Easter Update!

Христос Воскрес! (Christ is Risen!)

Hello again and a happy Easter to everyone:-) We are in an especially jubilant mood this weekend as spring weather has finally arrived. The bright sunshine and warmer temperatures fittingly echo Jesus' resurrection as winter is finally behind us (although we have been warned on many occasions that snow may very well briefly return again before summer).

While technically we have five weeks remaining of school, in reality we have less time than that. The last two weeks of the semester are taken up with special activities- the second to last week for final exams for grades 7-12 and the last week for special events like awards day, field day, prom, and graduation. For me, that means only three weeks left of regular classes, which means I'm on a mad dash to fit in as much extra history as we can fit in before exams:-) To add to the mayhem, next Friday is the drama production of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the 4-6th graders. As always, this quarter promises to be jam-packed to the end.

Once its all done it will be nice to have a chance to sit back and reflect on our first year of teaching. It's hard to think that we'll have been doing this for a full (academic) year already. Its hard for me to go back mentally to what it felt like to walk into that first class in late August. By my very rough estimate, I'll have taught something on the order of 300-400 class periods by the time this first year is through. I'd like to think that I'm a better teacher for it, and I hope to take what I've learned this year and improve even more next year.

In addition to teaching, Amanda and I have been enjoying other events. Last weekend, the middle and high school band students put on a jazz cafe at our school. They did a great job playing a wide range of jazz standards and redecorated the third floor to look like a cafe, complete with students dressed as waiters and tables with candles. This weekend we enjoyed the nice weather by taking a walk through some of the islands in the center of the city. To top it off, we enjoyed taking in a roller coaster at Divo Ostrov, St. Petersburg's own amusement park. This morning was a lovely Easter service at our church, and tomorrow a new week dawns again!

Here are some recent photos:

The middle school band at Jazz Club.


The 4th-6th graders singing. Where else can you find American, Korean, Australian, Canadian, Swedish, and Japanese students join together to sing "Route 66"?


The high school band doing their thing.


The 1,000 ft. tall television tower that dominates the northern part of Petrogradsky Region of the city. The water is flowing in the Neva again! It is so nice to see running water again. All winter long the city looked like a desert as the frozen river was covered with an undisturbed blanket of snow.


One of the many very nice homes on Kamenny Island. If you think we should be living here, don't hesitate to give generously:-P


Decorations at the amusement park. A hut on chicken legs is an image from Russian folklore, namely the character Baba Yaga who lives in such a hut.


More fun amusement park decorations.


The roller coaster that we rode:-)

Keep checking back for more news and photos!
-Matt

Important News!

Hello Again!

We have some important news to update all of you on: we are going to be staying in Russia for two more years beyond our current commitment. World Partners gave us the approval to do this a few weeks ago, but we have held off making an announcement on our blog until we had a chance to prepare a letter to inform our supporters. A few of you may have heard this already, but with our latest update letter going out this week we felt it was time to post something about it here and explain why we decided to take this step.

Ever since we began the process of coming to Russia all the way back in January of 2009, we were committed to being open to the possibility of staying longer. With neither of us having more than four months of experience living overseas at a time, we were concerned about trying to commit to a long-range term of service in Russia. Because of this, we agreed to serve for two years with IA. We didn't know what exactly we were getting ourselves into, but we were ready for an adventure and were excited to see what God was doing in Russia:-)

It didn't take long after arriving here before we began to seriously think about staying beyond our two year commitment. Looking back in the journal I sporadically keep, I found an entry I wrote at the end of last October wondering about whether we should stay longer. Staying longer would raise a host of new questions: would the school want us to stay? Would our agency agree to let us stay on in our current volunteer capacity? Would we able to raise the extra support? And of course, just how much longer should we stay?

With these questions in mind, Amanda and I began to pray about the possibility of staying longer. We knew that last fall would be far too early to make a decision about staying longer, since we were still in the "honeymoon" phase of living overseas where things still seem novel and exciting. We continued to pray but deliberately chose to not make any decision until after the first semester and after we had experienced winter and the seasonal darkness here.

By about mid-February, we both felt a strong desire to continue to serve at IA and believed that God was leading us in this direction. At this point we talked with IA, and the school was very happy to hear that we wanted to serve longer. Next, we talked and prayed with our World Partners team here. The others here were also very happy and supportive to hear that we were interested in staying longer. Lastly, we wrote to our agency to explain our desire and ask if we could extend our service while still being part of the volunteer program. We were prepared for possible questions and concerns, but we heard back extremely quickly and were told that World Partners would expect us for another two years:-)

We were excited and a bit scared all at once. In many ways, it felt like it did back in the spring of 2009 when IA formally accepted us to teach. We were so excited and at the same time had to face all sorts of logistical questions. Suddenly things like raising support, getting visas/airline tickets, and finding a place to live became major concerns. In every one of those areas, God worked and blessed us tremendously. We prayed that we would not be accepted if God was not calling us to this and if He was not going to provide the things that we needed. We were accepted and God worked. We prayed this again as we considered staying longer. We have been accepted to stay longer, and now we are waiting to see just how God will work this time. We are trusting in Him to guide and provide just as He has done throughout this past year in so many ways!

The question you may be wondering about now is what happens when the remaining three years of our commitment runs up. At the moment, neither Amanda or I have felt that we are being called to a permanent ministry in St. Petersburg, so at the moment we are planning to return to the United States after our time is up. However, one thing that we both have been learning is the need to always be open to God's leading and to never say never. So while we don't plan to stay more than four years, we don't know if God has different ideas. We shall see what the future has in store:-)

In closing this, I want to say thank you again to everyone who has done so much for us. For the words of encouragement, prayers, and financial support that have sustained us here, we are immeasurably grateful. It has been a privilege to be here and to be supported and trusted by so many of you.

