Anatolian Vantage

New Horizons!!!

2010-03-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well I've had dreams enough for one

And I've got love enough for three I have my hopes to comfort me I got my new horizons out to sea But I'm never gonna lose your precious gift It will always be that way 'Cause I know I'm going to find My own peace of mind Someday... Where is this place that we have found Nobody knows where we are bound I long to hear, I need to see 'Cause I've shed tears too many for me But I'm never gonna lose your precious gift It will always be that way 'Cause I know I'm going to find my peace of mind Someday... On the wind soaring free Spread your wings I'm beginning to see Out of mind far from view Beyond the reach of the nightmare come true Well I've had dreams enough for one And I got love enough for three I have my hopes to comfort me I got my new horizons out to sea But I'm never gonna lose your precious gift It will always be that way 'Cause I know I'm going to find my own peace of mind Someday, some way...

A Safe Harbor? Or Sailing the Seas?

2008-04-06T23:45:00.000-07:00

Rebecca and Tim celebrated 28 years of marriage on August 6th
Fourteen of those years have been spent in Russia
Five in Greece, Five in Boston
Two in Abilene and Two in California
What lies ahead?

I am sailing, I am sailing, Home again cross the sea.
I am sailing, stormy waters, To be near you, to be free.

I am flying, I am flying, Like a bird cross the sky.
I am flying, passing high clouds,
To be with you, to be free.

Can you hear me, can you hear me?
Thro the dark night, far away,
I am dying, forever trying, To be with you, who can say?

We are sailing, we are sailing, Home again cross the sea.
We are sailing stormy waters, To be near you, to be free.

Oh lord, to be near you, to be free.

Ultimate Frisbee with Hinkson Huskies in Veliki Novgorod

2008-04-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

Rebecca and Tim accompanied Marcus with his Hinkson Huskies' Ultimate Frisbee team to Veliki Novgorod, where the team had a great success and we had a chance to become
Ultimate Frisbee fans and more familiar with a sport that Marcus and his friends have become quite good at and really enjoy. Mr. Reppun, their coach, not only is a great role model for these students, but has been a major figure in the development of this sport in Russia. This trip was just prior to our late February visit to Porto Rafti and subsequent accepting a job with Harding University in Greece.

A Typical Day at the Artemis

2008-03-31T12:07:00.000-07:00

(Submitted by a student on January 30, 2007)
Some people wanted to know what a typical day entails...so enjoy!
The sun rises about 7 am. So some friends and I go running/walking around 6:45. Kevin has breakfast set out at 7:30 am and we can get food until 8:30 am. There are two days that we rotate through. Classes start as early as 8 am, and all classes are finished at 1 pm. At 1 pm we have chapel. We sing, have a devotional, and have announcements. At 1:30, we eat lunch, family still. Our cook's name is Fofi, and she is originally from Canada. We have free-time from lunch until 6:30 when we eat dinner family style. You can skip any meals and buy them in Porto Rafti, if you want to spend the money. I usually go to a cafe for a cappuccino, go shopping, go to the beach, or climb the mountain in my free-time, and study some as well. :) After dinner, most people study in the common room. Classes are Monday through Saturday. Sundays are free days. Usually I am in Athens by 1 pm. We eat Gyros at a shop called Sabas. We go shopping and study at Starbucks. At 6pm, we meet for the English service at the Athens Church of Christ. There are people form Iran, Sudan, and Greece who usually join our group for the service. We have a few free days throughout the month. They can be any day...and we can stay at the hotel, or we can go to Athens or another nearby city. We can go into Athens via the bus and metro any day or afternoon, but the buses stop returning at 8 pm, so to get back, you have to pay for a taxi. I can't think of anything else, but if you want to know more, let me know!

Transport from Downtown Athen's to Porto Rafti?

2008-03-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

The yellow Attika buses leave from Areos Park, (near Platia Egyptos where Alexandras Ave meets 28-October Patission Street) and will take you to Agia Marina, Anavissos, Lagonissi, Sounion and Lavrion as well as to the beaches on the other side of Attika like Rafina, Porto Rafti, Marathon, Schinias and Oropos.

More on the 2 Sevens - Our Anatolian Adventure Advances

2008-03-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Well, not that many people read this blog, but one very good friend does. I am finishing out this thought partly for him and partly for myself. It is a pleasure to find an occasional audience, although I have found myself enjoying my own thought put to print more than I care to confess.

