadron that cleared the launch danger zone and performed other missions before, during and after those same manned and un-manned space launches at Kennedy Space Center. The requirement to fly had to do with my B.A. degree in Russian language/Russian and East European Area Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Because I had been a non-rated aircrew member who was able to fly under aeronautical orders on all versions of the CH-3 -- "Jolly Green Giant" helicopter; on all versions of the C-135; all versions of the C-130; and all versions of the IUS Navy P-3 Orion Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft. (The last three aircraft were used to help monitor the nuclear test ban treaty in the Broad Ocean Area of the Pacific.) Because of the aircrew status I had (among other training) ejection seat training, altitude chamber training and barometric pressure cabin training. 

Due to having completed the aircrew training, I was therefore qualified to fly in fighter aircraft as well. So I was blessed to fly with the pilots of the 21 TFW, and was the first woman to fly an F-15 above 10,000'. I flew during a 4v4 Air Combat Training (ACT) Mission over the air space north of The Alaskan Range where Denali (AKA Mt McKinley) is In preparation for our deployment to RedFlag, the USAF version of 'Top Gun," the US Navy's Fighter Weapons School popularized by the Movie of the same name starring Kelly McGilles and Tom Cruise, etc all. 

We flew faster than the speed of sound several times, and they let me fly for a bit. Afterwards I called my parents and Mom answered the phone. At one point she interrupted my enthusiastic description of the flight, saying, "I can tell you are excited, Kath, but I don't know what an F-15 is!"

After quickly explaining that it is a fighter jet airplane, I replied, "Please put Dad on the phone!"

But I have written of this in the past in even more detail, so will leave it there, now . . .

😊❤️😊❤️😊

WHEN I AM ASKED . . .

SOMETIMES WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME WHY I SERVED OUR COUNTRY AS A US MILITARY OFFICER . . .  I tell them what it was like to hear about World War II when I was a child, and to see the photos of my uncles in their service uniforms on our grandmothers’ dressers in their bedrooms.  I explain that as little children we collected pennnies for UNICEF and dimes for the March of Dimes. We were encouraged to eat everything that we were blessed to have on our plates because there were still little children starving in Europe and in Asia and in Africa and in the Western Hemisphere — and very sadly, in our nation, also, especially amongst our minorities and indigenous peoples.

I tell them that as a Baby Boomer, we were the grandchildren and children of our citizens who in many cases had recently come to America for the freedom and opportunities they wanted for us and for themselves. They often had suffered and sacrificed great deal in the Depression and during the war, but they had gathered themselves together and worked the best they could for their families, their neighbors, their local communities, their states and our nation.

I was raised to be aware of the blessings of freedom; of the responsibilities that came with the rights and privileges we shared with each member of our nation and with each stranger and guest. I was raised to believe that service, sacrifice, honor, privilege and respect for our ideals as Americans were part of the sacred trust our Founders—men and women—had passed down to us.

There is no higher privilege than to serve God in whatever way anyone may conceive th Divine, true to a person’s culture, history, ethnic background, mind and heart. From that point, we serve our family members and our neighbors by serving our nation.

That patriotic service is grounded in duty and honor, but not (for the most part) required. So I always feel blessed to have volunteered and been accepted as an officer of the US Military serving my country. I learned how to do it through the examples and encouragement of my family members; my pastors and church family members; my teachers and the staff members of my schools; our neighbors and our friends show included Brownie and Girl Scout leaders and 4-H leaders.

I thank and bless God for all of them and for the blessings that God has bestowed on our nation.  We were not given all we have to hoard it, but to use it to help and serve others. 

I pray that with God’s help we will be able to return to the Lord and let God know that we are here as His servants to do whatever the Lord has for us to do with the help of the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus.

May God bless America and may we all bless and thank God for any and every opportunity we have to do that with the Lord’s help.

In Jesus’ Holy Name I pray. Alleluia! Amen and amen.

MOONSET AT SUNRISE

When the moon stays up all night

to welcome the sun and changes

into the colors of the dawn . . .

it can be somewhat disorienting,

I know.

But as long as you keep

your sense of direction

while all’s looking out for newly hatched

green turtle

or loggerheads,

You’ll Be okay.

