Georgia Trip - Friday

Drove to Tbilisi with Lavon (Brian’s father-in-law). Spent a few hours working on the Big House Winter Camp DVD.

After lunch, we (Nino) went into town to do some shopping. Found some interesting stuff.

At one point, one beggar lady with a baby accosted me (I use the term accurately!). She grabbed me and kept pointing to her baby and asking me for money. She was rude & pushy. Nino kept jumping in between the lady and myself. She felt it was her place to protect me. She is such a sweetheart.

Georgia Trip - Thursday

Brian’s stories:
        In London, heading back to Florida - stopped for a couple of nights to stay @ BnB - lady asked where they were coming from/going to - told her “coming from the Republic of Georgia, going to Florida” - she went to look at a map and couldn’t figure out why they went from Georgia (USA) to London in order to go to Florida.

Another story - when traveling and landing in North Carolina, stopped for breakfast - waitress noticed that “I’ve-been-traveling” look and asked from where they were - “From the Republic of Georgia,” Brian replied. “Right,” she retorts without missing a beat. “And I’m from the Republic of Connecticut.”

Yummy breakfast today - fried eggs, fresh bread, potato/rice noodles (spaghetti-like), orange slices, grapefruit slices, bananas, coffee, honey and more.

TBILISI CHURCH PLANTING HISTORY

2005 - graduates from high school move to Tbilisi to attend University
2006 - early - struggles - loss of original intended leaders (2 guys - not willing to shoulder burden, couldn’t work together)
2006 - late - started community groups (4 spiritual law groups)
                        Lavon steps in to lead and preach - draws older people into church - evangelism in families draws multiple generations
2008 - youth meeting continues and Ana and Zura take leadership (from Jan. 1)

I was supposed to meet with 2 young people from a nearby village who are key people in youth ministry with Brian. But for some unknown reason to me, they were not able to come. Instead, we took a short side-trip to Telavi, a nearby university town where Brian & Lavon have a church plant. Nice city. Not as big as I had anticipated from the map, but certainly good-sized.

Brian recommended a good book for gaining some historical insight to the condition of Europe - “The Barbarian Way” by Fletcher.

Also, he recommended a series of books put out by Zondervan called “Counterpoints.” It is a series of books written on particularly sticky issues (Law & Grace, Baptism, Sign Gifts, etc.) by a variety of authors from different stances on those issues. There are also responses to each counter-point.

This country is a great place for someone who is looking for opportunities to do something new and broad. Tomorrow morning, I leave about 8:30am to go to Ana & Nino’s apartment in Tbilisi where I’ll stay until I leave for the airport to catch my flight home! Yippee!

Georgia Trip - Tuesday

Got up at 7:30 am to go running with Valerie, Omar’s nephew. He was a kick-boxer and was a world cup champion - it was an 8-country competition. However, he seems to be a solid young man and I am hoping to invite him and Rezi to KPM in Slovakia. I’ll need to clear that with Omar first, however.

Got back from running and spent some time in the Word. Got my stuff together for cleaning up (shower, etc) only to discover that there was no water - not just hot water, but NO water!

Valerie almost killed me on the run. We left the house and ran uphill for almost 5 straight minutes. We ran for 30 minutes, though and it cleared out my lungs liked I haven’t cleared them out for a long time!

The road we ran on was unbelievably rugged. Consider taking almost flat stones, turning them on edge and cementing them into the ground and you get an idea of what the road was like. Then for good measure, throw in potholes galore and missing pavement, concrete, etc. and that’s what we ran on.

Yuk. I feel sticky, greasy and salty. Oh well, that’s missions in the east. Maybe I’ll get a shower before the day’s over. The bummer is that I didn’t shower yesterday either since there are about 10 people in the house and things were a little hectic.

We did have a service today. Pasha sang, Larry preached, I preached, Anita taught a song with Pasha and Omare challenged the people to repentance. The service lasted about 2 hours.

Afterwards, they handed out to the children Samaritan’s Purse gifts. One of the kids received a hackey sack and we played for quite a while.

Then we jetted out to an area where Stalin had tried to make an elite resort. We played frisbee and had some fun together.

Tonight, we had shish-kabob beef & mushrooms. Tasty!

PTL! Got to shower tonight! My last one was on Sunday morning after my run, so it’s been a while! What I realize each time I am in this kind of a situation is how little I (people in general) need to really live. I think we make much too big of a deal about personal hygiene in the USA.

It was 1:15 am when I went to bed.