May 29, 2008

Dear Friends,

The Marsdens with daughter Hannah at Hannah's graduation from the small liberal arts college, Asbury, in Wilmore, Kentucky.

During this final week I am living in Moscow as a mission worker of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I am writing to summarize my thoughts and feelings as I prepare to begin my new work with Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship. My heart is mixed with grief and gratitude as I think about leaving the wonderful people with whom I have been working in close fellowship for almost eleven years. I am very thankful for the privilege of serving as a mission co-worker of the Presbyterian Church here in Russia. And I am deeply grateful for the support and encouragement I have received from so many of you. The group of people which I have come to know these past eleven years, many of whom read my letters and send encouraging responses, includes not only people from the United States (from Maine to Texas, from Florida to Washington) and Russia, but also people from Holland, Hungary, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Sudan, Ghana, Nigeria, and other places around the world. Thank you for your encouragement and support throughout these years that have been among the most satisfying and inspiring years for me as a Christian worker, even as they have demanded so much of both my family and of me.

The past months have been spent with preparing for our move back to our home in Richmond, Virginia. This involved selling, giving away, and packing up our belongings accumulated over eleven years time in Russia—including our library of over 1,000 pounds of books to ship back to the United States. Our great triumphal day in this process was on April 26, the day our shipment cleared customs in Russia, a process that took much research and at least four trips to the airport. I say it was a triumph because when we arrived in Russia eleven years ago I spent six full days running around the customs offices at the airport with two Russian pastors and paid about $1,000 in warehouse storage fees to obtain our personal belongings. This time we worked with a customs broker and paid only about $550, accomplishing our goal in half the time. (In Richmond, I was able to clear customs in fifteen minutes with a check for $35.)

Our daughter Hannah’s senior art exhibition and graduation from Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, took place in May. Her senior art exhibition included seven stained glass windows that she made over the last two years.

We made our move to Virginia on April 28, before the completion of the school year here in Moscow, in order to attend our daughter Hannah’s senior art exhibition and graduation from Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. Her senior art exhibition included a presentation of seven large stained glass windows that she made over the last two years. We were delighted to meet her art professors, supervisors from her work in the cafeteria, her pastor with his wife, friends and parents of friends who attended the art exhibition and graduation, which took place on consecutive weekends early in May. Asbury College has been a great experience for Hannah. We recommend it for those looking for a great liberal arts college.

Accompanying our joy at attending Hannah’s graduation has been the great and unexpected loss of my father, Donald Dearborn Marsden, who died in the hospital in Connecticut while we were flying from Munich to Washington D.C. the morning of April 28.  He had undergone surgery to remove his gall bladder on April 18. He seemed to come through the surgery well, but on the second day went into septic shock. He was placed in intensive care for a week where my brother Peter, my sister Ann and friends from First Presbyterian Church in New Haven, Connecticut, came regularly to visit him and pray for him, but he did not pull through. He has gone into eternity now with my mother Constance Avery Vose Marsden, who died almost a year earlier. He was 86 years old.

After Hannah’s graduation Laurie, Hannah, and I returned to Virginia from Kentucky, and then drove up to Connecticut to help my sister Jane and my brother clear out Dad’s house. We rented a truck to drive much of the furniture to our home in Virginia, arriving at three in the morning on Sunday, May 18. Our family will gather again from Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington, and Virginia with friends in New Haven for a memorial service to give thanks to God for our father, grandfather, and friend on June 15 which is Father’s Day in the United States.

Narnia Center has a group of responsible, highly competent, well educated, and socially engaged Russian Christians who together with me are giving their attention to the present and future mission of Narnia Center.

