I was trying to think of a clever way to reword the "always winter and never Christmas" line from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We definitely had Christmas but the weather here has been very disappointing for Matthew and I. We both really like the snow but we've only had a few weeks of really nice snowy weather. One really beautiful snow lasted about two days; we had no wind at all and snow had frosted everything. So throughout this post there's some nice pictures of that.
One huge piece of good news was the final decision in the legal situation our school has been caught up in for the past year. About 11 months ago, Russia began a crack-down on foreign businesses, including hospitals and schools. Our school came under scrutiny and we began the process of trying to change our legal status as a school and appealing the decision to have the school closed. The process of changing our status is quite difficult here, as it required meeting very specific standards (including how much light each room had). Over the summer we were granted the new status and so the process of appeals continued. This past month the decision was finally made by the last possible court to turn over the entire case completely!
This was a huge answer to prayer and we were all surprised and thrilled by the decision! God was certainly looking out for IA and it is an exciting confirmation of our ministry here in St Petersburg.
Other good news includes our plans for next year. Matthew finished his application process for graduate programs in Russian History in late November/early December.
So far Matthew has been accepted to both the American University in D.C. and University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign! U of I has arguably the best Russian history program and we were especially thrilled to hear that he had been accepted there.
We are still waiting to hear back from the other programs he applied to so please continue to pray for guidance in deciding where to go next year.
As I'm sure everyone knows, the Olympics is currently taking place in Sochi, Russia. Sadly, Matthew and I are unable to go (Sochi is 1500 miles away) but we've really enjoyed watching the Olympics here and cheering for both Russia and the US. Below are the very cute mascots for this year's games!
Please continue to keep IA in your prayers. While it is a blessing to be done with the legal situation, we are now in need of a new building. We are rapidly outgrowing the building we are currently in and would love to see the ministry of the school expand with the space we could gain from a new building!
