Neil gaiman latte!

In case you do not know, I am mildly obsessed with Neil Gaiman's works.

So when I found out there was a coffee shop with a latte in his name only 30 min from my home, of course I had to go get one!

So that was my pilgrimage today. It was good: cinnamon, expresso, honey, raw sugar, and milk.

I had to get it iced since it was so hot out but I hope to try it again hot!

Nothing to Do With Russia and Everything to Do with Life!

Matthew has been wonderful and handling a lot of the Russia things so that I can get this crazy wedding put together! So that is what this update is about!

We've had four showers and many gifts later we were blessed with a vast majority of the things we need! So that has been very cool to see as well.

For the most part everything is done and ready. Just a few things to make here and there. I think I was able to plan out the right balance between making and buying things for the wedding. I do not feel like I am going to die so that has been it's own little miracle!

We are going to begin moving things into out "summer home" this weekend before and after graduation so that is exciting as well! A professor is graciously allowing us the use of her home while she is gone for the summer (yet another blessing in our lives!). Then I go home for two weeks before the wedding.

We also graduate this Sunday! It's odd that it is so soon.

So many big things coming quickly! We also have two weddings we are attending this summer so that should be fun all around!

Thank you to everyone for reading, praying, and remembering us!

LOIs!

Hello All!

We have recently received word that our Letters of Invitation (LOIs) are making their way to us! This is an important step towards getting our visas to go to Russia, so we are excited. In going to Russia, one can't just waltz across the border. If you want to stay for any length of time, you need to be formally invited from within Russia. IA has been working to prepare Letters of Invitation for Amanda and I, and they are now done and being sent to us.

We also have found out that we will be able to send some of our things ahead of us, thanks to a short term work team that is going to IA in May. We can send a couple of suitcases of things (mostly clothes, books, teaching materials) on ahead, which will help us since we will only be able to pack what we can take on the plane with us when we finally leave in August.

We have also had our application confirmed for the TCK-PFO training in Buffalo. So all that we have left to do now is fill out about 600 forms for that and we'll be ready to go :-P The plane tickets have already been purchased for that particular trip, so everything is falling into place.

As always, we cannot thank everyone enough for their faithful giving and prayer. It looks like everything will be in place financially for when we leave, which is an incredible blessing. We have been so amazed at the way God has used so many different people to make it possible for us to serve in Russia!

Until next time,

Matt

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

Another Update!

More things have been happening since we last wrote about the latest round of letters. First, I want to say THANK YOU! once more to everyone who has helped us out through their prayers, generous giving, advice, encouragement, love, and direction so far. We have so humbled and blessed by the response we have received from so many people who have gone out of their way to encourage and help us and who have given so sacrificially.

This is a terrible economic climate to try to raise funds, especially as a young couple who has never done this before and therefore have limited fund-raising contacts, but we have been so blessed by God through it all. This time last year we were going through the application process to work at IA, and Amanda and I both felt strongly that God was leading us in this direction, but also felt a great deal of fear and uncertainty as to how it could be possible. A year later, we have seen so many amazing things happen and so many pieces fall into place, and we want to give praise to the Lord for all that has happened and thank all of you once again for what you have done!

We continue to keep busy with life and school, as well as with making plans for next year. We had a huge answer to prayer take place in the last couple of weeks when we found out that we would have a place to say for the months after we get married and before we go to Russia. This had been something that was a concern and something that we were praying about, since the fact that we would only need housing for a few months meant that our options would be very limited. However, thanks to the wonderful generosity of a professor at Bethel and her husband, we have been given their condo to live in for the time after the wedding until our departure! They have also generously offered it to us rent free, meaning we only need to pay for utilities and take care of things. This is a huge blessing, and we are so grateful!

