We've been a wee bit behind on posts this last quarter. A lot has happened since the last post!
The last post we mentioned that Matthew had accepted the offer from University of Illinois. Recently he also learned that he will be receiving the Foreign Language Area Study Fellowship. This will cover the costs of all of his courses for the first year, as well as providing a stipend, so that he can continue studying Russian language. This was very exciting news for us and Matthew was very happy to be able to continue with his Russian language studies.
And even more recently we were able to sign a lease for graduate housing with U of I as well. This means we have a car and a place to live for next year, as well as a partial income! God has definitely blessed us and we've both felt that this is the right decision for us for the next section of our lives.
More locally, the school has been wrapping up as well with some major events. The Spring Concert was about a month ago and the students and parents did a fantastic job! The upper floor was turned into a cafe and the kids had many different songs and costumes to match the theme "Hard Rock Cafe."
High School Choir students sing "Who Put the Bomp"
Jr High Choir sings a medley of Beach Boys songs
Costumes!
Jr High Choir sings "You Can Count on Me"
One of our Russian-American high school students sings a Russian rock song with the band
High School Choir sings "Airport Rhapsody," a re-write of "Bohemian Rhapsody"
It was easliy the best concert since Matthew and I have been here! There was a lot of great singing, instrumentals, solos, choreography, and a variety of songs from several of the countries represented at the school!
Senior Banquet was at the beginning of May and was unnaturally cold! There was actually snow in parts of the city that afternoon! But everything went very well despite the temperature.
We had 5 seniors this year, a "big" class for us.
Matthew :-)
Our MC's for the evening. This was the first year that we have had senior banquet as such, and the students did a fantastic job recognizing the seniors.
Me and the seniors
Freshmen and Sophomores
Boys!
Senior and Freshmen Girls!
Junior and Senior Girls!
Song and dance!
The Junior class performed a skit they wrote summarizing the seniors' experiences of the year. It was very good-natured and very accurate! The seniors really liked it. :-)
After dinner we headed off on a boat ride through the canals!
Cold!
Everyone! :-D
(Sadly, Matthew actually was not feeling well and so he did not make it to the boat ride.)
Continue to pray that things will come together as they have been already and that we will be able to say goodbye well.
