by Chris
So this post sort of outlines everything that I know about this trip. I'll start with some basics.
The team, consisting of a priest, 4 full time FOCUS missionaries, and 7(?) students will be traveling to Eastern Russia to do mission work! This mission trip is being hosted by FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) as well as other organizations that are helping us get to the parish we will be working at. Each member of the team has had to fundraise (mostly through donations from very generous family and friends) the cost of the trip. We will be away from home for 4 weeks: 3 in Russia, a few days in NY to train and prepare, a quite a few days of just traveling.
Most of our trip will be spent in and around Vladivostok, Russia, a city on the eastern peninsula of Russia. While there we will be working at a parish set up by an American priest, Father Myron. Our work, to the best of my knowledge, will include working at an orphanage, hospice, and any other places in or around the parish that needs our assistance. We will also be hosting a youth summer camp a few hours outside of Vladivostok and attending the Far East Conference, which is like Russian version of SEEK.
A bit of background on this area: basically we are in southern Siberia. The reason this area is so important to Catholic Mission work is because during the rule of Stalin, this area was completely cut off from the rest of Russia. Additionally, religion of any sort, especially Catholicism, was completely outlawed. The government seized all Catholic churches and converted them into buildings for other uses. Recently, the Church has begun to reclaim these old churches and rebuild the Catholic faithful in the area. Nevertheless, the living conditions for these people as well as the level of Christianity (or lack thereof) in the area needs improvement, and so our band of Americans will go to serve as best we can.
