Moving to Shila

We are planning to move from the city to village of Shila. There are several reasons for this, let me mention a few: currently we go to the village on the weekends. Saturday is a time of  visitation, and on Sunday we hold services. As a result, we are seeing progress, but for something to really be established in this village someone needs to live there; someone needs to build friendships with the neighbors, the  shopkeepers and all those  living in the village. If we move to the village we will no longer be “the Americans who come to our village on the weekends”, but “Americans who live in our village”.

Another reason for this move is to more fully immerse myself into the Russian language. To my knowledge, there are no English speakers in Shila, so we would be completely dependent on Russian. We would still be within driving distance to the city, so that if there were a real problem to arise; we would be able to contact someone. I am looking at this as a sort of middle step from where we are now with our language to making the final move to the far north. During our next term our focus will be on transitioning from the work in the Krasnoyarsk area to a new work in the far north. Specifically, the north central part of Russia, along the Yenisey river.

While the Shila property is perfect for holding services, it does need some work before it is ready to be lived in. You may remember that a few years ago there was a fire and the whole second floor was lost. There are still some things that need to be completed on the second floor.  There are currently no interior walls in the upstairs as well as no floor covering.  Up until a few week ago, there was no water on the property. We had thought about hauling water from the community well. The difficulty with this is that there is also no bathhouse on the property. (Many village homes have a Russian sauna/bathhouse.) We were able to drill a well, and put in a septic tank. I am now in the process of plumbing the house.