Joe Ragan

Today I drove up to Izum to meet colleagues from Kharkov, who were delivering some other colleagues from Budapest who are staying with me the next few days.  It was a nice drive up and didn’t get too bad until I almost got to Izum.

My colleagues were familiar with a place on the south side and so I stopped and waited for them to show up.  The place had a small cafe there and so we enjoyed a great meal that was reasonable.

The colleagues from Budapest piled into my car and we drove back to Donetsk just in time to get ready for the pizza party planned for tonight at my place. I love the chance to meet new people and was pleasantly surprised by all the folks who showed up.

We had some great conversation and fellowship time and then enjoyed pizza.  The pizza was good, but I really enjoyed getting to know some of the new people in attendance and especially the time with some old friends I haven’t seen in a while.

Relationships are important to our lives and I love the opportunity God gives me to spend time with old friends and meeting new ones.  Today was a great day to see that happen!

After my arrival home in Donetsk on Saturday, it began snowing in the evening and snowed all night.  So, a couple of more inches of snow are on the ground to add to what has already fallen.

I walked to the garage this morning to find my battery dead.  After living in Kazakhstan for 3 winters, you would think that I would have thought about taking the battery out of the car and putting it in my warm apartment, but I didn’t think it would be so cold for so long!

I shoveled the snow around the garage and then headed to the bus stop to catch the bus to church.  I was standing close to the street when a car passed by, covering me with snowy mud from head to toe!  For a moment, I just stood there wondering what just happened.  I tried brushing the mess off of me, but that made it worse.  So, I walked home to change clothes.

The CP team came over for lunch and to meet to do some planning.  Afterwards, a couple of the guys tried to help me get the car started.  No luck and they left.  I decided to go buy a battery when I met one of my neighbors.  He offered to help and we worked for over an hour to get the car started.

Finally, I called my mechanic.  I hate calling him on Sundays as he is also a pastor at the church I attend.  He offered to come and we worked on charging the battery for more than an hour and it finally started.  Almost 4 hours after I first started, meaning that I had been temps around 15 degrees.  My toes and fingers were cold, but not terribly.

The greatest thing that happened during the 4 hours: getting to share a little of my life with my neighbor.  I learned he doesn’t believe in anything spiritual.  He doesn’t call himself an atheist, although he said his father was.  I appreciated his honesty and felt our relationship went to a new level.

I did share with him that while he may not believe in a soul or spirit, he does have a good heart.  He stood outside with me for almost 2 hours.  He replied that he likes to help people, to which I replied, well, then, you believe in good works.  Like I said, it is a starting point at least to build upon.

So, while I may not have preferred to spend 4 hours of a Sunday in 15 degree temps, I found it all worthwhile in getting to know my neighbor.  “By this all people will know…”

At 5 a.m. this morning, my stress level went up.  My taxi driver sent me a text message saying that his car was broken down and he couldn’t take me to the Budapest airport.  I called the taxi company number he sent me.  Almost 5 minutes later, they called to tell me that they didn’t have any drivers available.

So, I had to hunt for a taxi number.  Fortunately, I found one and they said a taxi would be there in 10 minutes.  After 15 minutes I called to find out where the taxi was as my time was running out!  As I was talking to the dispatcher, the taxi showed up.  I quickly got in the cab.

We arrived at the airport and the line was long.  Fortunately, I was able to get my boarding passes at the quick check in, but still had to wait to check my luggage.  There were 3 young Hungarian guys in front of me obviously on a ski team.  They had lots of luggage.  One of the Austrian ticket agents spent the rest of her morning getting them checked in.

Our plane was actually delayed leaving Buda for a couple of passengers, who happened to be these skiers.  They sat in front of me on the plane and I learned that they are biathletes  I had an idea what that meant, but asked one of them to be sure.  It is cross country skiing and rifle shooting.

My dear friends, Antonina and her brother, Artyom, met me at the airport.  They have done this a couple of time now.  They brought me home and Toni had prepared lunch for us.  How great is that?!?  A nice meal with friends waiting for me.

So what did I learn from today?  That even though my stress levels may go up and back down, friendship is what makes life wonderful.  Thanks to the great reminder from Toni and Artyom.

