The question is...

To continue the story a little bit more. The other student (I'll call him Peter) comes from the same city as Zauri. This morning he told me that last night the police drove by the pastor’s house again. Peter is one of the preaching ministers there. Because of this, he is not sure when he will go home now. He does not need a visa to go between Moldova and Azerbaijan, but he can only stay here for three months before he has to go back home. It is about 990 miles from here to home in Aliabad. He has a wife and two daughters that he loves very much.

I had two Vlad’s in class, Vladislav and Vladimir. Vladislav means the Glory of the Lord on Earth. Vladimir means Lord of the Earth as in King. Vladislav comes from Moldova and Vladimir comes from the city of Shemkent, Kazakhstan. He is the lead pastor there of a church of about 80. The church houses a medical facility, and a radio station which reaches into Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgstan, and Tajikistan. He also told me that the church their planted another church. The new church plant speaks Kazakian not Russan like his church does. Later on tonight Vlad will take a bus from here to Moscow. That trip will take about 30 hours. The plane trip from Moscow home will only take 4 ½ hours. We used to complain that the 4 hour drive to church camp that was a week long was too long!

Trying to have a conversation between the three of us was very interesting. Vlad spoke almost no English. I do not speak Russian, so that left Peter. Peter tried his best at translating. Sometimes it took drawing pictures and sometime it was like a game of Password and even at times it was a game of Charades trying to guess what we were all trying to say. He does understand a lot more than he can speak though. He said that he would like to learn English better because he wants to go on for his M.Div degree at TCMI. He said he has three classes left to take and his thesis to write.
This afternoon I'll take a short two hour flight to Vienna, take a 40 minute ride back to TCMI and sleep in my own bed next to my wife. The question is after this week.... will I be able to?
Later.
John