After a few weeks of torturous waiting, having opened up my heart to the possibility of a change,

the day came for me to have that all important interview that would make all the difference in the course of my next set of sevens...(by the way, I was scanning the New Testament just this week for scriptures that give insight into the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and coming to

Revelation I was impressed with how "overused" 7 is in that context.

Anyway...Harding University President, Dr. Burks and Vice President, Dr. Long, interviewed me on the telephone. Jeff Hopper had prepared me well. He is my new boss. A very energetic PhD in Music, who is the most globetrotting guy I have known. I got a message from him in India this last week. Dr. Burks gave me an overview of Harding's foundational values, and I was impressed with them. He wanted to know that I as director of their Greece campus could fully support their values for the student body and staff.

I was able to comfortably confirm my agreement. I was through this interview able to recognize how important this program is to the administration of Harding and to them specifically. I confirmed to them my great interest in their work, and desire to work with them.

So Jeff called me several days later, and offered me the job, spelling out salary and conditions.

They want to hire Rebecca as well, but specified that she would have the freedom to travel to visit Marcus and to practice speech pathology at the same time. Some of Harding's staff wrote and welcomed me, and mentioned that for many this was a kind of dream job, and to let me know that I had their support. As the brothers who were praying for me in the church heard the news they all gave me their full support, while knowing that this would take me away from them and the work here in Moscow. They recognized the honor and appropriateness of this development. My kids all were excited. Our missions ministers were both very supportive.

Rebecca even has come around and is excited about this future plan of moving to Athens and directing a program of education abroad, including intensive travel to Biblical lands and interaction with the Greek culture for approximately 120 Harding undergrads each year.

In a way, we are continuing something that has been ripening in our lives for decades, in another we are starting something entirely new. In a way we are disconnecting from something that has absorbed all our attention and strength for 14 years, and in another way we are just entering into a new way of doing what we have already been doing. It's nice we get to use an old familiar language, and go to a familiar culture, though 21 years distance (another one of those 7's). No new language for Rebecca. Not quite as hard as moving to Turkey. It is also nice that where we will be living is one of the really beautiful spots in the world, with sea, sunshine, beautiful countryside and amazing history. There is an old partially standing temple of Artemis not far from the campus, after which the Hotel where the school is housed is named. Artemis, of the Ephesians? of the Athenians?

Or whoever would worship her. Porto Raftis is a beautiful sight. Vineyards and olive groves on the hillsides. Sailboats in the harbor. An hour outside of Athens and 20 minutes from the airport. Dino and Debbie Roussos live nearby and will be our close companions. So, if 7 is a lucky number, we are extremely fortunate. If it is a divine number, then we are anticipating the blessing of heaven! Stay tuned and we will share more as it comes available...

Internet Evangelism Resources

2008-03-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Internet Evangelism Resources

At a Crossroad - Coming up on 2 Sevens

2008-02-06T02:59:00.000-08:00

Now I'm not into numerology, but the last years, my poetic mind keeps driving me to look for more meaning in numbers. After studying Daniel's Prophecy, this last year, it kind of intensifies that tendency:

7 years ago, and seven years into my life here in Russia, I was contacted by Harding University regarding a "Director's" job for their new extension campus in Athen's, Greece. I had just built my a home outside of Moscow to the west, about 14 kilometers outside of the Moscow Ring road, on Rublevo Uspenskoye Shosse, and just about a mile from the new President of Russia, Vladimir Putin's home. I had about a year before made plans with the Richland Hills church that I was willing to continue to work in our joint effort of planting the church in Moscow for another 6 years if they would advance me the money that I was spending on rent in Moscow for a 500 square foot apartment, for that same period of time. I told them that otherwise on the basis of stewardship I couldn't continue to work in Russia beyond a year or two. Against all advice and expectations and policies they agreed, and in just over a year we were adventuring again in a three level brick stuccoed building, interior finished in wood throughout. I had learned an incredible amount of construction terminology, much of which I didn't know in English or any other of my languages, and my sermons were filled with analogies from the building trades.

