Basketball and Politics

Hello again!

Once more we have had a bit of a gap between posts here.  The semester has continued and the busyness and fatigue of it all has gotten the best of us in terms of blog posting frequency.  Right now we are enjoying a four day weekend for Defenders of the Fatherland Day which we are very glad for.  This year has definitely been more taxing and we have both been feeling a bit drained as of late, so it has been good to get some rest and recharge a bit.

The title of this post may seem a bit odd, but it focuses on the two things that I want to cover in this blog post.  I'll save the fun of IA's recent basketball tournament for last and begin with Russia's interesting political situation.  As you may or may not have known, March 4th is the presidential election in Russia.  As you also may know, there have been widespread protests and political frustration since the parliamentary elections in December owing to the widespread fraud that seems to have occurred.  The large-scale demonstrations that have taken place throughout Russia are the largest protests since the fall of the Soviet Union and are symptomatic of more than just political frustration.  Increasingly younger Russians and the emerging middle class feel a sense of frustration at a country that is increasingly perceived as offering no real opportunities for the future owing to systemic corruption and the Kremlin's program of "managed democracy."

We don't usually focus on political events here, but this is definitely something that we would appreciate your prayers about.    It is a strange feeling to compare the political situation here in Russia with what is going on in the United States.  While the U.S. has been experiencing a very public presidential campaign for over a year now, in Russia there is barely any signs that a major election will take place in less than two weeks.  Largely in response to the negative public reaction to the December elections, the ruling powers have run a very low key campaign.  You could be forgiven for living in St. Petersburg and not realizing that there is an imminent election.While it seems almost certain that Putin will win the presidential election, it is not at all certain what the reaction to this possibility will be or what the future holds for Russia.  These are interesting times to be a foreigner living in Russia.  We pray that meaningful changes would take place in Russia and that the clouds of fatalism that have covered this country for so long would begin to break.

Shifting gears to the other topic of this post, IA hosted a basketball tournament featuring its varsity and junior varsity teams these past two days.  We invited our friends and chief rivals from Hinkson Christian Academy in Moscow to come up and play us and we also invited a few Russian schools to join in.  Last month was a momentous event in the history of IA basketball as we defeated Hinkson for the first time in school history at the Anglo-American basketball tournament in Moscow.  Our team proved that the hard fought victory in Moscow was no fluke as we beat Hinkson for a second time with a score of 67 to 48!  It was an exciting game to watch and we were very proud of our students for playing so well.  Hinkson was able to exact some revenge on us in the junior varsity tournament, handily defeating our j.v. squad.  Our team played hard and never gave up, even though they were playing against a more experienced and physically larger team. It's always fun to watch our students play and to be able to cheer them on.

IA's year of transition (if there is ever such a thing as a normal year for an international Christians school) continues as well, with our interim headmaster and his wife leaving after finishing their time with us.  We have a short window of time before Mrs. Plaster returns to finish out the year and before our new headmaster for next year comes.  We greatly appreciate your prayers for our school during this time of changing roles as our school grows and adapts to new challenges and situations. Next year is shaping up to be interesting as well with more changes on the horizon, but I'll set that aside for a later blog post.

Here are some photos from the basketball games for your enjoyment:

One of our Cossacks soars above the competition to score!

The team huddles up during a timeout.

Number 33 on our team has some seriously awesome shoes.

Our opponents and arch (friendly) rivals: Hinkson Christian Academy from Moscow

Driving in the lane.

Battling for a free-throw rebound.

The final score.  Go Cossacks!

IA's junior varsity team against Hinkson's j.v. team.

More j.v. Cossack action.

Taking it to the hoop!

And finally a short video of some fast-break action from the varsity game.

Thanks for reading!

-Matt

Winter Update

Hello again,

It's been almost a month since our last post.  My only excuse for the long delay is that we have been busy and nothing spectacular has been happening.  Our second semester is now well underway and we are once again back at it.  The new quarter has been going well.  As always it brings its changes and challenges.

One change this quarter so far is that we have had several new students enroll just as we have also seen several students leave, with quite a few more to come before the year ends.  An international school like ours always has high turnover, but this has been the most we have experienced in our time here so far.

