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rusmeister

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Safe in the land of Gobble-Gobble. Tourism in the former Byzantine Empire capitalizes on weather on the Med coast when it's already cold autumn in chilly Russia. Cheap trips made possible by package deals that snap up offers at the last second (when the alternative for the hotels is literally an empty room in season - which ends in late October, when the sea starts getting cold and their temps take a dive). Still, for me, the stress of travel is starting to exceed the value of such things, but my wife is adamant that the kids should get to the sea once a year.
Slipped and fell yesterday in a small puddle of unseen water on a smooth surface. Sprained my ankle, I guess, and severely cracked my iPad screen. I'm cheering myself up by imagining it as a background of empty tree branches. Things are mostly good with the family, though, and that's what matters most.

Thanks for your prayers! I'll covet them until we get home in a week or so. I have a very active and pessimistic imagination (you know the daily prayer where it mentions "...all the fantasies of Satan..."), and have a hard time controlling my worries, which indicates a shortage of faith, conflicting with the prayer of St Philaret...
Also, I hate that Russians always clap at the most dangerous time of landing, when the wheels just touch the ground, and I'm imagining what can happen (I'll spare you the grisly details) and saying the Jesus prayer over and over.
 
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dzheremi

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Please pray for all of the communities affected by the wildfires in Northern California. This includes not only my own, but so many others...too many to name. I personally am closest to the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa (unfortunately probably the hardest hit place in our county, and also home to St. Seraphim OCA and a Bulgarian Orthodox Church whose name escapes me; Lord, protect them and all of your people), but there are many, many fast-moving and currently 0% contained fires in basically every direction. We're just waiting and waiting for evacuation notices that by this point seem inevitable. So many homes and businesses have been burned in the past 48 hours (over 15,000), and many hundreds of people are homeless, well over 100 are missing, and 11 are confirmed dead in Sonoma County alone. All of these measures are definitely going to get worse as time goes on and the fires continue to spread and destroy everything. The most important impact -- the toll this takes on people -- is of course immeasurable.

I really do not want to make this about me or my family when the scale of utter human misery is so much larger than that, but since I can only personally talk about the people I know, I would like to humbly beg for, in addition to fervent general prayers for the entire area and situation, the remembrance of the following people and situations in your prayers:

- For my brother, Steven, and his family who have not been heard from since 9 am yesterday. They were evacuated at 6 am the day before that, which was the first morning of the fires (they started the previous night in at around 10 pm, apparently), have since been back to their home (which was fine, thank God), and I'm afraid have probably been evacuated again more recently. The last text I got from him this morning said "We're okay for now, but there are active fires less than 1 mile away."

- For my stepfather, Victor, and his elderly mother, Nora, who are currently unaccounted for and unreachable.

- For Paul and Cheryl, the parents of a close friend who lost their home and cannot return to their neighborhood, because there's literally nothing to return to. Everything is completely obliterated, as is the case with so many areas.

- For Jeremy and Jay, who are emblematic of the hundreds, probably thousands, who may now be unemployed and homeless, as their place of work has been gutted by the fire.

- Finally, for Shayna, the adult daughter of my roommate who has a small child and lives on the edge of the current southernmost border of the fire zone, and like so many others nervously watches and waits to be told to flee for her life.

Thank you. If I am able to get back online in the future (this is the first time I've had any internet since the fires broke out, since they moved so quickly and destroyed tons of the communications infrastructure around here), I will hopefully be able to share some good news about the above people, and the situation more generally. We're definitely not anywhere near in the clear, though. It is really indescribably violent and horrific, and will probably get worse as the strong 30-40 mph winds return through Thursday.

Please pray for us all. Lord have mercy.
 
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rusmeister

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I'd like to ask for prayers again as we travel home today (Sunday). We tend to get non-chalant in our attitudes toward long-distance/international travel. And take-off and landing in particular make me nervous and jerky. Plus the various happenings to planes in flight...
 
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rusmeister

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We're home safe. Glory to God! And thank you!
The landing in Moscow was against some frightening buffeting winds, and the pilot made one of the fastest complete stops I have ever experienced - in a 777, yet, which is also not an uplifting experience.
But overall, things went well, though we were delayed over an hour, and two hours lost altogether. I even drove us most of the way home, some sixty miles, but I had to let my wife take the wheel for the last ten minutes; I'd been up almost twenty-four hours straight.
 
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rusmeister

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Glad the journey was safe and problem free [ I don't count delays as being problems in this sort of case ]

Now relax and catch up on sleep etc.
No chance. Had to buy groceries, do necessary chores, and now have to go teach lessons. That's what we get for drawing a Sunday evening departure. (With charter flights in the package tour, you really have no control.)
Thank you, though! I'll get some sleep in eight or nine hours.
 
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rusmeister

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glad you are back in one piece, rus!
Much appreciated, Matt.
I think of the desire, expressed both by the Apostle Paul and in Harry Potter, to "move on". "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
If we had died in a crash, that would have left my wife's parents (both over 80) and my older son. I had to pray for our safety in part just because it would have been awful for them.

My FIL is in a bad way now, though. Not good. I do ask for prayers for Vladimir. He is in a good deal of pain.
 
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ArmyMatt

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Much appreciated, Matt.
I think of the desire, expressed both by the Apostle Paul and in Harry Potter, to "move on". "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
If we had died in a crash, that would have left my wife's parents (both over 80) and my older son. I had to pray for our safety in part just because it would have been awful for them.

My FIL is in a bad way now, though. Not good. I do ask for prayers for Vladimir. He is in a good deal of pain.

prayers for him, I will add him to Proskomedia lists
 
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rusmeister

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Update: My FIL responded well to hormone treatment and was even able to go to the dacha and walk around a little. But his poor circulation in his legs threatens the possibility of gangrene, and he is being hospitalized today.
He was baptized as a baby, so is technically Orthodox, but I would describe him as an agnostic saint, one who lives the law of Christ and always puts himself last, though he can't bring himself to conscious faith. His feet are cracked, candida is obvious on his finger and toenails, and in general he is suffering. Prayers would be appreciated!
 
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