With thanks and gratitude,

Matt

Helsinki

Greetings once more, faithful readers:-)

As promised, here is a post about our recent trip to Finland. We left early on a Saturday morning along with our friends Sveyta and Kristina (also teachers at IA) and took a bus to Helsinki. Its approximately an 8 hour trip (but this includes a few stops along the way and the whole process of crossing the border). I always enjoy getting outside of the city and seeing the neighboring countries. Helsinki is the fourth European capital city we have visited in the past 8 months (Riga, Tallin, and Moscow being the others). I've added Vilnius and Stockholm to my wishlist for next capitals to visit, but we'll have to wait and see if we can manage those at some point:-)

Helsinki, like St. Petersburg is on the Gulf of Finland. The city also bears some traces of Russian influence on its appearance, which is understandable since Finland was a part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917. In terms of size Helsinki is much smaller with about 1 million people living in the greater city area (about 600,000 live within its limits). However, since Finland's population is only 5.3 million people, Helsinki is far and away the largest city in the country.

We didn't have any specific plan in going there, other than to enjoy getting outside of Russia for a few days and finally putting the Christmas money we had been sitting on for three months to use. Our friends wanted to do some shopping, and we were just happy to see the city.

Our hotel was on the sixth floor of a building in the center of the city within easy walking distance of most of the points of interest. We spent our first night walking around by the harbor and enjoying the sites and taking in part of an Orthodox service at the Uspensky Cathedral. The next day I went off walking around the city for a few hours while Amanda, Sveyta, and Kristina did some shopping. I visited the Helsinki city history museum which at the moment is entirely dedicated to the subject of the history of women's rights in Finland. Not what I expected, but very interesting none the less! We also took the ferry to the nearby islands of Suomenlinna, home to an 18th century military fortress that is a major attraction for visitors and a UNESCO world heritage site. The wind on the island was absolutely unbelievable, but the view was beautiful even for a very cloudy day.

Part of the fun of being in Finland is the chance to take advantage of things that we can't find in St. Petersburg. For us that meant a stop at a Ben and Jerry's ice cream store and eating bagels at another restaurant. I also got to visit my favorite Finnish fast-food restaurant, Hesburger. I recommend their new pepperoni cheeseburger:-) Amanda and I also discovered and fell in love with Jaffa, a brand of Finnish softdrink. We even took a two liter bottle back with us of the delicious lime and red grapefruit flavored variety.

We took a night bus back to St. Petersburg which meant that we had a short night since our bus left at 11 and it was hard to sleep knowing that in two hours we would be awakened to go through the Finnish and Russian sides of the border. On the plus side, we did get to enjoy some delicious hotdogs right before going through the Finnish border at 2 a.m. at the last establishment before passport control.

We arrived early on Tuesday morning and promptly went to sleep:-) We had a little "excitement" upon return as we tried to sort out our registration situation. All foreigners (and Russians too) must be registered with the authorities in the country. This must be done again everytime you come into Russia. However, in mid-February a new law was passed that said that employers were no longer allowed to register their employees and that landlords must do it instead. For us, this meant having to talk with our landlord, get him to talk with our visa person at school, have a packet of necessary documents for registration ready, and be prepared to call our landlord as soon as we returned to the country.

However, a few weeks ago the law was repealed. Since the president had not yet signed it, we were told that we would have to have our landlord do it anyway. Upon returning we gave the documents to our landlord, only to be told the next day that he and his wife did not understand what needed to be done. This put us in a temporary panic since our visa manger was out of the country (a lot of people from school were travelling during the break) and we would only have one more day before we had to be registered or else we would need to leave the country and re-enter all over again. After some frantic late night phone calling, we found out that the law had in fact been repealed, and that under the new law the period you have to be registered in had been extended. This was welcome news indeed! Its things like this that remind us, lest we forget, that we are living in a foreign country and often do not understand what is going on. Dealing with documents and the labyrinthine process that staying legally in Russia is is just one of the perks of living here:-) It makes us extremely thankful for the people at IA who do so much to take care of 90% of the process!

Here are some photos of beautiful Helsinki. I promise we took them in late March, though the copious amounts of ice and snow might convince you otherwise.

This is the Helsinki Cathedral, one of the most prominent landmarks in the city. Originally called St. Nicholas' Church during the period of Russian rule, it is a functioning Lutheran Church. The statue in front of it is of Tsar Alexander II.


This is the Uspensky Cathedral, which is still a functioning Orthodox Church. The vast majority of Finns identify as Lutheran, but there is a small Orthodox presence in Finland. One of the enjoyable features for me of Helsinki was the fact that there are lots of hills. St. Petersburg is completely flat so seeing some variation in elevation was a nice change!


A street facing the water on the southeast portion of the city. The beautiful architecture of the city was another enjoyable site to take in.


All right, this building isn't anything important, just apartments. I just think that it looks really cool:-)


Another beautiful building that gives a taste of Helsinki's architecture.


The ferry that we took to Suomenlinna.


Part of the walls of the fortress.


Inside the walls of the fortress. Seen from behind is our friend Sveyta:-)


Me inside an opening in the wall!


And now we're both joining in on the fun:-)


Amanda, Sveyta, and Kristina. My apologies to Sveyta for catching her making a weird face in this photo.


I took this photo on top of a hill overlooking the sea on Suomenlinna. I have never felt such intense wind in my life and was afraid I was going to get blown over once I reached the top of the hill.


A view of Helsinki taken from the shore of Suomenlinna. You can see how much snow and ice is still present, even when I took this photo on March 27th.


Some lights on a street in Helsinki at night.

Well that's all for now!

-Matt