And anyway, if you have

been faithful to your dream

State and basically

Sleepwalked

out your apartment door,

‘down the hallway filled with

musky mold and spores,

Out the heavy exit door using

the panic bar,

Across The saw blade grass

heavy laden with dew that

is really thick ocean fog . . .

Being careful to look both ways

Two lanes each side of A-1-A,

then across the crunchy with

many mini broken shells,

Mostly white.

Up a few steps to the top deck

of the overlook

of the dune crosser.

Pausinf for a few minutes

to make sure the moon

is faithfully lingering above

The Western horizon over the B

Banana River and

the Indian River and

the East Northern Central

Florida manland

Swampy

Sandy

Rife with alligators

crocidiles

water moccasins

some cougars

Lots and lots of birds

Frogs,

other snakes

more mosquitos than you can imagine

Dung beetles,

tarantilas,

parakeets

eagles

pelicans

sandpipers, terns,

peacocks

glassy snakes that live in the rivers and

curl up around the childrens’ wrists

foxes

wolves . . .

I know I am leaving a lot out, but that

is what the Brevard County Zoological

park and the natural history museum

Busch Gardens and Walt Disney World

Sea World, but not Dino World

are all about.

But be sure and look east from the

Top of the overlook while

the Eastern Horizon is still

pinkish orange if your

lucky with only the prettiest

Dawn-enhancing clouds.

And please do stay up there so

yiu can keep close tabs on the setting

moon

As the rising sun gently pulls itself up

out of the big Atlantic drink

And for a while lines the breach

between you and the horizon

About seventeen miles away

with a bright shining golden path.

Even though my body can’t,

i encourage my soul to walk on

straight east over the path.

The view is worth it.

— Kathleen Ware Harris, October 22, 2017

I STAND BY THE DOOR -- A MEDITATION ON THE POEM BY SAM SHOEMAKER

"I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world—
It is the door through which people walk when they find God.
There's no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is."

While I served the people of the three churches in rural West Virginia in the mid-90s, a growing restlessness nagged. I loved the people there very much -- and still do. But they already knew the Lord.

They had a special knowledge and joy that is missing from people who don't know the love of God in Christ. So many people don't even know what they are missing.

Or they have long ago rejected a relationship with God for what they think are very good reasons. Nevertheless, they often feel there is something missing from their lives and they try to fill the void they perceive.

They may fill it with the busyness of work, work, work.

They may find themselves hooked by addictions to a variety of substances, unhealthy relationships, or other distractions.

They may be "looking for love in all the wrong places" without even knowing that they are really seeking God. The fullness of God's love is available to everyone.

But there are many forces, circumstances, people, and mindsets that keep people from being able to receive the love and blessings God has available for them to receive and to share with others.

How can they find the way unless someone (or many people) who have found it help them?

"And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind people,
With outstretched, groping hands.
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it ...
So I stand by the door."

The saddest thing in the world to me is the way people suffer when they don't know they are loved.

So much suffering comes from not being able to receive God's love and the benefits of God's grace and mercy. Those of us who know have a responsibility to minister in love to those who do not know.

This does not mean that we should be judgmental.

This does not mean that we should behave like we belong to an exclusive club that people have to dress, act, and speak a certain way to be able to join.

This does not mean that we should ever think we are better than those who are struggling with the hardships of life all alone.

"The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for people to find that door—the door to God.
The most important thing any person can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch—the latch that only clicks
And opens to the person's own touch."

Please just think about it for a minute. How did you come to know God's love in Jesus Christ?

Do you know it?

Were you raised in church?

Did God find a way to reach you in a youth group?

Were you at the very lowest point in your life and heard an evangelist or a preacher?

Was someone kind to you and invited you to church?

Did you feel that you should seek help?

What was it like when you first came to believe? How did the Lord prove Himself to you?

"People die outside that door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live, on the other side of it—live because they have not found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him ...
So I stand by the door."

Yes -- people die!

And they are dying without knowing the wonderful love of God in Jesus Christ.

This love can be a feeling inside ourselves.

But it is so much more the result of loving action by people.

The only thing that counts is this love in action.

It is also the only thing that lasts.

This love is not about religion.

This love has to do with a relationship . . . this love has to do with people helping people.

