Second Lecture In Dzerzinsk

The same three people who attended the lecture in Dzerzinsk on Saturday returned yesterday, according to Jeff, and Sergei again came to Nizhny for the Bible study.

But it looks like Sergei's interest may be superficial, at least for now. He gave Jeff a note and asked him to read it later. Making sense of it through the broken English is difficult, but it does not sound like he has much interest in faith at this point. Sergei also had told us on Saturday that he thought his parents would attend a lecture if given more advance notice, but they declined. I don't recall the wording of the letter exactly, but his mother's attitude in particular was much like that Tom described earlier this week about most Russians: You can't trust preachers.

Tom, in fact, said he does not usually approach Russians by telling them he is a preacher. He gave us that insight after Jeff talked to a man inside the Kremlin in Nizhny. The man, who spoke broken English, told Jeff he does not like people in general and then added, "especially preachers." That's why Tom just tells people instead that he wants to talk about the Bible. That sounds like a great approach to me.