We continue to keep busy with afterschool work as well.  I am teaching a course that meets twice a week on English grammar for five of our highschool students and Amanda is still tutoring three times a week at the moment.  The reasons for me teaching this course is more one of availability than of ability (no one else wanted to do it), so it has been a bit of a stretch at times as I re-familiarize myself with English grammar concepts or learn them for the first time altogether.  I think I have learned more about English grammar through studying Russian.  I certainly can't think of another time in my life where I could see a term like "past perfect progressive tense" and have it make sense. I continue my Russian language studies twice a week, which means that Wednesday is perhaps my favorite day of the week since it is the only one on which I get to go home at the end of the school day:-)  All of these activities have gone so well so far.

The past two weeks have been extremely cold for us here as temperatures have dipped well below freezing to -25 Celsius yesterday (about -15 Fahrenheit).  Our apartment has been quite cold even though our heat is working so we have had to resort to running the oven and using a space heater.  Still, after the extremely mild winter that we have had so far it is nice to have some truly cold weather.  We only have a bit in the way of snow which is a bit disappointing after the piles of snow that we had last year.

To go along with the winter weather, our school has been hit by the usual winter mix of colds and flus this past week and quite a few students and teachers have been out.  Amanda missed one day this past week after getting sick, but thankfully is feeling much better. Between all of this I got to sub for quite a few classes in addition to teaching my own. Your prayers for our health and for the health of our fellow teachers and students is always appreciated!

We have received two important pieces of good news in the past few weeks that we are happy to share with you:

1. Our yearly financial report from World Partners was very encouraging.  Thanks in a large part for the many one time gifts that we have received our financial picture has gotten much much better.  We are so grateful for all of you have given, particularly those who have given these unexpected onetime gifts. God is providing for us through you and we as always are humbled by your tangible act of faith in our work.  We will continue to do our best to use these funds wisely.

2. Our landlord has agreed to extend the lease on our apartment.  This is something that we have been praying about for a while and were going to mention in our next letter, but sometimes God works ahead of us:-)  Our current rental agreement ends this August and we knew that meant that we might have to move.  Since we love our current apartment and really like our landlord we were praying that we would be able to stay here for the remainder of our time in Russia, and thankfully this appears to be the case.  The new agreement will be formally signed in August, but for now we are praising God for this new blessing!

Looking ahead, we would appreciate your prayers again for all of our students who will be leaving.  Several students have left already, mostly to return to Korea, and there will be many more in the coming weeks and months.  At the current time, our high school will be greatly diminished next year.  It is sad to say goodbye to students we have had the joy of getting to know over these past two years.

Even in the midst of "routine" days we are very grateful for the opportunity we have to be in St. Petersburg and to be teaching, and we thank everyone who has helped us to be able to do this!

Thank you again for all your prayers, we need and appreciate them.

-Matt

Hello all!
It has been a while since our last post and we are now heading back into the school year. We start 3rd Quarter tomorrow and we are looking forward to the new year!
My sister was hear for a part of the break and we were able to see tons and tons of things with her. We were actually amazed at how much we did!
(Most of the pictures and all of the panoramas are hers, unless otherwise noted. I am very jealous of the panorama feature!)

The first day she was here we walked around and went inside the Kazan Cathedral and the Spilled Blood. 

Photo by myself

 I do realize we posted about a million Spilled Blood pictures but the new camera we have does a much better job so I thought I would share another!

Her second day we intended to go to a museum but it was closed. So we went to St Isaac's Cathedral and the Bronze Horseman and the Peter and Paul Fortress. We were able to take the then 3 day old metro station of Admiraltiskaya (above, all shiny and new). There is talk of connecting it to the line we live near but nothing is happening with that yet. 

Beth and Matthew with the controversial statue of Peter the Great. 

A panorama of the Peter and Paul Cathedral 

New Year's Eve was rather epic for the three of us. We first went to see The Nutcracker at the Mariinsky Theater (above and below).

After, we had two of our friends from IA over for cookies and games. Then all of us met up with another couple from IA and we waited for the fireworks and looked at the lights on the Neva. It was a special treat because usually the river would be frozen and give no reflection.

Photo by myself

  Photo by myself

To get back home we took the metro too late and ended up having to come up on Nevsky Prospect where the party was in full swing. We grabbed a van and all headed home around 3 am. :-)

Next day was shopping at Galeria. We've posted pictures of Galeria before but Beth took this nice one of the inside of the mall. 

Monday we went to the Smolney Convent (above) and a Siege Museum near the city center. We ended up walking the whole thing since it was Jan 2nd and most of that first week is a holiday. Smolney is also near the government center so very little public transport runs through there any way. It ended up being around a 3 mile walk but the museum was very interesting and had many objects and artifacts from the Blockade.

