Beguiling BELARUS - my impressions of the country and her people

    

    When I am in Belarus, I feel like I am in a far away land, even though it is only about a 12 hour drive from Berlin. Maybe it is just the thought that the country is run by a dictator, of whom we are told, has amassed a personal fortune at the expense of the people he governs. We have heard that spies are everywhere and apartments are bugged. However, even though unemployment and poverty are high, the people seem to be generally satisfied with life.

    The President has an 11 year old son, alleged to be birthed by his personal doctor and who goes with him wherever he goes. It seems he is already grooming his spoiled son to take control of the country when he comes of age. From reports, it sounds like he already has complete control of his dad. His son carries his own golden pistol and has been given medals that soldiers took years to achieve.

    Once we were driving in the downtown area and traffic came to a stop. Our host said, “It is probably because of the president.” Sure enough, on the other side of the now cleared highway, came black car after black car with flags – then a big Hummer-type car – some fancy cars and then more black cars following – to disguise which car the President was actually in. We were told this is a common occurrence in Belarus.

    It is rare to see old buildings in Belarus like you see in Europe. Most of the country was completely destroyed in WW2. What you see are communist looking high-rise buildings and Russian art and huge statues of Stalin or war hero's. 

     We were a bit surprised to also see McDonalds and KFC. We had thought the communist leanings were still prevalent but we saw that capitalism is also flourishing to some degree. We heard that it is almost impossible to become rich in Belarus due to the weak market and constant inflation.

    I have been in Belarus twice on “Victory Day” held every May 9^th. The city celebrate's their victory over Hitler by covering the downtown streets with flags and banners. Their war arsenal: tanks, jeeps and guns are brought out and paraded down the street along with women in traditional costume and young military men and women proudly displaying their military uniforms and badges. The President gives a speech and everyone looks happy and gay.

Victory Day Parade - 2014

    Starting in 2014, the Christians were allowed for the first time in twelve years, to operate a stage in the park with Christian musicians. They still had to be careful to not be too “preachy” but it was quite the break-through that they were even given permission. It may have been because May 2014 was when the world ice-hockey competitions were held in Minsk and the President wanted to show the world that there is religious freedom in Belarus. However, the Christians were allowed, once again, in 2015 to use the stage for Christian music.

Thilo singing on stage in the park

    The countryside in Belarus is very green and we saw a lot of beautiful lakes. In my opinion, the most charming thing about Belarus is the Dachas, which are small summer-cabins that many Belarusians own and travel to on weekends and in summer. When I first saw them, I thought their cute colors and fences were unique to the village I was in, but I learned that the Dacha's in every village in Belarus look very much the same. Many villages have no running water and the dacha owners draw their water from a well that several families use. 

    The Dacha's are often painted in bright blues, greens and pinks and have the cutest picket fences that are also painted. The women work hard in the gardens while the men seem to occupy their time with building projects or chopping wood for Banja (sauna).

    There is a saying in Belarus that everyone is a millionaire. That's because inflation is so high. A million Belarusian rubbles is comparable to around 70. dollars. One day in a park, we came upon a fountain where instead of coins being tossed in, there were paper bills floating in the water. It is a funny experience to go to the grocery store and take out a wad of bills that seem as thick as your arm and watch the cashier count them. Everyone is patient.

Money floating in fountain

This is about 2 euros!

    We were privileged to be the guests in a home that was recently finished enough for guests. It was announced that we were the very first guests to stay in their house! It was a beautiful, huge house. Even by American standards, it was big and we rarely saw an average-sized home in the outlying neighborhoods which surround the city of Minsk.

We learned that due to the bad economy, you cannot get loans to build houses, therefore, you pay as you go, so the average home takes over twelve years to build. You have to wait until you have cash on hand. It takes a long time and is a lot of hard work, however, once the house is built, it is yours, free and clear.

Typical Sight:  House in progress

    The houses are very similar to American houses except that they are built from concrete blocks instead of wood. The home we stayed in had beautiful tiled and wood flooring; spacious bathrooms, and modern kitchen.

However, your average Belarusian lives in the city in an apartment. We heard that it is very hard to obtain an apartment so most kids live with their parents until they get married or stay with their family forever and eventually inherit the apartment.