I returned to Moscow a week ago to be with Jeremiah, who stayed here with friends, the Blacks, to finish out the school year at Hinkson Christian Academy. Jeremiah is sad to be leaving the school of which he has been a part since kindergarten. He will be a junior at Freeman High School in Richmond in the fall. Another big reason for my return to Moscow was to conduct the first official meeting of the newly formed advisory board for Narnia Center, which was held May 26-27 in the library of the Institute for Bible Translation at Andreevskii Monastery on the bank of the Moscow River. I am very encouraged by the meeting, because now Narnia Center has a group of responsible, highly competent, well educated and socially engaged Russian Christians who together with me are giving their attention to the present and future mission of Narnia Center. They are Vladimir Obrovets, vice president of the Russian-American Christian University, Alexander Kharitonov, president of Christian Camping International in Russia and the Baltic States, Olga Zaprometova, a professor at the Euro-Asian Evangelical Seminary and head of the international board at the Institute for Bible Translation, and Irina Yazikova, chair of the department of cultural studies at St. Andrew’s Biblical Theological Institute in Moscow. They are shown here together with members of Narnia Center staff Alexei Markevich, Larisa Zhukova, Sergei Kokurin and me inside the compound of the monastery.

During the meeting of the advisory board we reviewed the work of Narnia Center, which has now published over forty books. Among the strategic needs that I presented to the board for Narnia Center is the need to identify and name a person to succeed me as president. Narnia Center needs a leader who can provide vision for publishing and education, who can lead the Narnia staff team and who can effectively raise the funds and manage finances such that Narnia Center can continue its call to serve Christ through publishing and education. It is my intention to pass on the leadership of Narnia Center to a new president or to the board under a new charter within two years. At the same time I am confident that with God’s help our Narnia Center staff is competent to continue its work under the supervision of the advisory board during the interim period. Narnia Center needs your ongoing financial support to continue its work. Please let me know either if you would like to continue receiving reports about Narnia’s work or if you would like to be removed from the newsletter distribution list for Narnia Center.

Another personal note—our daughter Christiana, who had a wonderful second year at Gordon College, has torn her ACL and undergoes surgery on her knee today. Please pray for the success of the operation and her speedy recovery.

Very soon a new email account with the address donaldmarsden@pff.net will be opened for me and you will be receiving communications from me from that address. However, I will keep this address functional until such time as I sense that I have been able to establish contact with all with whom I am in active correspondence.

One of the things I have missed a great deal while living in an apartment building in smoggy Moscow for eleven years is the opportunity to plant and tend a vegetable garden in the (relatively) clean air environment of Virginia. Even as I grieve to leave beloved friends behind me in Russia, I am thrilled that I will have that opportunity again. So if you come by in July, August or September you can enjoy fresh green beans, tomatoes, green or red peppers, sweet onions, mint and other yet to be planted fresh growing fruits and vegetable from our backyard garden.  Not only am I thrilled about living in Virginia again, but I am trusting that the God who led us into missionary service in Russia these past eleven years is leading us now into new vistas of work and new ways of service as I join the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship team because God is always faithful to lead us in our sojourn on this earth.

Next week both Jeremiah and I will return to Virginia where we will join Laurie, Hannah, and Christiana at 508 Cokesburg Lane, Richmond, VA 23229. Our telephone number is 804-658-4256. I will be available beginning July to speak in churches in the United States. I have promised to visit some of you and have had to postpone due to our changing family circumstances. Please feel free to contact me at any time about visits for July and into the fall.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,

Donald Marsden

Contributions for the Narnia Center may be sent through normal mission-giving channels by designating gifts for ECO E051800 - Narnia Center. Gifts by credit card can be made by calling PresbyTel at (800) 872-3283 or by clicking the "give" button below.

Checks payable to the PC(USA) can be mailed to: Presbyterian Church (USA), Individual Remittance Processing, P.O. Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700. Designate the check to ECO E051800 - Narnia Center.  Contributions may also be made by check payable to “The Outreach Foundation of the Presbyterian Church” and mailed to The Outreach Foundation, attention Linda Patrick, 318 Seaboard Lane, Suite 205, Franklin, TN 37067, or by calling the foundation at (800)791-5023. The memo on the check should read “Narnia Center.” For further information contact me.