Leaving a special place

I am packing my family up and moving once again.  My wife and I have been married for nearly six years and in that time we have packed up and moved six times. Before this it was always our choice to move but this time that is not the case.  This time we are leaving a very special place.  When we first moved here a little less than a year ago I did not know how special this place was.  I only knew it was a place that was struggling and needed help, and I thought I might be able to help.  As I learned more about this place I started to realize how special it really was.  Eventually I found a small group of people who truly cared about this place and had a heart to help in the struggle but they had been pushed away and cut off for various reasons and were very careful about who they would trust with their support and their time.  In short....they had been burned.  I quickly realized it would be a very good thing if I could start rebuilding some of these bridges that had been burned and start to reclaim the good name of this place.  I did not know that I was facing a major wall.... a deep rooted seed of corruption from an unfortunate group of men who had somehow gained control of this place.  These men know how to do two things very well, LIE and pass blame for their failure to someone else.  These men DO NOT know how truly special this place is, they have only known this place to be a corrupt place and that in because they are the ones who brought the corruption.  The sad thing is that as soon as I started to insist that we not run this place in a corrupt fashion and I started to rebuild some of the relations to the folks I mentioned earlier I was forced by these men to leave this special place.  So now, with sadness in my heart I am leaving.  My hope and prayer is that these men who have no business having control of such a special place would stop the madness and give the place back to the people it truly belongs to.  My prayer is that this place will be used once again to reach into the hearts of a very special group of people.  In spite of my disappointment and hurt I pray for this place because I believe in a God who is bigger than the corruption and lies.  I am sure that my next adventure will be a good one, and for the sake of my family I hope it lasts longer than a year, but this special place will stay with me.  I am grateful for the time that I was able to spend in such a special place.  

The Russian Mafia

I was in the city of Tombov in southern Russia working at a summer camp and having a great time.  One day we decided it would be fun to take a van full of kids to see one of the new Star Wars movies that had just come out.   After watching the movie the kids headed back to camp but a few friends and I thought it would be fun to hang around the city for a bit.  I don't speak a word of Russian and my translators had great fun getting me to say ridiculous things to people to laugh at my ignorance.  I didn't mind much as I got a kick out of the confused expressions on peoples faces when I would ask them if they had my ice cream or if they could give me directions to our current location.  Towards the end of our goofing around in the city we were in the van heading back to camp.  Suddenly out of nowhere this black fancy looking car cuts us off and nearly causes an accident SO I yelled out the window as loud as I could something to the effect of, "Listen retard... I'm going to punch you in the head!!!"  This caused immediate and legitimate fear in the Russians in the van with us.  I noticed the van picking up speed and the Russians frantically talking to each other with a panicked look on their faces.  Then the translator turned to us Americans in the Van and said, "If the car comes to the side of the van...DUCK!"  It was then that I realized we were in a high speed car chase running from the Russian Mafia.  we were weaving in and out of traffic and blowing through red lights, even driving up on sidewalks to try to get away but the black car stayed on our tail.  We then came to a busy intersection where there was no option but to stop.  The black car came up to our side and a bunch of sinister looking guys got out screaming in violent sounding Russian.  One of these guys then picked up what looked like a boulder from the side of the road and lifted it up to smash our van window.  Our driver then pulled one of the most awesome maneuvers any one has ever done in a Russian Van and managed to get us through the busy intersection without getting smashed by the oncoming traffic.  After a few quick turns we had lost the black car and started on our way back to camp.  The translator kept saying, "thank God they did not have guns" and, "I hope they did not get our license plate...they will find us and kill us!"  To this day some of the friends that were there still talk about, "The time Tim almost got us killed by the Russian mafia" .... Hey... at least they have a good story to tell!