Rand

Rand.
He is to say the least, extraordinary. He is 20 years old and has done a million impressive things that he could be using to make himself a millionaire. Instead he lives in a village here and takes care of orphan kids on a ridiculously small budget. You really don't understand Belarus. This place has spat out more missionaries than you can count. But he has this ability to use humor and creativity and wit to astound the harshest most unwelcoming people on the planet. It is more than charm, he has a genuine love for people. He is not easily taken advantage of but he is being taken advantage of by a system that seems to have little desire to join him in what is a priority of God, caring for those who have no love, hope, or connection to a sense of belonging. (I am talking about the system that missionaries endure and it is a system). So we spent a few hours listening to what he stored up over the past few years of work here. Nothing he said surprised us and I was reminded why I never want to come back to doing this sort of thing full time.
Still, we considered coming back to work with him.
And tomorrow night will have a slumber party in his village house (he is so thrilled about this idea although Anita and I exchange quizzical looks and ask each other how old are we?).
oh well you only live once and if that life time is spent sometimes in a post communist (still communist) atmosphere do whatever you can do to make the time less painful and less gray.