Thursday was a good day!  After more than 6 months of being unable to chew on one side of my mouth, the dentist finished the work of putting in 2 implants and a new crown.  A couple of hours later I enjoyed a good (and expensive!) meal at Fridays.

I spent the day outside as the sun was shining and it was above freezing.  It was a day of happiness to see the sun and being able to chew!

I have never been a huge movie buff.  People ask me often if I have seen a certain, “big” movie and more likely than not, I must say no.

The past two nights, while in Budapest, I have watched two movies: The Kite Runner and The Boy in the Striped Pyjames.  I must say that both movie plots were excellent and they are movies worth watching again.  However, both movies have somewhat depressing themes and should not be watched on consecutive nights.

I mostly enjoy comedies and action movies, and these movies do not fit either genre, but are definitely good movies to watch.  Having lived in eastern Europe and been to several concentration camps and at least one Gulag, The Boy in the Striped Pyjames hit home with me.  Having living in central Asia and having met lots of great Afghanis, seeing the Kite Runner made many of their stories from home more alive for me.

So, while I may not be a movie buff, I sure enjoyed the last two movies I have seen.

It is amazing what God will do to help someone “learn” something.  Over the last few weeks, I have been hearing some verses repeated over and over.

It seems that I started it when I met someone for dinner and shared things would be much simpler if we just lived by the two commandments that Jesus gave in Matt 22:37-39: “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

I began to think on these verses and how my life would be impacted if I truly lived out these verses in my life.  I strive to live out verse 37 every day and in every way.  However, I am sure that I fail often in doing all that is asked in the verse.

But what about verse 39: love my neighbors as myself.  What does this entail?  How do I live out this verse!

Sunday, I was at International Baptist Church of Budapest and the pastor preached from John 13:21-38.  Amongst this passage are these verses: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (vss 34-35)

The scripture says, “by this all people will know that you are my disciples…”  Jesus was challenging his disciples, who were fishermen, tax collectors and others, that people in Israel would know that they were disciples of Christ by their love for one another!

Let me apply this to my context for today:  I need to show love for my neighbors, for my friends, for my family because Jesus has loved me first.  And a sign that I am His disciple is that I have love for one another.

It sounds so simple, but so difficult to enact.  Who wants to “love the man going through the trash dumpster” or for the “woman with the baby sitting at the bottom of the steps every day begging”?  Yet, these are the very ones Jesus has commanded me to love!  Oh, how I wish I had that kind of love!

So, maybe the second commandment will become “easier” once I have learned the first one: to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  Maybe that is where I need to focus my mind and my heart at the moment.  To learn to love the Lord with  all my heart, soul and mind.  Then, as this becomes part of my life, the second commandment will become easier and I will truly love my neighbors.

I want people to know (and see) that I am a Jesus follower in more than just words, but by deeds and actions.  I need to live out my faith and love for Jesus.  Then, as scripture promises: by this all people will know…

This afternoon I had the great pleasure of attending a high school BB tourney in Budapest.  Five schools were involved in the tourney, 2 from Budapest, and one each from Kiev, Salzburg and Bucharest.

I remember the first time I ever saw a basketball game.  It was in the winter 1977.  I had an emergency appendectomy and I was in Good Shepherd Hospital in Longview, TX.  There was absolutely nothing on TV on a Sunday afternoon but college basketball.  So I watched and I was hooked!

After I moved to Wichita Falls, I went to Austin for the first time to attend the HS state tourney with a good friend, Danny Kauffman.  That started a tradition for me to go to the tourney whenever I had the chance.  To this day, if I am in Texas in March, I make it a point to go to the tourney.  I would probably take my vacation every year in March if someone would buy me a ticket home and a ticket for the tourney!

Over the years I have seen some great players.  I saw Shaq one year!  I remember a guy from Duncanville who played at Kansas later.  However, i don’t think he ever did much in the pros!

Well, enough rabbit chasing.  The International Christian School in Budapest hosts a  high school tourney every year.  It happened to be this weekend.  I went with some colleagues to see the 3rd place girls and boys games along with the championship games.  Kiev Christian won the third place trophy, then the KCA girls won the girls tourney.  The final game featured the ICSB boys playing the American International School of Budapest.  It was a hard fought game and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The ICSB boys won the game eventually.

So, I am fired up now to eventually watch some March Madness coming soon on a TV screen near me!  It was a good day!