We purchased the 10 sotki, 20 meters by 50 meters (appox, 10,400 sq.ft) on what was to become 7th street, and our house number later became 445. Our land was in the name of Vyacheslav Parshantsev, whose had with his wife become some of our more contemporary friends, and with whom we had done some vacationing with as well as studying the Bible.

While we purchased one lot for 14,000 USD, the Parshantsevis bought 2. We built first and our builder was Misha Grek (The meaning of "grek" in Russian is not Greek, but sin. Inspite of this
ominous name, God's providence prevailed and a few days short of the projected finish date,
within 4 months of starting to dig the foundation, in early November 2000 we moved our household goods and our three remaining at home children, Anna, Michael, and Marcus, into our first home. There was no kitchen installed, just a nice large and almost completely tiled room with white walls, and plastic covering one window not yet installed. The heated tile floor of the kitchen was not completely laid but was finished during the first week. I remember as we heated the new floor that an incredible amount of moisture was coming up through the seams between the tiles, making us think at first the water lines were leaking, but in the end we learned that in our absence the builders had sold alot of our cement, and when 5 years later the tiles began cracking, we discovered that the center of the floor was a sandbox that had been surrounded and covered with cement. Today that has been corrected and new tiles laid. Over 7 years of continuos living have seen alot of changes, connecting to gas, instead of being heated by fuel oil, putting up a fence and then closing it in so that our neighbors would be satisfied that their privacy was complete; stuccoing the outside, adding wrought iron balcony and step rails, one year we had a 12 foot diameter trampoline in our living room as Marcus' Christmas present and the neighbors, adult and kids were coming over and jumping on it inside of our house. We added grass, one summer, and a fully cemented driveway and parking area another. Completed a sand volleyball court and had lots of neighbors volleyball parties, and then in the winter cleaned it off and played winter soccer on the same space. Now that is replaced with grass and a fence divides our yard from the Parshantsevis and they have built a covered swimming pool over their half o the old volleyball court. We planted trees, borrowing one Pine tree from just outside of the late President Yeltsin's dacha territory. It has grown full and noble. Our birches and firs have prospered, and last summer, just 7 years after planting, our plum and apples all bore an unbearable harvest of fruit! The three maples that we planted in the front lawn have all grown to where they higher than the balconies and soon will be taller than the house. We have since paved our road with asphalt, and bricked our front columns and placed automatic lighting on the
columns. We finished our garage with an automatic door this last summer and the 11 year old Mercedes 500S that Peter Gerwe gave us last year for Rebecca to drive is now parked inside. For many years we have had a basketball backstop on the front drive and one night when Michael's friends we playing in that lighted court well after midnight, one of our friendly neighbors came down the street with his pistol to find out what the ruckus was. We agreed with all our neighbors who had fences around us to build gates in the fences, but then when the house was sold behind us, the family in this house quickly sealed it shut. We still have an open gate with Vadim Urzov, our neighbor. He has been a fine neighbor, and we have shared alot, including the scriptures, and we trusted him with our home last summer, putting a special radio thermometer in his house to allow him to keep track that our heater was working in our absence and keys to go in and check on things and water the plants. He is not too popular with the
management of our settlement as he has accused them repeatedly of dishonesty and fraud.

Our water is high in iron and calcium compounds. We had to fix the pump the first year since the guy who installed it had miscut the black plastic pipe for it 20 meters short and when I discovered it he said no problem and welded the two ends together. Within less than a year the weld broke and we were without water. The second was the result of the seizing up of the nylon fins of the pump head where the ferrous calcium deposits had built up, and shearing the pump shaft. I had it removed and repaired and it has worked a full 5 years without service since then.

Since then, we have finished out the basement, and removed the large wood stove and built a full bathroom and sauna in the basement. We refinished the stairs both to the basement and to the 2nd floor which were damaged in the finishing stages of the interior finishing, and we have refinished the floor of the large living room, and repainted the kitchen and living room once.

The trampolin was moved out to the yard in the first spring, and never made it back into the house except to be stored in the basement closet in pieces each winter.

Our septic tank has never filled up, so we have never pumped it. We have had many many more guests on both short and long term basis in our home, and all our neighbors have had to pump their septics but the Lord has been kind to us in that one!!! We did have a flood once in the basement, before we had finished it out. Another weld gave way in the main water line from the pump, under the floor of the boiler room. We got lucky, but after that when I finished out the back part of the basement, I made sure to put drains in the floors.

