Dr. Brueck's 12th Siberian Diary Day

This the 12th daily entry in Dr. Brueck's Siberian trip.

July 8^th 2008

We spent another day at Ludmilla's house; her husband who was short with silver teeth in his mouth came up and started to talk to me in German. As it turns out he was a tour guide for Germans coming to Siberia. It was kind of refreshing and nice to talk to him in German and we shared some stories. It was really enjoyable. It was a common ground and it was nice.

The second day was quite busy, we probably saw twice as many people and it was nonstop. As I was sitting there towards the lunch hour I started to smell this aroma in the air and I wasn’t quite sure what it was and it wasn’t appealing to me but told Masha who was working with me as a translator that I had to go to the bathroom, so I went through the kitchen and out to the outhouse.

As I passed the kitchen I was looking at the stove and there was an iron cast skillet on it with 3 little tiny fish in it, heads, eyes, tails and all. Needless to say this did not appeal to me for the lunch hour. I later talked to Stacy and apparently these fish were caught in the Tashtyp River and had been sitting out for a couple of days and Ludmilla thought it was time to cook them.

Needless to say I came up with an excuse and I don’t remember what it was but I ate some bread and had some coffee. I got back to the hotel that night around 6:15 or so and we were supposed to have Ludmilla's son Sergai come over. Grisha said he would stay at the hotel and wait for him and I went on to Wolfgang's for dinner.

Apparently things changed and Sergai came to the house to speak with me. Sergai is Ludmilla's youngest son. He is 32 and is an alcoholic. We talked for about an hour and 15 minutes and I tried to reason with him and give him hope and we prayed.

Apparently he was in the Russian army during the Georgian/Chechnian war and apparently it was quite common for the soldiers to drink till the point of oblivion. He worked in the city government in Tashtyp and worked 24 hours on and 24 hours off so he would drink.

After speaking with Sergai, the older son, Andres came in to speak with me, he was 37 and had a job working in the government as well; he was married and had a 12 year old daughter.

Apparently something traumatic happened to him when he was a young man and he would not speak to anybody but in talking with him I was able to find out that something terrible happened to him between the ages of 10 and 18 and even though he never fessed up to me what it was I suspect that he may have been abused as a young boy.

We had a very thought provoking session and tears were shared and hugs were shared and we concluded with some prayers.

At this point in time it was about 10:15 and as I went downstairs from the study. Judit asked if I wanted dinner and I told her I was just too tired and emotionally exhausted so I walked back to the hotel to try and go to bed.

The next day I found out that after I had left Ludmilla, her sons, Wolfgang and the daughter-in-law all went back to Andres’ house and they had a wonderful session and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior so it was a heartfelt wonderful day and ended very happily.

Dr. Brueck in Russia - 4th Diary Entry

This is the 4th day of Dr. Brueck's Siberian adventure diary.

June 30^th 2008

Surprise, surprise, I am always amazed by surprises, I actually slept in, once again I fell asleep late probably about 2 or 3am and I slept until 10:30am. Grisha came by the apartment about 1pm and he, myself, Diane, and Stacy took off for the Kremlin. We saw the changing of the guard by the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

When we arrived at the Kremlin we as usual took out the rubles, you have to pay for everything here there are no free rides. Along the way there were many Nestle ice cream stands so I would stock up on these little ice cream cones that had pineapple on them, they were delicious and I would try and eat 2 to 3 a day.

In fact talking about rubles, the public toilets are pay toilets and you would have to at times pay 20 to 30 rubles and this equates to about $1.00 American.

The weather has been decent but it is always cloudy and it has rained every day but fortunately not for the entire day.

The Kremlin is huge and there are a lot of Russian Orthodox churches inside. The Russian Orthodox priest seemed to live quite well. As we were there at the big cathedral several of them were leaving after a big meeting and every one of them had their own personal body guards and got into their new BMW’s, Audi’s, and Mercedes, not too shabby. From what I understand they all have businesses and whatever that may mean, it obviously pays quite well.

Dr. Brueck, plastic surgeon in Russia - Day 2

This the second day of Dr. Brueck's Siberian Medical Misssion diary

June 25^th 2008

We landed at one of 3 or 4 airports in Moscow, the one we landed at was SVO, it was a considerable distance from Moscow and I was picked up by 2 members of the team.

