Christmas at IA

Merry Christmas!

We hope that all of you reading this have a blessed Christmas and New Year.  We have just wrapped up the first semester here in St. Petersburg and are now on the first day of our break.  The semester came to a good conclusion, and we can look back on many great moments.  

In addition to preparations for final exams and other end of the quarter/semester things, we have had a few special events going on as of late.  One was our Christmas concert last week.  This year we were able to use a beautiful Lutheran church on Vasilievsky Island which provided a lovely setting for the music our students performed.  We had an excellent program involving all grade levels and featuring choral performances as well as the middle and high school bands.  I even had a modest role in the evening by once again lending my voice to a few short readings between sections of the program.  The concert was a fitting way to ring in the holiday season and reflect on Christmas as a school community.

We also enjoyed our annual staff Christmas party last Friday.  We played games, ate good food, and enjoyed being able to relax and talk together. It was another reminder of the wonderful community and colleagues that God has blessed us with in Russia. The school building itself is also decked out in its usual splendor.  We didn't take new pictures this year since most of the decorations were the same, but it was all very festive.  There were plenty of baked goods, special class parties, and other fun things going on as well.  In a completely overt attempt to win the love and support of my 7/8th grade Ancient History class, I even brought in a big bag of snacks on the last day of the semester, which was much appreciated (OK, the real reason was that we had a 90 minute period due to the logistical necessities of the high school final exam schedule and I needed something to do to help pass the extra time).

One special thing that has happened these past few weeks is that we have a number of IA alums back in the city.  By coincidence, a large number of former students who still have family in Russia came back around the same time to visit for Christmas.  It has been exciting to see people who were our students just a few years ago and are now back from their university studies.  Four of the students from the 11/12th grade Russian History course I taught my very first year at IA are back the moment, so in some ways I feel like our time at the school has come full circle. It has also been great to meet former students who were at IA before Amanda and I. Getting to see them again and hearing about how their lives have been going has been exciting and encouraging.  On Wednesday many of them came to a special Christmas chapel held on the second to last day of the semester, which was yet another way that our school has been able to draw together as a community in the past few weeks.

In connection with this, during the normal P.E. time last week the school decided to organize a basketball game between the former students/parents/teachers to help fill out the bench (including me) and our varsity basketball team.  I enjoyed the brief amount of playing time I had in the game, but the most fun was seeing some of our former players who both have younger siblings on the current varsity team getting to play basketball with them again (albeit on opposing teams).

Our break also some exciting things coming up in it. In just a few days, Amanda and I will be doing some traveling. Thanks to the generous annual bonuses that the school provided to us once again, we have been able to save up money to do some traveling.  For several years we have talked about going to Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and now we finally have the chance.  We decided to expand our itinerary a bit after discovering that it would actually be cheaper to fly into other places and then go on, so we will be going to Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, and Prague over the course of about a week.  It will be a whirlwind tour of Central Europe, but we are looking forward to it.  I'm sure that we will have pictures and stories to post once we return close to the end of the month!

Here are a few photos from recent events that help show what all has been going on for us.

The Christmas concert began with some of the elementary students carrying candles through the darkened sanctuary while sining "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"

The high school choir performs

Me once again getting to serve as the voice of IA:-)

The high school band performs

Our varsity team warms up before the Cossacks vs. Alumni game

The game was very competitive, thanks to the presence of some good former players.

Me pretending to be useful.

The 9th grade girls were not all that thrilled that Amanda wanted to take their picture:-)

The varsity team ended up winning, but it was a close game: 37 to 40.  Regardless of the score it was a lot of fun, and great to see so many former Cossacks back on the court in St. Petersburg.

Thank you for reading.  We pray that the joy of Christ and the truth of His incarnation fills you this Christmas season!

-Matt