I think I will continue this later, when I can return to the matter of our Crossroad and what standing here causes me to ask myself, coming up on 14 years in the field in Moscow, Russia.

We are assembled on the mountain...Christmas 2007 Antalya

2008-01-17T06:25:00.001-08:00

New Year's Day Above Antalya, Turkey

2008-01-17T06:18:00.000-08:00

In Western Hills in Tuscany

2007-11-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

Galileo, DaVinci, Michelangelo. Today I saw the 24th 24 Kilometer Florence, Italy, Marathon, with 8000 runners, in your town on the 25th of November, 2007. What a beautiful town! So many old buildings, so many radical thinkers in your town...
Is it the water, the fog, the narrow rock walled roads? Is it the Tuscany vineyards?
I first realized here that statues are not carved from top to bottom, but laying down on their sides and from side to side. The church of Christ here owns the former chapel of the Russian Orthodox church that was owned by the Demidoff family. They were major players in Tsarist Russia of the 18th century. It was great to worship with our Italian brothers and sisters in that chapel today. The task of communicating Jesus to Europe is far from accomplished. The early workers are soon in the grave. Where is the wave of new workers for this city of the Renassaince? Is Europe lost to the gospel, or are there those who will rise up and build? Maybe it will be some Russians? Why not? Look at the energy of their accomplishments in this city less than two centuries ago:

Anatole N. Demidoff
1st Prince of San Donato (1813-1870)
Jpg: Alexandre G. Tissot Demidoff

Princes of San Donato
by Alexandre G. Tissot Demidoff
December 2000

Background

Born in St. Petersburg in 1812, Anatole N. Demidoff, First Prince of San Donato, was one of the most talented, energetic, and extravagant of the Demidoffs. His interests ranged wide: directing the vast Demidoff business empire in Russia, commissioning masterpieces from leading artists of the day such as Paul Delaroche and Eugene Delacroix, to raising scientific expeditions to uncharted lands in Russia.

As a young man of twenty-four Anatole raised a twenty-two man strong scientific expedition to explore in detail Russia’s new territorial acquisitions in the South. The imminent French sociologist, Frederic Le Play, headed the scientific part of the expedition, while Jules Janin chronicled the voyage, and Auguste Raffet maintained the pictorial history. Frederic Le Play was later appointed by Anatole to apply his sociological and scientific methods to manage the Demidoff Mining and Arms Empire in Russia. The outcome of the expedition was an important and richly decorated multi-volume study published in 1840 that covered the geographical, zoological, geological, botanical, and sociological findings of these new lands of Moldavia, Crimea, and Southern Russia.

Anatole further controlled one of the most important mining and arms industrial empires in Russia, albeit from afar, since most of his time was spent in Paris or at his Villa di San Donato in Florence. Having lost both parents when only sixteen, Anatole and his much older brother Paul assumed the control of the business empire located in the Ural Mountains of Russia in 1828. The empire consisted of fifteen villages and nine munitions and mining factories that generated an immense fortune of 5 million roubles each year to Anatole.

Anatole’s keen and studied artistic taste led him while in his early 20’s to commission masterpieces of art from the leading painters of the Romantic movement. These included the ‘Last Day of Pompeii’ by Karl Briullov (currently at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg), ‘The Execution of Lady Jane Grey’ by Paul Delaroche (currently at the National Gallery in London), and scenes in the life of Christopher Columbus by Eugene Delacroix. Anatole was the most generous and active benefactor to Eugene Delacroix, Eugene Lami, and Auguste Raffet, among many other leading Romantic artists. During this same decade Anatole became the most active customer of the French jeweller, Chaumet, drawing and commissioning beautiful and rare gold boxes, objets d’art, and jewellery.

In 1840 Anatole married Princess Mathilde Bonaparte following a two-year period of negotiations with Princess Mathilde’s father, King Jerome Bonaparte. This proved a tempestuous and unsustainable marriage that lasted only six years and led to hard recriminations from both sides. It was Jules Janin who originally suggested the union since he was aware of Anatole’s strong interest in the Napoleonic heritage. Anatole’s life-long interest in all-things Napoleonic was inspired by his mother, Baronne Elisabeth Stroganoff, who lived in Paris during the early days of the Empire and often recounted stories of the Emperor and his court to her young boy. Even after the separation from Mathilde, Anatole’s fondness for the Napoleonic heritage never wavered and he acquired the former home in exile of Napoleon Bonaparte on the island of Elba from members of the Bonaparte family where he had erected a Museum dedicated to the Emperor in 1859. This museum stands to this day [Villa Domidoff of San Martino] although most of its contents were sold at auction in 1880.