On February 3, 2005 I began this blog.  It has seen several transformations over the years and due to that, I have probably written well over 900 posts.  However, through combining blogs, writings, deleting some, I am now officially arriving at post 900!

I remember exactly why I starting writing this blog.  My supervisor at the time, Mick Stockwell, had asked me to go to Karaganda, KZ for a temporary assignment.  He had mentioned that since I was going to be in the country by myself that I should consider ways to get more people involved in prayer support.

Blogs seemed to be in vogue in 2005 so I decided to begin a journey that has led to 900 blog posts and countless words being written and expressed.  I love the written word (all that training at Daingerfield HS and Midwestern State University caused it!), even to this day.  One of the first things I do whenever I get on a plane is to find a newspaper!

So, when I was contemplating a move to KZ from UA, blogging seemed like a natural.  I have no idea how many people actually read my blog.  I know at one time, there were people from all over the world taking a look from time to time.

In order to write number 900, I looked back at some of my initial posts from February 2005.  That month, I wrote about my first impressions of KZ, Valentine’s Day, and the extremely cold weather.  It is always interesting to go back in time and see what spurred me to write what I wrote.

I wish that I had journaled all my life.  The first time I did it with consistency was in 1994, when I moved to Lugansk, Ukraine.  From time to time, when I am home, I pull out the spiral notebooks and take a look at what God was teaching me at the time.  I didn’t continue journaling after returning to the states to attend seminary and I still don’t do it with any consistency now.

Some day I would love to write a book of the wonderful journey I have been on since 1994.  I have changed so much since then, I hope for the better!  This journey has been one that I would not trade for any amount of money.

I think back to my life living in a small town (my Ukrainian friends would say it is a village) in east Texas.  I could have never dreamed that I would have the experiences I have had over the last 25 years.  God truly has blessed me.

That first winter in KZ was extremely difficult for me.  Here was a boy from Texas living in a place where the lows would drop to -40 F during the winter.  My first month there I literally didn’t speak a word in English.  I remember the first time Mick called me and how excited I was just to speak English!

But, even as difficult as it was, I would not want to change a thing.  God used that time to grow me into the person I am today.  I realize that I am a life long learner and hope I learn till the day I die!

Thanks to many of you that have been around for all 900 posts.  Maybe one day I will use these writings and combine them into a book.

I enjoy the occasions where I get to visit a brother and talk about what God is doing in our lives (especially those times when it is actually in English!).  This weekend I am visiting some colleagues in western Hungary and it has been a great time to hear the stories of what God is doing in their lives.

Proverbs 27:17 says: “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”  It has been a blessing for me to be with David and his wife to hear their heart for their city and for the Hungarians.  So, as I have listened to their stories, God has encouraged me.  I think that is what is meant by iron sharpening iron and one man sharpening another.  So let the sharpening continue!

I am part of a Facebook reading group.  In January, we read through Proverbs and now we have begun Psalms.  Today I read Psalms 2.

Of course this Psalms begins with: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?”  Which got me to thinking about Rich Mullins song “While the nations rage” and about his life.  My introduction to Rich Mullins was in the mid 80′s.

I was attending Faith Baptist Church in Wichita Falls.  Our pastor at the time, Sandy Sandlin, actually influenced my life in regards to Christian music.  He shared with the congregation once about KLTY, a Christian radio station in the Fort Worth/ Dallas area.  Living in WF meant that I could barely pick up the station, but I listened all the while.  That began me on a journey of learning to love all types of Christian music.

Anyway, someone from church heard that a guy named Rich Mullins was going to perform in concert at Ryder HS.  Several of us from the church decided to go.  There were a lot of people at the concert, but the thing that still sticks in my mind about Rich Mullins was how humble he was.  He came out wearing old jeans and no shoes!  I was struck by the no shoes!  Still am!

That concert was my introduction to Christian concerts and in the coming years I would attend as many as possible.  At this concert, I also remember Rich and his group singing the “Screen door” song and playing the cups.  It was fabulous.  I found a version on youtube Screen Door.

I still enjoy listening to his music and having learned his “Apostle’s Creed” song helped me on a test in seminary many years ago.  Although he died tragically at a young age, his music lives on.  If you haven’t heard him sing, you really should!