    Our host family was extremely musical and artistically talented. The eldest son is a drummer and sound-engineer who has produced albums. The second son is an accomplished pianist, conductor, composer and worship leader. One day I was resting on my bed and suddenly heard the most beautiful strains of Bach flowing from the piano in their dining room. I had to stop what I was doing to listen. The flowing, pounding music brought chills. It only lasted about 20 minutes and I was hoping to hear more. Later, I learned that this was a common occurrence of that son. He would arrive home and immediately sit down at the piano and play wildly for 10 or 15 minutes, even if he arrived home at 11pm. No one ever said a word. I loved it.

    The youngest child is an artist and you could see her art everywhere. She painted a huge melon on the wall in the basement kitchen (which was a kitchen for guests or party use) but the most impressive art was on the wall in her bedroom where she had painstakingly done swirls and designs with a black pen. You would have to see it, to recognise how brilliant it is. She is also most accomplished in faces and we were blown away by the poignancy and creativity of her art.

    The parents are also amazing musicians, leaders, visionaries, pastors and hard-workers. They travel to the United States more often that we do! They have relatives living in Minnesota. Almost everyone we met had relatives somewhere in the United States. Most of the Belarusian's I met were proud to be Belarusian's and wanted to stay in their own country to make it a better place. No one seemed concerned about Russia's influence or loosing personal freedoms although every Christian is aware that not too long ago their Christian grandparents were imprisoned for their faith. Our host's father was an alcoholic who was sent to prison and there he met Jesus, through a fellow prisoner - a pastor imprisoned for his faith. Our host's father, came out of that prison a changed man and lived the remainder of his life sober and helping to advance the kingdom of Jesus.

    Here are some cultural things that I found interesting. You do not flush toilet paper down the toilet! That was a very hard one for us to deal with and remember. Over and over, we would say, “Oh, I forgot!” There are small garbage cans next to each toilet and these are emptied almost every day . I looked on-line to find the reasons for not flushing toilet paper down the toilet and found varied reasons. Some said that the toilet paper in some countries does not dissolve well. Some said the pipes are laid funny and therefore clog up easily. Some said, that it is simply culture and habit and that they no longer need to do so, but still do. I wondered if this was true for the home we were staying in as it was brand new built and you would think that modern plumbing could handle toilet paper. However, the toilet in the basement did clog up several times. I talked to one Belarusian about this and she said that in some homes, you can flush the toilet paper down the toilet and that you have to look and see if there is a garbage-can next to the toilet and if there is, always use it!

    I enjoyed the cultural habit of serving soup before every meal. It was always a hot soup and usually with a chicken broth, potatoes, carrots and a grain. It was always tasty. Belarusian's are known for serving many items at the dinner table. Their hot meal is in the afternoon, just like Europeans. For them, it is a culture shock to see only meat, potatoes and a vegetable on a table as opposed to meat, potatoes, two different salads, a hot vegetable, as well as small plates of cucumbers, tomatoes and cheese. 

    They make delicious cakes, one of which is layered with honey. I loved the fresh salads and they do beet salads very well. My favorite Belarusian food is Shashlik (or Kabab) which is grilled, lamb, pork or beef on skewers. Shashlik was a common street food on the streets of St. Petersburg, Russia in the 1920's. It is traditionally marinated overnight in a vinegar mixture and cooked the next day over a fire grill. Mmmm, it is so delicious!

Shashlik on grill

They also drink lots of juice made from fresh berries and water. The most famous Belarusian food is Draniki, (potato pancakes). They are delicious and are served with sour cream which was some of the best sour cream I've ever had. Their milk is particularly good as well.

Home-made juice

    One cultural difference that I could not get used to was the male dominance. The women tend to be more feminine than women from Western countries and wear lots of make-up, high heels and short skirts while the men are MEN! When a man enters a room with men and women, he will only shake the men's hands and either completely ignore the women or give them a slight not. At first, I took it personal. As I was usually the oldest person in the room, I thought, “Well, I guess I'm just not cool enough for them,” and then I started observing that it happened to all the women. The men had no problem shaking my hand, if I held it out first. I don't believe the women in Belarus feel that they are being demeaned, it is just their way. I did feel demeaned. There was just something in the air and often I felt as if I was not “listened” to. We were at a party and the men spoke to the men and the women were silent. Of course, that might have been unique to our particular situation but overall, you can “feel” that it is a male-dominated society.

    Most of our time was spent in the countries capital, Minsk but our last weekend we were privileged to travel to a small village about 2 hours from the border town of Brest. There we stayed in a 2-bedroom, 1 bath house with a wonderful, loving Christian family. They raised 6 children in that small flat. The toilet was just a small room only big enough to stand in. Next to the toilet was another small room barely big enough for a bathtub/shower, sink and washing machine.