The face of God is everywhere people out of kindness help one another.

"Nothing else matters compared to helping" people find the way to this love. They go in and they find Him -- LOVE. They can only find Him if they have loving help.

"Go in, great saints, go all the way in—
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics—
It is a vast roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood."

It's amazing to hear about the saints of God -- or to read their writings. When people get a chance to experience the holy silence of a retreat at a monastery there can be wonderful revelations.

Think of St. Teresa of Avila. Her passion for God in Christ is a beacon to many people so many years later.

And what about St. Francis of Assisi? Thomas Merton? There are many, many others.

Even in our times recently -- think of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and all those who have joined her in serving people!

Sometimes people seek experiences instead of that special loving relationship lived out in community with others who know they are completely loved.

Sometimes they forget that they are filled up with that love so they can allow the blessings to flow out to others.

Think of John and Charles Wesley. . . their mother Susanna and their Dad, Samuel. Think of the busy lay women and lay men in the churches all around you.

Think of everyone you know who loves people by helping and nurturing each person they know.

There are so many facets to a relationship with God in Christ. When we allow the Lord to draw us deeper into His heart, we can really be blessed.

But what good is that unless we share that love with those who are in need?

"Some must inhabit those inner rooms.
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture in a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening ...
So I stand by the door."

No matter how wonderful our deep spiritual experiences are, no matter how glorious the view from the mountain top is, it is so important to turn back to the world. People are in great need.

And their greatest need is for the Lord.

Before Jesus healed people or cast out demons or fed them, He taught them about God.

His disciples reported that Jesus always taught in parables -- a kind of spiritual poetry that pointed out the mysteries of life in the fullness of God's love. Before all of Jesus' deeds of spiritual power, He drew aside to pray.

When his closest disciples, Peter, James and John were privileged to witness one of Jesus' prayer sessions on the Mount of Transfiguration, they were amazed.

And others have known the same kind of spiritual conversation and consultation in prayer.

But so many more don't even know where the door is. So those who are called to do so stand by the door.

"There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them
For God is so very great, and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia,
And want to get out. "Let me out!" they cry,
And the people way inside only terrify, them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled
For the old life, they have seen too much:
Once taste God, and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside."

It is true that coming closer to God can be scary. People get frightened and need reassurances.

They need someone to hold their hands and say, "It's all right."

They need people to explain how it was when they first encountered the Lord.

They need to be strengthened and reminded that God is with them and will help them in the transition and throughout the rest of their lives.

"The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving—preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stand by the door."

It is easy to get overwhelmed when you answer God's knock at your door. Life in the spirit is a different reality and we can become disoriented and long for all that is familiar and comfortable.

Love only exists in community, and we are meant to celebrate and share the love of God in ways that gently spread the nurturing grace of the Lord's mercy and faithfulness.

No matter how many times we turn away, the Lord calls us back.

It is so important to let everyone who is having a hard time know that they are loved, forgiven, sought after and yearned for by the One who loves us all, and everyone on earth, every creature and all of creation.

"I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not, yet even found the door,
Or the people who want to run away again from God,
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
But not so far from people as not to hear them,
And remember they are there, too."

There are distractions, and it is easy to get "holier than thou" and forget that the purpose of knowing God's love in Christ is to share it.

St. Francis of Assisi wrote -- "Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words."

I read that for the first time when I saw it written on the wall in the office of my friend and spiritual big brother, Charlie Parker, when he was the Executive Director of Bread for the City in Washington, D.C. At the time it struck me as strange, but I have come to appreciate it.

Love is not a feeling. Love is commitment, a decision, an activity.

The grace, mercy, faithfulness and fullness of love is expressed only through the ways we reach out and care about people in imitation of our Lord. With the help of Gods Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus we find all sorts of ways to share that love. There are always even more ways.

So keep coming to the well of God's love and grace. And wherever you move in God's house through prayer and meditation, remember that there are those who are still looking for the door.

"Where? Outside the door—
Thousands of them, millions of them.
But—more important for me—
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
"I had rather be a door-keeper ..."
So I stand by the door."

May the Lord continue to bless and keep you and yours in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia! Amen.

Blessings in the Love of Jesus -- Kathy