Amanda's student teaching is still going on, and she is doing very well. She is working with 10th and 11th grade students, teaching them Fahrenheit 451 and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at the moment. She is getting exposed to lots of new situations and responsibilities as a teacher, but things are going well and Amanda is really enjoying teaching and working with students. Last week, we got to talk with Tammy at IA about clarifying a few more details as we look ahead to teaching next year. It was a good conversation and we have a better sense of direction now about a number of things. As we continue to get a clearer picture about our next steps in preparation to go to Russia, we'll post them here to help keep everyone informed:-)

-Matt

More Letters!

That's right, another round of letters will be on their way soon!

Thanks to the magical power of the US Postal Service, we are able to send letters online. While its a little more expensive then doing them by hand, it is much more convenient. We're sorry if these look a little less personal than the last round of letters, and we hope you understand. We just wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you who have been so generous in your support, encouragement, and prayers and to give a quick update for those who haven't had a chance to read our blog.

We are very excited about what will be happening in the near future! 2010, the year of our departure, is already here, and soon we will be moving into the active preparation stage as we work on visas and other logistical things. That means that we should have more information to share in the coming months, so please check back here. Things have been a little slow for awhile, but that is going to be changing.

Our sense of anticipation is growing, and we are both eager to be in St. Petersburg and working at the school, and nervous about taking this big step. Amanda just started her student teaching this week, so she will be getting some major practical experience for what we'll both be doing next year. I'm going to have a chance to "borrow" a 3 hour class for a night from a professor to continue to work on teaching myself. I feel far less qualified than Amanda to be doing this, but I am eager to begin working with IA so I can start preparing more for the classes that I will be doing there. It's all crazy and a giant step outside of our collective comfort zone, but we know that this will be an amazing experience and we feel so blessed to be able to have the opportunity to serve like this in Russia.

-Matt

Teaching!

We've received a tentative idea of what we will be teaching next year at IA!
Nothing is set in stone right now, so this is only what things are shaping up to be at the moment. As with everything else with trying to go overseas and teach, things are subject to change:-)
Still, we are very excited to have another concrete step that hits home once again that we really are going to be doing this.

Right now, I (Matt) may be teaching 7th/8th grade and 9th/10th grade students. I will probably be teaching a combination of history and Bible classes. Amanda at the moment will probably be doing AP English classes for 11th and 12th grade, as well as 5th and 6th grade English. We are both very excited about these possibilities, and even if they do change we are excited about whatever we will have the opportunity to teach. While its mildly terrifying to think that I will have to teach middle-schoolers (I'm only 22 and middle school already feels so hazy that I sometimes doubt I ever went through it), I am ready to give it my best shot and all of my effort. Amanda is very excited about both ends of the spectrum that she will get to teach. No matter what, this is going to be as big a learning experience for us as it ever will be for our students. Still, that's just part of the adventure, and we are looking forward to it, whatever shape it may end up taking by the time we get there!

-Matt

Grabill Outreach Fair (GO 09)

Matthew and I went out to Grabill last night for the Outreach Fair today.

Here is a picture of our lovely table, with my cousin's table next to ours. I brought Luntik and had that going the whole time, which made me happy because it is SO CUTE!

We had people sign up for our newsletter and take some of the cards we made (see below).
The people who talked to us were really interested and supportive and we hung out with Teri.

We also hung out with our families up there so it was a good time all around!
Thank you Grabill for supporting us in this!

Here at Bethel

As of now we are heading toward Fall Break and the middle of the semester.
My mom and I will be buying most of the wedding things that we can get in advance over Fall Break which just blows my mind. I'm so cloistered here that I haven't really thought of wedding stuff.
We should be sending out another letter soon as well to remind people to be praying and so on. We've been blessed with the support of three churches and so many people so far and that is awesome!
Some of our friends are going to Ireland to do service there over Fall Break, as well.
I've been able to work with the classes I will be student teachign a little bit so far. They call me "Student Teacher" which I think is funny/endearing. Now that I'm planning a unit I'm getting pretty excited about this!
Matthew has been teaching a few lessons for his history teachers here to get him ready for IA and that has gone well for him so far!
Continue to pray as we move forward! Only about seven months until we get married and nine until we head to Russia!