Fishing takes time

Have you ever been fishing? I have only been fishing a few times in my life. I have enjoyed it every time, but have never caught a single fish, not one. I know that some day I will go fishing again, and even some day I will actually catch a fish. It will be an enjoyable day, no doubt, but it will never happen if I don't pick up the rod and bait and actually go sit on the lake. Hey, that would be a really fun thing to do in Canada. All you faithful Canadians that read this blog, will you take me fishing in August or September, please?!! :) Make sure it's some where that you know they really bite!

Anyway, I'm a fisher of men, more than salmon. Yet it still takes a lot of patience. Granted, my number one priority here is language learning and I don't really have as much time for fishing as I would like. I know that when we return I will have a lot more time for fishing and a much bigger tackle box (language) to help me do well.

I have met some students at the dorms and some have even come to our club. But I really wanted to be able to sit down with people in a cafe, and relate to them on neutral ground. I have tried to do this on a number of occasions and been unsuccessful. Perhaps I am fishing in the wrong cafes. Perhaps I am fishing at the wrong time of day. I don't quite know, but I also get the feeling that once I get a few nibbles, there will be a lot more bait for future catches. The thing is, 3 months does not feel like a lot of time to build up momentum. But hey, I'm not gonna stop, even if the time is short, this term.

I have been a little disappointed that other team members really haven't wanted to come out with me. Looking for people on your own can be a lonely task. I am only just coming to the realisation now, that I will have to go fishing alone if no one else will join me. I want to do what ever it takes.

At our team meeting on Monday, Igor asked me if I could take our team guest (staying with Alyosha) fishing with me this week. "Sure, of course I can," I said aloud. "Great!" I thought sarcastically, "this is going to be fun, since we won't meet anyone anyway". (Keep in mind that the fish I am looking for are not so plentiful. There's plenty of carp around, but very few rainbow trout. How's my analogy going, fishermen?) I was kind of dreading an embarrassing afternoon, but I prayed about it anyway.



Fyodor, is Buryat and comes from the Irkutsk region. He found himself in the boat a little under a year ago. In fact we first met him at a conference in Septemeber, with a fresh and excited glow on his face. We settled down for a tea and fries in a cafe. There were plenty of students there, but not an indigenous one in sight. So we enjoyed our conversation anyway, and I listened intently as he told me his personal story. All the while, I thought to myself, "Hey, this is good for Fyodor anyway, good for him to practice his story and remind himself of the exciting truth." And it was good.

Then we went off to pick up Melody's glasses from the optometrist, and thought we would call it an end to the day. The weather was really kind of sucky, windy and snowy, not nice for fishing, the real kind either. I said, "Let's check out one more cafe." No one there either. So, off to the bus stop. But within moments I noticed the gentleman with the walking stick, and thought, "Yep, there's our appointment for today."



The lovely and quietly spoken man was also Buryat, from the Chita Oblast. I started with my usual monkey tactics, "Hi, I'm a foreigner from Australia where there's lots of wild kangaroos, where are you from?" It never fails to work as an ice breaker. Hey, you've got to use what you've got. After chatting just a little, I offered him a story from an ex-Shaman. He didn't want it at first.

Fyodor got to talking a little while with him and I felt that there was no reason to not let Fyodor go for it. I stood there and talked to Father about it and within moments he was accepting the story. We had ample opportunity to let him know about the love of the Father for him, which he said thank you for. We also had a good chance to chat about other regular stuff, life in his village etc. A number of buses went by before we said good bye.

It reminds me how much fun fishing can be and how much more I want to do it.