Background of the Demidoff Empire

The Demidoff Family dynasty traces back to the end of the sixteenth century to Nikita Demidoff (1656 – 1725). Nikita was a free and wealthy importer and manufacturer of arms located in Toula several hundred miles south of Moscow. Peter the Great recognised Nikita’s solid administrative talent and granted him a privatised steel foundry in Toula to supply his armies. This was followed in March 1702 with a munitions factory in the Urals. For his service to the State and especially for high quality arms supplied at a low cost in support of Peter the Great’s successful war against Sweden, Nikita Demidoff was ennobled and in 1725 the hereditary title was extended to all Demidoff family members from Toula. This practise to ennoble great industrialists was an important part of Petrine Russia whereby a wider class of elites based on meritocracy was created.

By the middle of the 18th Century the Demidoff mining empire played the central role in positioning Russia as the leading exporter of high-grade iron ore in the world with England accounting for 60% of the Demidoff production. Many of the techniques were indigenous to Russia, however, the Demidoffs studied first-hand the leading metallurgical methods employed in England and Germany and posted their leading scientists and managers in those countries over extended training periods. By 1750 the high quality and production of the Demidoff mines accounted for 40% of national production in Russia.

After a squandered youth running up tremendous debts, Anatole’s father, Nicholas N. Demidoff (1773 – 1828), who inherited the family empire when only fifteen, returned to Russia following an intensive work-study programme in Germany and England. On his return Nicholas assumed control of the family mining empire from Stroganoff family members and importantly increased its wealth. Nicholas further distinguished himself by financing and raising a battalion that fought with distinction at the battle of Borodino. In 1819 Nicholas was appointed the Russian Ambassador to the Court of Tuscany and brought his two boys, Paul and Anatole, to Florence in 1822. This followed the death of Elisabeth Stroganoff in 1818 while she was living in Paris.

In Florence, Nicholas commissioned to have Villa di San Donato built after acquiring a large swamp-infested tract of land north of Florence from the Catholic Church. Her further initiated a series of schools, hospitals, and public charities throughout Tuscany.

Anatole’s older brother, Paul N. Demidoff (1798 – 1840) married a lady in waiting to the Russian Court, the Finnish beauty, Aurore Sjernwell in 1836. Paul surprised his new wife on the morning following the wedding with the gift of the Grand Sancy, the world’s seventh largest diamond that is now housed in the Louvre at the Gallerie d’Apollon as part of the Crown Jewels of the State of France with a weight of 55.23 metric carats. The few widely scattered descendants of Paul and Aurore are the last living relations of the Princes of San Donato.

Following the death of Nicholas in 1828 and that of his elder brother in 1840, Anatole continued where his father left off in raising production of iron at the Demidoff mines by 32% to 1.4 million ‘puds’ from 1837 to 1851. He further continued the tradition of sending the most ambitious and talented managers of the mines to work-study programmes in Germany and England and brought highly talented scholars and business people like Frederic Le Play to Russia, as earlier mentioned. Anatole showcased the talent of his staff at international forums such as the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in London in 1851 that was hosted by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Massive malachite blocks and delicate steel ‘butterflies’ from the mines of Nizhny Tagil were placed on display financed exclusively by Anatole.

Anatole N. Demidoff

Anatole was raised in Paris by the Jansenist priest abbe Bradt under cosmopolitan influences. The family lived in a sumptious apartment complex on the corner of Boulevard des Italliennes in Paris. Commissioned works in malachite and gold from Thomire, silverwork by Odiot, and leather and other luxury goods from Hermes, among other leading luxury houses decorated the interior. Baronne Elisabeth Stroganoff was an ardent admirer of Napoleon and after the family was recalled to St. Petersburg following Napoleonic aggression against Russia a the beginning of the 19th Century, Elisabeth returned alone to Paris in 1817. On her death in 1818, Nicholas erected a magnificent mausoleum that stands to this day in Pere Lachaise. Anatole later ordered the construction of the marble structure atop the mausoleum. Having lost both parents when only sixteen, Anatole assumed great responsibility and even greater riches. The first he appeared to satisfactorily manage the second was to create more problems for his character.