    We were welcomed into their home like royalty. They fed us the most amazing, wonderful food and as we ate, they hovered over us, making sure we had all we needed. I had tears in my eyes because through these simple people, I felt the love of our heavenly Father.

    We had to have an interpreter to speak as the family spoke no english. They had a friend, an English teacher, who offered her services. The mother of the house told us that her husband, “Is a saint! People just don't know.” She told us that they arrived in their village 20 years ago and they were the ONLY Christians in the whole village. The people had never met a Christian. Her husband, who is an accomplished musician on the violin and accordion, started performing on the street and evangelising. Soon, some became Christians and they started a church in their home. Today that church is some 200 people with about 50 teens in their youth group. Through help from the United States, they have built a wonderful building to hold services with an outdoor pool for baptisms. The Lord also blessed the church so they could buy property in the country, (not far from their homes – maybe a 20 minute drive). With the property came an abandoned school house that sits on about 20 acres and is near a lake with a sandy shore. Every summer, they hold kids camps on the property. They are slowly, slowly refurbishing the old school building and plan to turn it into a drug/alcohol rehabilitation center.

Alcoholism is a huge problem in Belarus. We asked a young Christian guy if he ever drinks alcohol and his answer was, “Of course not. Alcoholism is a huge problem and it is in our blood. If we drink, we may easily become alcoholics.” When we ministered prayer in the church of that village, person after person was asking prayer for either their husband or son who was lost on alcohol. It was very heart-breaking.

    I feel so blessed that I got to meet those loving Belarusians who care and are giving their lives for their fellow-men to show them a better way and willing to give all to bring others to Jesus.

    The hearts of the people will call us back to Belarus far more than the wonderful food, fun Dachas and beautiful countryside. The people are loving, warm-hearted and so creative. I don't know when I've been around a group of more creative people. They welcomed us into their homes and hearts and we will never forget them.

Should evil father's be respected and other thoughts spurred from reading a book on children of Nazi regime.

I just finished reading a fascinating book entitled, My Father's Keeper by Stephan Lebert. The author's father was a journalist and in 1959 he  interviewed sons and daughter's of high-level Nazis - right hand men of Hitler and published those interviews as a series in a German magazine. Those interviews took place 15 years after the end of WWII.  His son (author of the book I read) did not read those interviews until after his father's death in 1993. When he found and read the old manuscript, he came up with the idea to interview the same children, now in the late season of their lives.  Remarkably, he was able to find and interview six of the same people his father had interviewed, and so came about his book, “My Father's Keeper.”

I found the book fascinating on so many levels. First, I was shocked to learn that out of the six interviews, only two of the adult children believe that what their father's did was wrong (almost all of them engineering mass-murder) and four of them believe in the same principles their father's held and are proud of who their father's were.  Call me naive or idealistic, but I just assumed that with all the truth that came out about the death camps, the hatred and torture, that anyone, even the sons and daughters of the mass murderers would surely see the evil that was so willfully done. The book opened my eyes to the startling, horrifying truth that the evil Nazi's of that time, merely went underground. How many of them successfully passed their evil ideas to their children and grandchildren? It makes me shudder to think of it.

Niklas Frank's father was general governor of Poland during Hitler's regime and responsible for “cleansing” Poland and creating means for mass murder. It was nothing for his father to inform Hitler that on any given day he had exterminated 150,000 Jews.  Niklas was the youngest of five children when his father was hung for his war crimes and only about 5 or 6 years old. As an adult, he became a journalist and wrote a series of articles about his father and his hatred for him. The articles were graphic, spewing out his hatred.  What shocked me was that the general public thought the idea of expressing hate towards ones father, even a war-criminal was wrong. Letters poured into the editor of the newspaper, that Niklas should at least respect his dad. Respect? Respect? What was there to respect? I was (and am) appalled. Partly because I still see this same line of thinking today, in 2015. I've seen children born to criminal drug-addicts and the mother will say, “My son needs to know his father and spend time with him, after all he IS the father.” So what! I believe a father needs to earn respect and if he is evil or selfish, let the child find a role-model who he can look up to. It baffles me, the way people think. The book states that Niklas had to almost go into hiding due to the reaction of people. They should have been applauding him! “Wow! Amazing that you can see the truth about your father.”

The other thing that fascinated me in the book was the idea that after the war, a whole country basically went into denial. They almost had to do this for survival sake. Imagine, asking your neighbor, “What did you do before the war?”

“Well, I was a leading Nazi.”

