Field Day

Greetings Again!

The hours of daylight grow longer, the leaves have returned to the trees, and the school year is officially over after tomorrow's graduation ceremony. It's hard to believe that school is done and harder to think about the fact that many of the students we have grown to know and love won't be back next year as families move, go on furlough, students graduate, etc. It is definitely a bittersweet time of year, but we can look back on our first year of teaching, marriage, and living in Russia (how's that for a busy year?) and see a constant stream of God's blessing and guidance.

Before the school year could officially end, we had to have once last event: field day! All of the students grade K-8 got to participate in IA's field day today. We held the event on Yelagin Island, an island in the center of the city that is set aside for recreation and enjoyment with no vehicles allowed. The island has walking paths, canals for boating, playgrounds, fields, and several gorgeous old buildings that have been restored in recent years. The grounds were beautiful as grass and leaves have finally returned from their long winter hiatus. Flower beds were filled with gorgeous tulips and it was a bright day with a brilliant blue sky.

The students were divided up into six teams based on colors (red, grey, white, black, blue, and purple) that tried to include an equal balance of students from all grades kindergarten through 8th grade (the high school students were busy sleeping away after last night's prom:-)). The day started off with a treasure hunt and continued with sack races, a water race, an eating race, and an egg toss before culminating in a game of tug-of-war. The parents and teachers were so inspired that we had our own shot at tug-of-war after the students. The dads and male teachers went head to head with each other, which inspired the Korean mothers to take on the female teachers and other mothers. All I can say is that our Korean mothers are strong as they sent our teachers down to defeat:-)

Here are some pictures from throughout the day!


The chairman of IA's school board giving out instructions for the treasure hunt.


The beautiful neoclassical palace that stands on one end of Yelagin Island.


Flowers!


Misha (elementary school aide), Amanda (making an ugly face), Jarod (science teacher and basketball coach), and Katya (2/3rd grade teacher and our Russian language teacher)


The sack race!


The water race. Students had to fill their mouths with water and run to fill a bucket at the other end.


The food race. Students had to run down to this bag, take one item out of it and then eat it all before the next member of the team could run down. The first team to eat all of their bag won. I'm glad that I didn't have to eat any dry ramen noodles:-)



The egg toss! One of our little elementary school students got hit square on the head by an egg, which shattered all over him. He thought it was very funny; I was sad that I didn't get a picture of it!



Tug-of-war, everyone's favorite game!


Me, struggling mightily in a losing effort for my team of teachers and dads.


The female teachers, pulling as hard as they can!


And the victorious Korean moms!

And one last final scene from field day: a video of two of our student teams playing tug-of-war. The video quality may be poor, but the excitement is still palpable:-) Thanks for reading!



-Matt

Victory Day

Hello!

This past Monday, May 9th, marked one of the most important holidays in Russia: Victory Day. Victory Day celebrates the victory of the Soviet Union over the Germans in World War II (or as it is referred to in Russia, the Great Patriotic War). The Soviet Union suffered more people killed and more devastation during the Second World War than any other country, and the tremendous suffering of the war and the subsequent defeat of Germany are subjects of great national pride and remembrance.

Throughout Russia, the day is celebrated with fireworks, parades, concerts, banners, and speeches. Moscow and St. Petersburg are home to particularly large celebrations. The Second World War is particularly important to St. Petersburg because of the three year blockade that the city suffered from 1941 to 1944 in which over a million residents of the city died, mostly from starvation. The war and the blockade are deeply embedded into the city's memory, and both of these events are remembered each year on Victory Day. While the war has reached near-mythic status in Russia to the point that some of the realities of the conflict have been obscured or are intentionally looked over (something that is by no means a uniquely Russian feature when it comes to nations remembering their wars), the annual parade is a major event, and Amanda and I went to watch it down on Nevsky Prospect.

Crowds lined up all along Nevsky Prospect to cheer for military units and shout words of thanks to surviving veterans from the war. It is difficult to imagine that it was only 66 years ago that the Second World War ended. Standing in the middle of downtown St. Petersburg it feels like an eternity away from a time when all of Europe seemed to be on fire and engulfed in the flames of war. I pray that such times will not soon return to the earth.

Here are some of the pictures that we took!


The Russian flag and the Victory Banner, which was raised over the Reichstag when the Soviets captured Berlin.


Nevsky Prospect lined with flags and banners for the parade.


More street decorations commemorating the end of the war.


The ribbon of St. George (here on Amanda's purse). This ribbon was once part of the Order of St. George, the highest military honor of Tsarist Russia, which was reintroduced during the Second World War and has become one of the main symbols of Victory Day. These ribbons were handed out all over the city in the days leading up to May 9th, and the orange and black colors featured prominently on many banners around the city.


A military marching band, one of several which were part of the parade.


Jeeps carrying veterans.


Current soldiers carrying flags.


Trucks representing veterans from the different regions of St. Petersburg. This particular truck is for the Vasilievsky region, where we live.


The banner reads "Communist Party of the Russian Federation." The Communist Party still exists in Russia, a dwindling but controversial reminder of Russia's recent history. The Communists march in the parade each year. The Communist Party is not nearly as powerful and influential as it was in the early 1990s (and of course much less influential than it was during Soviet times), but continues to exist. Many Russians, particularly older ones, look back on the Soviet Union as a period of security and stability and wish for a return to communism. While most younger Russians have no desire for this, feelings about the Soviet Union remain mixed and complicated 20 years after its fall.


Several portraits of Stalin were carried by members of the Communist section of the parade, bringing to light another complicated part of Russia's history. Many people in Russia still revere Stalin as a powerful leader who is viewed as being responsible for Russia's rise as an industrial power and for its victory in the Second World War.


Crowds of people packed into Palace Square for more Victory Day celebrations.


Palace Bridge decorated in honor of the day.


The Rostral Columns at the end of Vasilievsky Island (where we live) were lit for the day. The columns are lit for special occasions and holidays.


Part of the large crowds that turned out for the celebration.

Thanks for reading!

-Matt

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Last weekend Matthew and I were involved in the 4th through 6th grade production of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.
Matthew had the honored roll of being Aslan and I was Queen Lucy very briefly though mostly I did logistical things throughout the process.
And it was a long process! We'd been working on this for 2 Quarters at least. Many of my 6th graders had lead roles and all of the students in both classes had some role.
We were honestly worried up until the performance because it always seems like there are still so many things left or so many things that still need to be done.
But the performance itself went very well! The students did a wonderful job and everything came together really well. The costumes were all done by the students and their parents and some of them were really amazing. The sets were done by our art teacher and were stunning!
So here are some pictures for you!
meeting Tumnus
White Witch

at the Beaver's house

In the frozen garden with Edmund and Maugrim

Father Christmas
the tea party
at Aslan's camp
Aslan and the White Witch talk
Queen's frozen garden with Aslan
the battle
Cair Paravel
the adult Pevensies
cast bow!
Tumnus and Lucy
the royals!
Aslan
Grumpskin
Lion
Susan (left), Peter (right), and Lucy (center back)
view from my side of the stage
Maugrim
unicorn and deer
Minotaur
Cair Paravel backdrop and our art teacher!

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