Afghanistan

Of the 19 countries, autonomous region of Tibet, and occupied territory of Palestine that I have been to, Afghanistan provided the heaviest amount of culture shock that I have ever experienced. It was literally as if I had stepped back hundreds of years in time. Right when I crossed the river from Tajikistan into Afghanistan, everything changed. The lush, green pastures and rolling hills turned into flat desert as far as I could see. Camels wondered in the desert, women completely covered themselves in berkas, and a Afghan man stole my sunglasses right off my face. The people were great, other than the thief of course. We actually got into a bit of a "situation" in which some Afghan men helped us get back across the border. What we saw in Afghanistan was an incredible cultural experience, but an even more incredible harvest experience. That land is a wide opened territory for the Gospel. The Afghan people are slowly coming out of an era of bondage in which terrorism reigned. This place needs the good news of Jesus Christ.

Tajikistan

The differences that we experienced in Tajikistan were felt as soon as we stepped off of the plane. It was blazing hot. Gold toothed men crammed themselves around a single doorway, attempting to get into the airport. They were wearing layers of clothing with sports jackets over it all. I was dieing of heat in an Underarmor t-shirt. Once we got into the airport, we had to get a visa to remain in the country. We did not see any signs or anything at all for that matter except for the line to get your passport checked. So we tried to just walk into Tajikistan. That didn't go over so well without a visa. They ushered us to an unmarked room...the only room in the airport. There were no windows, no chairs, no lights...just a desk in the middle of the room with a few pieces of paper on it. A Tajik man stood behind the desk and questioned us about what we needed. We gave him our passports and he slapped visas on them. We paid is US currency...of which he pocketed a nice amount I'm sure...and get into Tajikistan for 7 days. Some amazing things happened to us in Tajikistan. We stayed in the capital city, Dushanbe. Dushanbe was filled with cops. They were everywhere you looked. This was unsettling at first, but eventually we got used to it. The first hotel we stayed at was called the Vaskh, run by fierce Soviet babushkas. The room was terrible and the shower produced brown liquid when turned on. However, right across the street was a huge fountain and outdoor eating where we had kabobs, salad, and bread almost every night. Oh, and of course RC Cola. RC has a monopoly in Tajikistan. That's all they drink..and they love it. And we loved it too. We went on walks into the valleys outside of Dushanbe and saw incredible sights. Talked to a man who knew no English about his days in the Tajik army, killing Russians, met a little boy names Muhomad who thought we were from Los Angeles, and made some friends from Afghanistan who were studying in Tajikistan. We also saw a 70+ year old man walking around a grown bear on a leash. Two of my favorite memories of Tajikistan happened very close to eachother. We found a Christian book store and purchased many of our souveniers from them. We communicated that we would like to go to church with them and they gave us a map. We eventually found it and we got to meet some amazing people. We met a 19 year old boy who is studying to be a pastor and a 20 year old Russian girl who teaches the chrildren's Sunday school class. It was amazing to see a fully functioning church, completely led by locals, in the middle of Dushanbe. On our way back from our visit, we stopped by a large river and swam with some Tajik boys. I watched a kid fish with little more than a stick and walk away with more fish than he knew what to do with. It was an incredibly relaxing time as we rested in the river.

Russia

After leaving Dublin, we had brief stays in Liverpool, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. The Lord worked things out in amazing ways for us to get through those places. We landed in Riga, Latvia at around midnight and had no idea what to do. We got on a random bus and got off at what seemed to be downtown. There was no one on the streets, and nothing to do. We knew that we had to get to Estonia the next day, so we thought we might be able to get a bus...or else we were sleeping on the streets. We turned a corner and found the bus station. We caught the last bus to Estonia that night...it left 1o minutes after we got there. We then decided to catch a ferry to Helsinki, Finland. Latvia and Estonia were bazzar places. It was like stepping into some sort of twilight zone where people slept in until 10 (when everything opened) and bright colors didn't exist. These were obviously cold war countries.

We jumped on a train from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, Russia. The ride was long (6 hours) and nothing overly exciting happened. A young Russian guy offered to buy me Vodka. He had already had 7-8 glasses himself. I graciously declined.

Once we got to S. Petersburg we had to immediatly catch a night train to Moscow. Russia was not an English friendly place at all. Thankfully, we met a guy named Andrew (picture above) who helped us get the ticket. There is no way that we could have figured it out without him. He was amazing to help us like he did. We still keep in contact with him.

We spent 3 days in Moscos and got to see almost all of the Kremlin. We went through some sticky dealings to purchase our airline ticket to Tajikistan, but we eventaully got it. The best pary about Moscow was the 2 free nights we got at the Courtyard Marriott. We had not slept in a bed for 5 nights or showered in 5 days. It was very nice to be able to relax before we hit the real 3rd worldly part of our trip. We watched the US tie Italy in a WC match late one night. We were hooked by now. The World Cup would continually captivate us throughout the trip.