Given his taste for luxury and cosmopolitan life, Anatole felt no inclination to assume humble Foreign Service assignments in Russia as a subject of the Russian Czar. Anatole pleaded with his brother, who was stationed in St. Petersburg, to impress upon the Czar Anatole’s delicate constitution. An assignment in Paris or Florence would be more favourable than the harsh winter conditions in St. Petersburg that the Czar requested and enable Anatole to better live up to the family credo: ‘action not words’. Unfortunately, the Czar was not impressed with his subject that preferred living in Paris to returning to Russia to be of service to the Government. Moreover, the Czar grew resentful of the young man after reading reports of his admiration of the Napoleonic Heritage, escapades at the Paris Opera with other founders of the ‘Jockey Club’, and journalistic forays in the ‘Journal des Debats’ to enlighten Parisians of the realities of life in Russia.

Anatole’s interest and appreciation of the Romantic artistic movement, however, was genuine and it is in this field where Anatole made lasting friendships. Closest among this circle of friends was Auguste Raffet, a man whose critical opinion Anatole sought in most situations. It was Raffet who advised Anatole on the thirteen Dutch and Flemish paintings to purchase at the Duchesse of Berry sale in 1837. Based on Raffet’s solid recommendations Anatole was able to assemble at Villa di San Donato an impressive collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings that included masterpieces from Meindert Hobbema, Albert Cuyp, Isaac Van Ostaade, Rembrandt, Gerard TerBoche, Jan Steen, the Ruysdaels, Paul Potter, and many more that today, following various Demidoff auctions, can be found displayed in the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Gallery in London, among other international locations. During the uprisings in Paris in 1848, Anatole invited Raffet and his family to live at Villa di San Donato with him.

Anatole was further keenly interested in promoting industry in Italy. He participated in the management of the construction of the rail system connecting Florence and Livorno at the request of Grand Duke Leopold II. Together with a business colleague, Joseph Poniatowski, Anatole further worked on construction of the railway system that connected Florence to northern boundaries of Italy. It was in connection to these industrial projects, combined with continued support of charitable undertakings that included a hospital in Lucca, a school for the poor families of Florence, and the Misericordia Charity, that Leopold II granted Anatole the Italian title Prince of San Donato on the occasion of his marriage with Princess Mathilde in 1840. The title, Prince of San Donato, however, was not recognised in Russia. It was recognised in Russia only for Anatole’s nephew and sole heir, Paul P. Demidoff and his wife, Princess Elena Petrovna Troubetskaii, the Second Prince of San Donato, by the Emperor of Russia in June 1872. Paul P. Demidoff of progressive liberal leanings in January 1872 had the title Prince and Princess of San Donato authorised by the Italian authorities to include all male, as well as, female descendants but with this title restricted to recognition in Italy.

The last Princess of San Donato was Maria P. Abamelek Lazarev who died in Florence in 1955. Like her Demidoff predecessors, Princess Maria supported various charitable institutions such as the Invalids of War, provided to the Russian Orthodox Church in Florence icons and other works of art, founded the Union des Invalides Mutiles Russe a l’etranger, and donated land for the Music School in Pratolino in 1922, among many other civic actions over a long life.

Conclusion

Peter the Great ennobled the Demidoffs of Toula centuries ago for their position as the first industrialists of Russia. The successive generations of Demidoff Counts were industrialists first that loyally armed the armies of the Czars from Peter the Great to Nicholas II. In addition to being champions of industry, each Demidoff generation assumed civic responsibility constructing schools, orphanages, hospitals, and sustaining charitable institutions not only in Russia but in all adopted homelands.

The arts and letters were further promoted that saw classical Greek and Roman sculptures and artists such as Greuze and Boucher brought to palaces in Russia, in addition, to assembling world-class libraries. This tradition was fully embraced by Anatole N. Demidoff who sustained the charitable institutions created by his forebears, created new ones, and fostered the creation of some of the masterpieces of Romantic art that includes the ‘Execution of Lady Jane Grey’ by Paul Delaroche, many of Eugene Delacroix’s paintings, and to many other Romantic artists too many to list. His library at Villa di San Donato numbered nearly 40,000 books. The Demidoff contribution over the ages can best be characterised as fostering a shared international cultural experience that has made Russia very much a part of Europe.

