I’ve actually considered sharing some of my personal stories here on the blog before.  When I was organizing our house in Minnesota from tip to toe, I came across so many bits and pieces that brought stories to mind.  I considered writing a Summer Stories series about some of my childhood summers.  But, I didn’t.  I was still in the season of my business when my blog felt like something that needed to stay exactly as it was at all costs.  I was honestly too scared of straying too far away from what readers expected from me.  Or what I assumed they expected of me.

One of the stories I wanted to write about, which has popped up time and again in my mind over the years, was about my summer spent in Russia as a teenager.  As I’ve been considering sharing stories, my memory of a July 4th spent with my dad in Vodkinsk resurfaced, and I shared about it in a Story slide on Instagram.  This trip isn’t a natural beginning, but it’s one that seems to echo through my life over 30 years after it took place.

So, this is where I’ll start.

I have shared before that I grew up as an Army BRAT.  “Born, Raised, And Trapped” for those who don’t know what that term stands for.  My dad knew he wanted to be a soldier as a teenager, maybe even earlier.  I’ll have to ask him.  He went to VMI, he went into the Army, he spent a year in Korea, he became an Airborne Ranger, he drove tanks, he worked on the German border when the wall was still up, and he eventually went into training to become a Russian Specialist.  We were sent to Monterey, California, where he trained, and I went to preschool, saw Fisherman’s Warf, the Lone Cypress, and experienced the West Coast.  We were sent to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, where he learned Russian at the language institute, and I learned to ski in the Bavarian Alps, sipped a beer in an Oktoberfest tent in Munich for photos, and fell in love with German soft pretzels larger than my head.  Most kindergarteners don’t really know what their dads do for a living, but I knew my dad was in the Army, and that he was learning Russian.  I would see him writing notes to himself in the strange characters and muttering through church services, likely interpreting to himself for practice.

He worked as a Russian Specialist in Stuttgart, Germany, and then at the Pentagon until he retired when I was going into high school. When he retired, he considered teaching history and a few other options.  For the first time in my life, my parents actually had a choice of where we were going to move and what my dad was going to do.  My mom worked in the finance department of a mission agency at the time, and my dad began exploring the idea of using his Russian language skills and connections to help in some way.  The Cold War was over, the wall had fallen, the Russians were our friends, and the country was open to Americans in a way it hadn’t been for a generation.  He decided to start a school in Russia, teaching English and computers, and setting up a pathway to connect Russian entrepreneurs with Americans who can help bring their ideas to life.

Most people who work in missions and foreign aid live in the country where they work or in close proximity to it.  My mom was not going to move to Russia.  She had already moved around the world and raised her children in military-issued apartments for over 20 years.  She was ready to live in a house she selected.  So, my dad did mission work military-style, in “deployments” of a few weeks at a time.  The rest of the time, he would manage the work from afar, which was a challenge in the very early days of the Internet and when long-distance calls to foreign countries were prohibitively expensive.

My dad would tell stories about his trips when he got home, and, as much as he loved being with his family, he was always eager to go back.  Over the years, Russian friends visiting the US would stay at our house or come over for dinner.  I got to know some of them, including a few young people who attended the school my dad established, and I started feeling a pull.  It was naive and really more about adventure than anything else, but I found myself longing to go with my dad on one of his trips.  I had the opportunity the summer between my junior and senior years of high school.

My dad was taking a group of college students and young adults to Russia for the summer, and I asked if I could go.  I wasn’t a college student or old enough to officially join the trip, but I was permitted because I would be going with my dad and staying with him at his apartment instead of with a Russian host family.   I had to raise my own money for the trip and notify my friend group that I wouldn’t be spending the summer at the pool, the beach, working at Disney, or hanging out.  I would be halfway around the world in a country that was closed and communist a little over five years ago.  I remember one of my friends expressing her disappointment, but I was always a determined girl who knew my own mind and was undeterred.

I didn’t know it would be hard and even scary at times.  I didn’t know it would show me that I am capable of more than I realized when the crutches of modern conveniences and comforts were removed.  I didn’t know it would change my life forever, more than any typical Florida summer would have.

Let me insert here that my dad is crazy.  Not crazy in the clinical sense, but in the sense that he has confidence that things will work out okay, and he seems unfazed by stressful situations.  I suppose that’s why he signed up to willingly jump out of airplanes in his youth.  He enjoys teaching teenagers with freshly laminated permits how to drive, and several families turn that task over to him because he can just sit back in the passenger seat and let a 15-year-old take him on the highway without stiffening in his seat or gripping the dashboard.  He didn’t worry at all about taking his teenage daughter to Russia, or, if he did, he never expressed it or acted like it.  He heard my request and not only let me go, but made it happen.

We packed our large suitcases and plastic tubs in the weeks leading up to our trip.  Not only were we bringing everything we needed for several weeks, but we also brought supplies, tools, and materials for the school and friends.  In addition to clothes, I brought some gifts for the children who lived in my dad’s apartment building.  He told me they would be interested in me simply because an American teenagers would be a novelty to them, and Russian culture is a gift-giving culture.  Small gifts would be a natural way for me to befriend them.  I packed beads for making bracelets, small boxes of Crayons, stickers, packets of Kool-Aid, and candy.  I also brought along some jump ropes.  I had been on a jump rope team called the Skip-Its when we lived in Germany, so I was a competent skipper and could do all sorts of tricks.  (Now I’m wondering which ones I can still do…)  It was something I could share with the kids that was lightweight to pack.

I brought along a Discman and a few CDs, a camera, a journal, and a book to read.  Someone had gifted me Fifty Russian Winters, a book about an American woman who went to Russia on a short-term trip in the 1930s and ended up marrying a Russian man and living there for fifty years.  It seemed like a fitting book to read on this trip, and it’s one of the books that made me fall in love with historical biographies.  I also brought packets of Velveeta cheese.  It was sort of a silly thing, but I loved macaroni and cheese, and this was a way to easily bring a familiar food from home in a suitcase.  I could buy pasta in Russia and then portion out the cheese packets to make it last.  My dad warned me that while the wall was no longer standing, small industrial cities, like the one we would be staying in, still didn’t have stocked grocery stores, and the options would be very limited.

My dad only had a hand-cranked washing machine (which you hooked up to the bathtub faucet) and no dryer, so I brought along lightweight skirts and dresses that were easy to hand-wash and line-dry.  When I looked back over the pictures, I could see I also brought a brown men’s polyester vest I bought at a thrift store (what in the world?), cream denim overalls, some shorts, cotton shirts, and a Michigan sweatshirt that belonged to my boyfriend at the time, along with his letterman jacket.  This was during the 90s-grunge fashion era, so wearing a babydoll dress with combat boots was all the rage.  So, I packed some chunky Timberland boots, which were sort of silly since they were so bulky, but I wore them all around Russia with my flouncy dresses.

The morning we left, my mom and a few of my friends drove us to the airport, where they figuratively waved their hankies before we checked our bags and went through security.  My eyes were puffy and red as I said goodbye.  Now that the trip was here, I had a knot in my stomach, and it no longer seemed like a big, fun adventure.  It seemed foolish, and like I would be missing out on my last summer with my friends before graduation.  I felt fear about the long flight, the 24-hour train ride from Moscow, going through security, and spending weeks in a place that was utterly unfamiliar.

But the funds had been raised, tickets had been booked, the visas had been approved, and I had passed the point of no return.  I was going to Russia with puffy red eyes, a knotted stomach, fears, and all…