Missy: Perspective

By Missy

            After 2 days of traveling by bus, plane, and train, all I wanted was a shower and a nap. I tromped through the dirty city streets in flip-flops that felt inadequate against the conditions. Climbing the uneven stairway towards the monastery, a rotten scent filled my nose and a dog chained just off the path barked viciously at our mission group. Lunch was waiting for us, and on the menu was fish soup, seaweed salad, baked fish (skin and all). Where I’m from, we do not eat like that. Finally able to take a shower after lunch, the tiny bathroom, lukewarm water, and bare piping reminded me that mission trips are not fraught with the comforts of home. To say I was slightly overwhelmed is true, but I swallowed hard and reminded myself that mission trips are meant for this: to expose my first-world eyes to something beyond American amenities and to live in solidarity with people of other cultures, fish soup and all.

            Arriving back to Vladivostok two weeks later, climbing the same smelly, uneven stairs and using the small, lukewarm shower, was like climbing a stairway to the heaven of safe, running water and a feeling of freshness we hadn’t experienced in days.

           

            Ah, the perspective that mission can bring.

            Progressively throughout my journey to Russia, my living conditions became less and less comfortable. First, there was the small, sweltering Queens apartment where I stayed for a couple days with a friend before our mission group gathered. Then, there were the community bathrooms of the Little Sisters of the Poor where we had orientation before flying to Russia. Upon arrival in Russia, enter the monastery described above. And that was not the last rung of our descent. Then, on the first leg of our mission, came the small, one-room apartments in the dark, narrow hallways of a high-rise building with no hot water and only a small toilet to share. The parish building had a shower that seventeen of us took turns using, and the children who came to the camp each day shared this space. Conditions were cramped and less than desirable. Would you believe that even that looked good when we arrived on the second leg of our mission?

Toilets at Far East Conference.
Luckily there were a couple of real ones. 

Our accommodations for Week 2 were an old Soviet Children’s Camp in a forest near the coast and when we arrived, we were all in for a rude awakening. The rooms, shared by 2-4 people, were damp and reminiscent of 5^th grade science petri dishes, with mold growing in everything. Like, our beds were wet. Gross. The toilets were several steps (Chris’s note: by several, Missy means there were many uneven steps that were scary at night) away from our bedrooms and afforded no privacy. One side men, the other side women, with open stalls, no doors, and a little hole in the ground for squatting over. Oh my. The sinks, were in an entirely different location, several more steps away, with cold running water and no soap. Until we brought out a bar. The showers appeared to be outdoors, with curtains blowing in the breeze and ramshackle tin surrounding them. Staring at those showers, and thinking of the 8-day stay ahead, I begin to think of all the ways I could avoid using such facilities. Thankfully, there were other showers, indoors, and sometimes with warm water, but without doors and with nowhere to dress or undress. I suppose with children, this matters little, and eventually with us young adults, it mattered little as well.

By far, the bathroom conditions throughout the trip were what continuously plummeted, and what shocked me the most. And of course there were other struggles, like the food types and portions, the cramped quarters, and the grueling schedule of our mission activities. In situations such as these, there comes a human resilience that shines brighter than the discomforts or inconveniences, or even downright deprivations. We learn that the creature comforts we normally enjoy in the United States (and then, not even all Americans enjoy these) are not necessary for our survival and that in fact, they are immense blessings for which we must give thanks. For goodness’ sake, we even learned that toilet paper is a luxury! I have such a sense of accomplishment for surviving these circumstances and coming out reasonably on top. I feel like I could do anything! Like when I had to use the restroom at the bus station on the way home from the children’s camp: I had to pay 15 rubles (about fifty cents) to squat in a port-a-potty with no hand sanitizer, no toilet paper and no toilet seat. By that point, I wasn’t even phased.