I tried to see His plan for me....December 2006

2006-12-05T03:26:00.000-08:00

After a two week trip, 10 days in Turkey and Bulgaria and 5 days in London, I have had nearly a week to reprocess in Moscow.

What a critical time we live in! There has been more targetted violence of late in Russia and Russian relationships that we have seen in a long time. Some of you may have heard of the Russian exile, Litvenenko, who died of poisoning by radiation in London while we were there.
We were at the Russian consulate when that all happened, getting our annual visas. That trip was very pleasant, and we were able to get over to Bristol to introduce Huseyin to the local brothers and sisters there and enjoy their hospitality in a wonderful church that has its heritage in churches of Christ that goes back long before the US "Restoration Movement". That is an interesting curiousity.

One thing I am relearning still at 52 years, is that nothing is as simple as it seems.

An interesting point of discussion in our Genesis Men's Bible Study, downtown Moscow, today, was regarding the omniscience of God.

If God knew that man would sin, why did he put the tree in the garden?

Did God's plan for the cross before the foundation of the world necessarily mean that He forenew the fall of man, or only the possibility of the fall?

What does our "knowledge" of His foreknowledge do to our relationship with God?

How can God morally leave us free to do evil and not be Himself an actor in our evil?
These are back to some of the age old questions discussed in the East long ago that I will try to take up in the future in this blog. Your comments are welcome!

In the meantime, Michael is coming home after his first semester at Pepperdine, Marcus got attacked coming home from his volleyball game last night,
Andrew and Katie move to Montgomery this month, and Marcus and family will join an
RHCC mission to St. Peterburg just after Christmas.
The New Year opens up with a trip by Rebecca to Kazakhstan, returning just in time for a big Christmas (Orthodox) party at our house. And as a bit of futility in concentrated form, today Tim lost his cell phone while trying to make an early morning ATM withdrawal...ouch! I really liked that phone and the combined database of phone numbers, many that I can't replace.

God is great! He is good! He is not to blame for my mistakes! In Him I WILL trust...or as Job put it in much more difficult circumstances "Though He slay me yet I will trust Him!"

The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence. 2 Samuel 22.3

The late Keith Green put it well:

He's brought me here, where things are clear
and trials turn to gold
He shared with me, His victory
He won in days of old

Oh Lord, I don't deserve
The riches of your word
But You've changed my filthy rags
To linen white as snow

The view from here is nothing near
To what it is for You
I tried to see Your plan for me
But I only acted like I knew

Oh Lord forgive the times
I tried to read your mind
Cause you said if I'd be still
Then I would hear your voice

My Lord, my King, my urge to sing
And praise the things above
No words can say the glorious way
You changed me with your love

He's brought me low, so I could now
The way to reach the heights
To forsake my dreams, my self esteem
And give up all my rights

With each one that I lay down
A jewel's placed in my crown
Cause His love, the things above
Is all we'll ever need

He's brought me here, where things are clear
And trials turn to gold

The View from Here...

2005-08-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

Erotas eisai Anatolitis, san to bakiri melachrinos.
Kei ta filia sou, kei ta angalia sou,
bourdaniasmenos okeanos!

Just some old Greek lines from a romantic song...that is the east and that is Anatolia, where the sun rises! May the bright morning star ever be an inspiration to you! This effort is inspired by my signing up for a username to be able to use the RHCC blog site. I hope that some of you who might happen across this blog, will share some of your Anatolian perspectives...
that is... enlighten us. I am a Brinley/Callaway/Heman/Feemster myself married to a Kramar/Renner. Eldest of three sons of a father with one brother and a mother with two sisters. Husband of one wife, father of three sons and one daughter. I have spent the later half of my 50 years in three of the most interesting and historical countries of the world, on the seam between East and West: Turkey, Greece, and Russia. I have learned their languages and loved their people and shared their pain and their dreams. They are incredible peoples who have been intermingling for centuries upon centuries in the empires of the world. But it is late and I want to respond to the RHCC church blog, so I will write more again, as opportunity arises.
anatolitis