Refreshing Innocence
Ira is a breath of fresh air.
It is wonderful to find such a treasure of innocence in the midst of such a cruel and harsh world.
One example for you: she had never heard of email before.
She certainly doesn't know what a blog is. But has heard of the internet before.
They have a computer at her school, and it can connect to the internet, but it is not for use by the students.
She can't use it.
She's seen glimpses of the internet here in our home. But I honestly don't want her to get too familiar with it. I the country she is from only the rich and mighty have internet access.
I'm now fully on the side of: prayer should be in the native tongue. I've learned that Slavonic, while it might be interesting to an adult who has liguistic skills: it is totally inappropriate for children. They haven't got the slightest idea what anything means in slavonic, even the Lord's prayer, short as it is: is fully non-understandable in slavonic.
Fortunatly, it is easy to find the Lord's prayer in Russian, since it is, after all, int he Bible.
I finally found a prayerbook in Russian. A special thanks goes out to Jeff-who-is-about-to-get-married (I-forget-his-last-name) for turning me on to Fr. Alexander's web site. http://www.fatheralexander.org
He's some sort of bishop, and since he doesn't insist on being called Master, and all that, I must assume he is not a canonical bishop. But, God Be Praised, he has translated the prayers of the Holy Church into Russian.
I printed up a whole Molitvoslav (prayerbook) in Russian, and while she (like any kid) doesn't really enjoy going to Church, she is excited about her new prayer book. We picked out one morning prayer, and one evening prayer, and she's typing them up (right now at the other computer around the corner from he, God be praised!) on a separate sheet of paper so she can have them when we say our prayers.
It took us several days, after she arrived, to find The Lord's Prayer in Russian - and that, I only set out to do when I discovered she couldn't understand peep of the slavonic version.
Then it has taken me nearly a week to actually find some prayers in Russian. Fortunately I found this great web site: http://pagez.ru/philaret/ about St. Philaret of Moscow (and it just turns out that he has written several prayers in Russian, and they are quite good - good enought to be put into most prayer books).
So, I found her prayers by St. Philaret a couple days ago.
But, last night, thankfully, I found the whole prayer book, translated by Fr. Alexander. Ira picked out a morning prayer and an evening prayer and is typing them up. She loves typing in Russian so much that I didn't want to tell her she could just cut-and-paste. Myabe that's naught of me. But there's something simply wonderful about a little girl that would rather sit at a computer and write than play computer games.
Cheers!
Basil