As I was going through passport control I thought I was going to have to order pizza, slow, slower and slowest seemed to be the fashion of the day. It may have just been my nervous anxiety to begin the journey; I breezed right through customs with about $10,000.00 in cash that I was bringing over to the mission. They had sent me a check, asked me to cash it and bring new $100 bills.

I was waiting for some Russian customs official to start barking out in Russian to pull me aside and search me but I was cagey and I wrapped the money in saran wrap and put it inside my socks and I wore boots. Fortunately I went right through and was not detained or stopped in any way.

The team members were there waiting for me and I was relieved when I saw them, not speaking Russian could have been a problem and I later came to find out that very few people in Russia actually speak English.

The trip into the city was long, probably about an hour; we must have driven by 30,000 apartment complexes, of course I’m exaggerating but not by much. They are everywhere like trees in a forest.

We arrived at the apartment and Grisha, my interpreter (correcting typographical error) and I went to his apartment to get his things for our journey to Saint Petersburg. I soon found out that it is a very common custom throughout Russia to take your shoes off and put on slippers before you walk around the house.

Our train for Saint Petersburg was going to leave at 11:30 that night so we spent 2 or 3 hours trying to get rubles from the ATM machine with my visa card, this was next to impossible. I think we had spent a couple of hours contacting the States and the company and fortunately we were able to get it done before going to the train station.

We got to the train station in plenty of time and boarded around 11:00pm to begin our overnight journey into Saint Petersburg.

Day three, June26, will be posted tomorrow. Thank you

Medical Mission to Siberia - Dr. Brueck, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, Fort Myers

On the 24th of June, Dr. Brueck, Board Certified cosmetic surgeon, departed for Siberia, Russia on a medical mission. We will offer daily entries from his journal over the coming days.

June 24^th 2008

The adventure begins…… My time with Katie was special, how blessed I am to have such a special, loving wonderful daughter and two great sons. She gave me some pictures which were great so I could share them with the families and people I will meet on my journey into Russia and Siberia. To my surprise and bewilderment the plane actually took off on time at 3:30PM. The flight path was up the east coast over Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland and then over the top to Moscow. At 40,000 feet as I was looking down at the polar ice caps I could swear I saw ice forming on the polar ice caps, this would be amazing and I have to apologize to Al Gore that I think he is wrong. We actually landed about 30 minutes early, wow… modern technology. The flight was great; however I didn’t get any sleep because of the excitement. The food was so-so but you don’t travel half way around the world for gourmet food. The guy sitting next to me was from National Cash Register and was traveling to Moscow on a business deal. We had a great opportunity to share our families, our thoughts and our lives experiences. His oldest and only son is in a drug rehab center in Milwaukee so we exchanged addresses and I am going to give him some information about letters from dad and I certainly will have him in my prayers.

These journal entries will be posted to Dr. Brueck's web site at Beauty-by-Brueck. You may visit the web site ofr more information about Dr. Brueck and his cosmetic surgery practice in Fort Myers and Cape Coral, Florida.

Dr. Brueck's medical mission

Summer is here and I am off again on a new mission adventure. You'll never guess where I am going.

Siberia.

Before you envision me as "Nanook of the North" - dressed head to toe in winter clothes, boots, insulated underwear and all, let me tell you I have been told the temperatures can reach 120 degrees. Yes, 120 degrees. I guess I will find out soon enough.

I leave Fort Myers on Saturday, June 21, to fly to Moscow and then head north to some remote villages in Siberia.

Many of the people living there have no idea who Jesus Christ is or have ever seen a doctor. I will return Monday, July 14.

The medical mission is AGAPE headed by Dr. Bill Bechnell. I met him 3 years ago and we have been in touch. After much thought and prayer, I'm off again.

Bill is such a humble servant of the Lord. When he returned from general surgery in Kentucky, mission work became his passion and calling.

I will give you all a full report when I return. I hope all of you will pray that we can make a difference in many peoples lives.

If you want to make a donation, please make your check payable to AGAPE. It's tax deductible. You can send it to me at my office. It will be used to buy medicines for our trip.

Thank you in advance for all your prayers and support - be safe and have a spirit-filled summer. God Bless.

(Ed. Note - Dr. Brueck was reluctant to talk about this trip. It was only after my insistence that he consented.)