... thinking about life. and death.

a couple of weeks ago i have brought my mini evangelicube to work. everyone seemed interested in that little creation of paper and wood, and as a result they also saw the Story... some asked questions, some made fun of it, some just quietly looked at it...

a lot of people were interested in the way the evangelicube was made so that you could seemingly move it any way and it would fold and open... so i decided to try to make one myself - without the Story, but just a cube.

equipped with a fashion magazine, tape, and scissors, i set to work. back when i was a kid, my mom got me a book "100 crafts from paper"... one of my favorite crafts was an inflatable cube. i made 8 of them, taped them together and voilà! - my cube was done.

it was bigger than the tiny evangelicube, but still...

one friday, my little 5-year-old boyfriend showed up at work. he brought some cars and a motorcycle with him and we decided that my big cube makes a perfect garage - all the cars fit!

but then, as i returned to work i was doing before he showed up, Kostik got interested in the little evangelicube.

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed.

i looked back and he was holding the evangelicube open on the picture with Jesus on the cross.

"Yep, that's him."

"So what happened next?" he asked, trying to figure out how the cube worked.

I opened the next picture... "They buried him... yet" - i opened another pic - "He rose from the dead."

"why?"

"because He is our way to God now. See the guy who's standing on something that looks like a road? That's cross. It's like a bridge."

"oh..."

he busied himself with looking through the cube, going through the story again... but as i turned to my laptop's screen, i heard an exclamation.

"i found God!"

i grinned and looked back. he was holding the evangelicube open on the cross-bridge picture.

heh...

"I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom," said Jesus to his disciples. (Matthew 18:3-4, the Message)

i want to have a faith like a child.

since i am a child. of God.

i just realized (well, a friend of mine reminded me) that it was my xanga anniversary the other day...

on October 22, 2009 it was 4 years since i am on xanga. wow... seems like only yesterday i typed my contact information, got a login and password, and dove into the world of blogging, html-ing, css-ing (that's cascading style sheets, it wasn't cussing)...

i am thankful that i oversaw a friend of mine creating a blog for himself and got interested... since, after all, it was my blog (and a recommendation from a friend professor) that brought me to my work.

a trip of thousand miles starts with one step. those Chinese guys were right on that!

1. coming to Church. yes, boring "correct" answer, but it is true. sidenote: when i started coming to Church (tagged along with mom), i was coming for sort-of wrong reasons - i loved the people who were there, U.S. teams who would play with me, and... candies. i also liked to learn new things and Sunday School was a perfect place for that.

2. taking classes with Dr. D'Andre. the relationship was tough at first (for me, anyway), but once i learned how to compromise without letting go of my own principles and learned to understand what D'A was trying to tell us, his ideas started making sense. they have changed and shaped the way i think a lot - i had to actually think through as to what i believe in. another sidenote: i came up with the same conclusions as i did before, but now at least i knew where they came from.

3. working at the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. this job... first of all, it found me, i wasn't looking for a job back then. secondly, it is perfect - i work with great team, great boss, dynamic environment, computers. also what i do in particular is not connected to communicating with people directly, i.e. by phone or meetings. yes, there are meetings and calls, but not as many as other guys have. which is another perfect thing for an INFJ person like me.