Planning for Summer

Hello again!

Since time has kept on moving and more things have happened, it seemed only natural that I should take some time to write about it:-) This past week or so has seen Amanda and I taking our first steps toward obtaining visas to go to Russia. There is only so much we can right now, but we appreciate your prayers for this process as we move forward. We've also been making plans to attend some training sessions over the summer in preparation for going to St. Petersburg.

IA has encouraged us to do Third Culture Kid Pre-Field Orientation, which is an approximately two week training course offered in the summers on the campus of Houghton College in New York. For anyone interested in more details you can check out their website to find out more. The training helps teachers who are planning to teach third culture kids. Third culture kids are children who are living in a foreign country and attending an international school, so they are in the unique position of balancing the culture of their native country, the country they are living in, and the own unique culture of an international school. Since these are the students that we will be working with in IA, it will be good to have some specific training to help us do the best job we can teaching and relating to the students we will be working with. It runs during the last week of June and into the first week of July, so it will be a good way to help Amanda and I shift gears into "Russia mode" for the last few weeks before we fly out.

We also some important plans for May, around say the 22nd that we (Amanda especially) are also working hard towards:-) It seems to soon to be thinking about summer already, but its creeping up on us faster than we realize and we have a ton of important things to be working on. Life seems to be picking up speed with each passing week. If this trend continues, perhaps we won't even need to take a plane to Russia, we can just jump!

-Matt

Moving Ahead

We've begun working more on obtaining visas this week. This is yet another exciting step forward as it keeps dawning on us more and more that we'll be in Russia in just a handful of months. We are looking at August 1 as our target date for arriving in St. Petersburg. It's great to have a date like that to plan around, and it just further drives home how soon this is all happening.

We have had the opportunity to participate in another World Partners training session, which was helpful and enjoyable. We covered a lot of important financial matters, plus it's always great to see the other people. We are really blessed to be able to work with such wonderful and interesting people.

Funds keep coming in, and we are doing very well from that standpoint. I keep writing this, but it's still such an incredible blessing in this economy to see so many people willing to contribute so generously. Amanda's student teaching continues to go very well. She'll be done in a few more weeks, which seems crazy. It feels like just yesterday when she was anxiously wondering what it would be like to be teaching classes by herself for the first time. A few months later and she has settled in very well. Everyone says that she has been doing a great job, and she has had plenty of exposure to all sorts of new experiences that have stretched her as a teacher. It's been fun to hear all of her stories about students and all the ways that she is learning and adapting. I think IA is going to be getting a wonderful teacher next year!

That gives us graduation, a wedding, and a trans-Atlantic move all in the next five months. Hopefully that will quench whatever remaining thirst we may have for major life changes, at least for a little while :-)

-Matt