Then we were off to the Catherine Palace. I had seen the outside this summer but I had never been inside myself so this was new for me as well! The main staircase is above. 

Bethany in the center of the Great Ballroom. 

After a certain point your ability to take in gold shiny becomes maxed out at these palaces! :-)

During WW2, most of the city around the Palace (called Pushkin) was destroyed. The Palace itself was badly damaged and people rescued many of the works of art and such during the war. People still aren't sure what happened to all of the Amber in the Amber Room though it is assumed the Germans took it. The picture above is of the main staircase (the panorama above) after the war. Many years have been spent restoring these rooms and the Palace in general. 

The gates at the front of the Palace

A Russian squirrel! They are very hard to find (a student who was born here told me she has never seen one!) and they have long feathery tufts on their ears. Officially the cutest animal ever!

We also went to the Ethnography museum. Above is a Vietnamese war god that greats you when you enter. 

Photo by myself

Thursday was a free day at the Hermitage and since the museum is spendy and the three of us are cheap we got up bright and early to get in line. 

Photo by myself

There were several benefits to this it turned out. 1) lovely pictures! 2) while we ended up pretty far back in the lines outside the gates (below)

Photo by myself

3) When the gates opened there were about 5 seconds of order before everyone started running for the offical lines by the actual museum entrance. The three of us bolted and actually made it very close to the front of the line. When we left the museum the line actually stretched out of the gates and past the Alexander Column! 

 So luckily we got in and had a free day at one of the largest art museums in the world! 

Photo by myself

The bottom half of the main staircase

 Photo by myself

Matthew with Zeus

 Photo by myself

 Photo by myself

My favorite room in the Hermitage. Also houses the peacock clock (two below).

 Photo by myself

This hall was modeled after a hall in the Vatican.

 Photo by myself

More ostentatious rooms! :-)

Beth and me with the peacock clock

A series of Dutch paintings relating to food and hunting.

Beth and Matthew on a famous foot bridge

The three of us together on her last day!

As can be seen we all had a great time! 

In other news, it is looking very positive that we will be able to stay for all of next year at least. Please keep praying as we begin the more official number crunching in the next few months! 

Also, please pray for me as I begin to work on renewing my teaching license. It is a very unclear process and could have very negative consequences if done wrong. 

Christmas Time!

Hello everyone! It's getting close to the end of the semester and we have been busy! We put up our christmas tree at the very beginning of December.

From one of my students last year. We customized it. :-)

My lovely owl ornament.

Last week was our school's Christmas concert. It was actually at the church Matt and I go to so you can get an idea of what our church looks like as well!

They began with half of the choir and the other half joined walking up the sides. But this gives you an idea of the size and design of our church. It's actually the top floor of a Lutheran church building.

Everybody in high school choir!

When the little ones came out it was a swarm of paparazzi! :-D

Our very cute 1st and 2nd grade class.

The junior high choir. Half of these guys are my 6th graders from last year. 

Some of the high schoolers played small pieces as things were moved around and such. Our French horn player is in a orchestra in the city and she is excellent!

The high school band performed a piece that was collaborated between America and Russia during World War II. The Russian one was composed just for the occasion and has various themes to it. The one shown here is the church theme.

(Forgive my shaky cam! If it freaks you out, just listen to it because it sounds awesome!)

Our Korean mothers decorated the school and it is glorious! There's even a fake fireplace in the cafeteria!

Finally, last Friday we had our teacher's Christmas party and gift exchange! It was very uplifting and afterward the high schoolers showed Elf for the school and Matt and I stayed for that as well. It was a long day but a good one!

Things are wrapping up now and we are looking forward to the relaxation that break will bring. This has been a good break but a very busy one for both of us. But now all of our grades are in and we can kick back! Tomorrow 7th - 12th grades will be going to a Russian Christian school in the area. We will do volleyball, board games, and help make crafts to sell at their bazaar. The proceeds will go to an orphanage for invalid orphans. 

For break we will be staying in the city. We will go to Sveta's datcha for a few days. It's one of my favorite places in all of Russia now! Then my younger sister will be arriving here after Christmas and into January. We are thrilled to have her coming and can't believe it is so close! 

A praise from us: We looked at our reports and donation levels and are very glad to say that we have enough to stay next year for sure. We appreciate all of you who have given in any form at all and for all of your prayers! Where it was uncertain how even this year would go just months ago God has used you all to answer our need! Thank you so very much!