First Week of School!

Hello everyone!

Matt and I are currently looking back on our first full week of school at IA! Things are certainly different this year for many reasons. Our administration is changing and evolving this year so this is also a year of flux. Matt and I are also teaching all new classes and this is the first year I am with the high school.

Our first day was Bell Day and we didn't actually have classes. First students brought in flags for each of the countries that we have represented in our student body. This year we have a British family so that was a new addition.

Everybody gathered on the third floor.
Each teacher took a different group of students and talked to them about policy, etc. Then we were off for some fun!

Below: The old Singer sewing machine building currently houses Dom Kinigi, a bookstore.

We went with a group of teachers to get food. Then we went with our friends Jarrod and Christina on a boat tour of the city. Since the city is built over water you can see a lot of the major sites of the city by boat. This is something none of us had done before and it was a lot of fun. We found a less touristy area and had the boat almost to ourselves.

Below: A statue that people throw coins onto.
The Venice of the North!
Below: The building with the green roof is a famous school. The men who would go there wore distinct fur hats and there is a well known song about them.
Above and Below: the Anichkov Bridge. Each corner features a man with a horse in various poses. It runs over the Fontanka Canal, a major waterway through the city.
We found that being on the canals really makes it clear that the roads were never intended to be the main way of traffic. The canals are huge and give access to a lot of important things while the roads are narrow and there is next to no parking in the city.

Below: One of my favorite churches in the city. The domes are a deep blue with gold stars. Dostoevsky was married in this church.

above: The St Nicholas Cathedral
Above: This is one of my favorite buildings. It has no significance at all but all the sides are painted in this abstract geometric pattern. Christina told us it is a hostel.
These pictures are of New Holland. It was an old shipyard and the waterway gate here is super impressive!
Below: The Moika Palace. (Warning: the following story is not for the weak of heart) This is where Rasputin was killed. Personally I find this to be one of the creepiest stories I have ever heard. Rasputin was a "religious" figure who rose to power in the early 1900s. He claimed that he could cure Tsar Nicholas's son who had fits. He would threaten that some harm may come to the boy if anything happened to him and so gradually he was able to gain significance in the royal family. There had been attempts on his life before but he always survived. The story goes that finally some princes became worried about his negative control over the royal family and decided to kill him. They tried to poison him but it had no effect at all (his daughter later suggested he may have developed an immunity to it). He was then shot in the back, beaten, shot some more, and then tied and thrown in the river. At the time it was concluded that what killed him was drowning (though now this has been contested). He was one seriously scary guy!

A lovely read bridge. We saw several of many different colors on this. It is funny too because you never notice they are colored when you are going over them.

Yesterday, after school, we went to AgroRus. It was described to us as being like a county fair and it was held literally four blocks away from us.

Below: You place a piece of metal between the two huge pieces and then hit it with a hammer. You get an imprinted coin you made yourself!
Camel and pony rides! The saddle below has a cartoon character on it that Matt and I really like.
We also had the Russian equivalent of fair food. Fried dough with meat and cheese in it.

There were many plant stalls and this lovely rosebud.

This stall is selling samovars which are traditional Russian kettles (of a sort). They vary from smallish to gigantic.

Above: hot corn stands are very common at events and sports. They also sell lollipops shaped like roosters (I have no idea why). :-)
Above: Perogis can be just shaped like buns but more often they are decorated. The full pies can be very elaborate. These are pigs and bears!

Below: One of the ways we started off the school year was with Matthew burning his lip and chin fairly badly. He has a new thermos and we had no idea how hot it would keep things. So he went to take a drink and it burned him badly enough that his lip and chin turned white and then blistered. He's doing a lot better now but here's a picture. :-(

Above: A cafe I must eat at because I think it is so cute!

Below: This is the store we do 90% of our shopping at. There are ones that are a lot closer but this one is much bigger and has a meat counter in it and another next door. We realized as we were walking home that we had never put up a picture of it!

So there is our first week of school! Classes have been going well and we feel confident that this will be a good year. Pray for us and the school as we all have a lot to do and a lot of transitioning!

Pictures of the Apt

Hello! We have a new camera that I (Amanda) love playing with and it has been a while since we posted pictures of the apartment. It does look very different than when we first moved here since we have added things and filled it with our stuff. The first pictures were from when we first moved in and things looked a bit barren!
So here are some pictures of the apartment for your enjoyment!

Living room. The corner chair is "mine" and Matt generally works from the couch.

Bathroom. Toilet is in another tiny room next door. Note the teeny tiny washing machine under the sink. :-)
Kitchen. The thing above the mircowave is a water heater and has an open flame in it. We know a family whose heater is placed inside their shower so this is a pretty good place for ours!

Bedroom.

Quick additional prayer request for everyone: we are in need of about $600 more in monthly support. Please pray that this need will be met!

Back in Russia

Greetings once more from St. Petersburg!

After a wonderful month in the U.S., we have returned to Russia and are settling back in to life here. We arrived here Wednesday evening safely and with all of our baggage, so thank you to all of you who prayed for safe travels for us!

We've been trying to re-synchronize our body clocks and start preparing for classes for the coming year. So far jet lag hasn't been too bad- we've been sleeping well, but we feel tired a lot. It's good to be back, but it was definitely sad to say goodbye to everyone that we got to spend time with this summer.

Leaving people behind never gets any easier and in fact the opposite seems to hold. Its bittersweet knowing that we won't see many of our friends and family for at least a year if not longer, but we also recognize that this is simply normal life for most of our students here. Experiencing the ups and downs of living abroad helps us stay more in touch with the reality that has shaped the lives of most of the students in our classrooms, and I know that it will help us to teach and to care for them with greater depth and understanding.

We still have a week before our first teacher meetings begin and then school officially starts on August 22nd. We both have quite a bit to do in terms of preparation for our new classes before that day arrives, so most of our time will be spent working on lessons and brainstorming about how to structure our classes.

Before we turn our backs completely on our experiences from over the summer and zero in on our work here, we want to post some photos that highlight some of the best moments of our time in the States. Once again, thank you to everyone who prayed for our time there, who met with us and encouraged us, for the churches that gave us opportunities to share about what we do, and to all of the friends and family who made time for us. I know we couldn't meet with everyone we would have liked to, but we are so grateful for all of those that we could!


The park where we were married.


My dad practicing a percussion piece for an upcoming recital.


One of the world-famous Bethel College squirrels that we saw when we paid a quick stop to our old college:-)


This picture shows off our new camera's ability to make almost anyone look very athletic:-)


Miniature golfing with Amanda's side of the family.



The children's department at Grace Church in Mooresville threw us a special party since they have been praying for us during the Wednesday night service during the past year. It was a great time!


Me posing with one of the signs that the kids at Grace made for us.


A penguin at the Indianapolis Zoo. We went there with Amanda's family.


Once again the camera is deceptive. I threw that Frisbee about five feet and then straight into the ground half a second after that photo was taken:-)


We had the privilege of speaking with the youth group at Grace as well! We also had the joy of speaking briefly at services at St. Mark and at Grabill, but sadly we forgot to bring our camera on those days:-(


Amanda regales the crowd with stories of teaching in Russia.


Me in the middle of a long-winded explanation of our life in Russia:-)

There are more pictures that you can see here in our Facebook album.

Once again, thank you to everyone who made our brief trip back to the U.S. such a joy. We have returned to Russia refreshed and eager to continue our work at IA!

-Matt