No one was going to admit to this, so the “don't ask – don't tell” unspoken code came into effect. It would have been embarrassing to find out and to admit as well. “Let's all pretend, we were against Hitler's socialism, let's all pretend we knew nothing about the Jews.” It was most likely the only way to survive. But what are the results of massive denial? What are the results of not being able to dialogue about politics gone wrong or your despair at loosing a war? The book quotes a psychologist who says that repression brings about anxiety and an unwillingness to change.

I arrived in Berlin the first time in 2000 when my daughter was reaching out to teen-agers in the former communistic east and it was a distressing city. There were dour faces everywhere; a feeling of darkness; gray buildings; and a general lack of color. People even wore dark clothing, from the oldest to the youngest. The silence was acute on public transportation. I returned to Berlin to live in 2008 and although color had appeared: many of the gray buildings were now painted light colors and gone was a lot of the black clothing but the sadness remained, even to this time in 2015. There is more lightness on the trains and people speak more but if you are a newcomer to the city, you still notice that people don't talk much and you can see a marked contrast from other cities.  I see sadness and anxiety on faces and there is still a sense of deep suspicion and mistrust. I've had it happen, several times, that if someone accidentally drops something and you pick it up for them, they look at you as if you are crazy and how dare you help. On the converse, if you accidentally drop something yourself, there is a hesitation to help. A whole crowd of people can ignore you and walk by, leaving you feeling very alone in a cold world.  I believe the unwillingness to help stems from major distrust.

It is all so sad. First Nazism and then Communism and more repression. Countless east Germans loved communism and were sad when the Berlin wall fell down. If they admit that, they are accused of being crazy and if they wanted the wall to come down, they are looked upon as traitors. Many embraced atheism and today they are going after Hinduism and New Age religions but the ones who come to the truth and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, are set free. I have seen joy come into their hearts and peace to their anxiety. It has been a long, slow and hard process. Many missionaries have laboured for 20 years and more in Berlin without seeing hardly any converts. Yet, none of their labor has been in vain. After so many years of repression, the healing will not happen over night but I do see change and I see it coming more and more.

Regret

Speak when you are angry - and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.

Laurence J. Peter

If you aren't in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty or back to pain and regret.

Jim Carrey

Regret is not a proactive feeling. It is situated in disappointment, sorrow, even remorse. It merely wishes things were different without an act to cause a difference. However, repentance is different. Repentance is an admission of, hatred of, and turning away from sin before God.

Monica Johnson

Sometimes regret comes tumbling down over my head, completely unbidden.  It tortures me.  I did and said such stupid things as a parent or I just did nothing when I should have done so much more.  Was I wrong to sell my home and give everything away?  Did I ever have any wisdom?  Those kinds of things can haunt me and so much more.

Today I was sitting on a beach in Spain, reading my bible, talking to Jesus and it hit me......Yahweh has NO REGRETS!  (Except for maybe that he created us??  Genesis 6:6).  He was grieved and hurt that man did not enjoy or love Him but now that He has a BRIDE  He can call His own, I know that His only regret is sadness for the people who do not want Him.  Yahweh relates to every emotion that we have, so it just hit me that He can even relate to my feelings of regret.  But beyond, that initial pain, I do not believe that Yahweh has regret because He is perfect.  He makes perfect decisions and as His every motive is rooted in LOVE, He has no regret.

I realized, that if Kim is dead and her life is hidden in Jesus, then she lives through Yahweh and she too can walk victoriously, without regret.  Philippians 3:8-14 comes to mind.  "Yes, everything is worthless (ALL MY REGRETS) when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him". (vs.8) -  "I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.  I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead." (vs.10) 

I don't want to think about ME, my junk, my past, I just want to focus on JESUS, right here, right now and commune with him, even if it be in suffering.

"I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things, (for sure NO!) or that I have already reached perfection.  But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.  No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing:  FORGETTING THE PAST AND LOOKING FORWARD TO WHAT LIES AHEAD, (that's the key!) I PRESS ON TO REACH THE END OF THE RACE AND RECEIVE THE HEAVENLY PRIZE FOR WHICH GOD, THROUGH JESUS IS CALLING US. (vs.12-14).

My life....DEAD.....hidden in Jesus....looking forward.  I'm so glad that He can handle all my mistakes and failures.  I'm so glad he can take a rotten lump of clay and mold it into something beautiful.  I'm so thankful that He personifies patience towards me.

Looking ahead, looking to HIM.

“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.” 
― Henry David Thoreau

“We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.” 
― Libba Bray