A night of 10,000 Smiles

A funny thing happened to me in our first year serving in St.Petersburg, Russia. It happened a year before I was able to butcher the Russian language with some form of fluency. I had just left my language lesson with Vera. Sandra Ryan who also took Russian language lessons from this woman once told me “Jeff and I think she is KGB”!
Now, Vera was known for making her students cry and asked so many personal questions it often caused me to rethink my initial thought that Sandra may have been joking.
I was driving home in our LADA, a little white car with a big red Army shield on both the drivers side door and the passenger’s door that said in Russian “Armeeya Spaceenia” ( The Salvation Army). I approached the red traffic light and was drilling myself on some of the vocabulary words that Vera insisted I should already know. When at the red light I looked to my left and saw a man in his little blue LADA waving to me and signaling me to roll down my window. I think it was instinct because logically it was already stupid of me to roll down a window when I could hardly say , “Hello my name is..” However it was already too late. I rolled the window down and he asked me in Russian “ Sto Eta takoi Armeeya Spaceenia?” Excited that THIS question was the very lesson Vera had just drilled me on and that I actually understood, I attempted to answer quickly before the light would turn green.
“What is the Salvation Army?”
“ETA Cirk!” I shouted clearly!
As soon as I said it I knew what I had said. I tried to signal that my answer was wrong but the light turned green and the man just looked pathetically at me and nodded saying… “Don’t worry, I understand.”
As I drove away my heart sank. I failed Vera once again.
Eta Cirk! No…..wrong answer.
I should have said “eta Cirkoff” (it’s a church)
But instead I said, “It’s a circus!”

All this to say, yesterday evening was the GNY night of 10,000 smiles with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. It was at Madison Square Gardens and the New Jersey Division was invited to join the celebration.

It was a fun night with the kids at the circus…..hmmm!

* for those of you who noticed one of my girls is missing.... she went to LION KING on Broadway for a school trip. ;)