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Saturday was a blast. The Chi Alpha in Helena organized a paintball tournament, and so we (the Chi Alpha at the University of Montana) decided to go. It was only $25 for the gun, face mask, and 500 paintballs, but the even better part was that if you brought a friend who has never been to a Chi Alpha event, then they got to go free, and you got half off!

Well, I didn't know if I was going to have time to go on Saturday or not, so I was late inviting Pavel and Arthur, but once I figured that I could spare a Saturday, I invited them and they came. Pavel and Arthur are my two cool Russian friends. I work with Pavel. The three of us drove over with Scott and had some great conversations, like how if China and Russia were to ever "rumble" Arthur would go back to Russia and enlist. I hope that never happens.

Anyway, I wore some of my old BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform) from the Air Force, and Pavel and Arthur both wore some really cool Russian camos. We spent the day with about 57 other people in six teams on three different fields blasting each other. Arthur was such a riot, yelling "for the mother land!" and other stuff in Russian while shooting everyone.

Before I end this post, let me tell you how I met Pavel. Last year, I was planning on graduating from the U of M and beginning grad school in Computer Science. However, I found out that I did not have enough upper division credit (i.e. 300 and 400 level classes) to graduate, and so my grad school plans were quashed. I took the opportunity to re-evaluate what I really wanted from school. I came to the conclusion that although a Master's degree would be more prestigious and career enhancing, my passion was really for learning a foreign language. I debated between taking Chinese and Russian. Chinese because J.J. is planning on leading a mission trip to China in 2008 that I hoped to maybe be a part of, and Max xin speaks Chinese. Russian because I had been to Russia, loved the people, and I had two friends with Russian degrees. I decided on Russian.

Not too long into my first semester of Russian, it turned out that we were going to get an intern in my office. The person we got was Pavel, who it just so happened spoke Russian as his first language. I've taken this as a kind of confirmation that God wants me to be studying Russian right now, and what is even better is that Pavel has got to stay in the office way longer than I thought he was, and even better than that I am sharing my cube with him. You might think that is not so great, but it really is, we get a lot of work done, and I get to practice Russian with him.

I am not sure where my future will lead, if I will go to Russia or what, but I am certain that learning Russian is right for right now. It is nice to know that even if my future is unknown by me, God will still give me guidance to get me where he wants me to be. Not knowing can sure be frustrating, but I’m sure He knows best.

From left to right: Me, Pavel, and Arthur.