Bright and Beautiful

Fall is here in the city! 

We've had a few weeks of wetness and then intermittent sunshine, so we've been trying to get out and enjoy it while it is here. 

One attempt to go enjoy the weather ended up being rained out so we ended up at Galleria where there was an awesome display of yarn bombing. 

We recently realized that there was an important member of our life in St Petersburg that we had no pictures of: Doma Kitty! (Doma just means "at home." We don't actually know her name.) She is a lovely long hair kitty that lives in our building and is generally friendly and loving. I say generally because apparently taking her picture makes her angry since she clawed my hand shortly before I got this photo. 

Matthew recently had his class do travel posters for different cities in Russia. One of our Japanese students drew this gorgeous poster with Cheburashka and the Kremlin and a hilarious shifty eyed Putin. 

This past weekend we went to Pavlovsk, which is largely a park outside of the city. There is a palace there but the grounds are the most impressive part and it is very popular in the fall when all of the leaves change color.  One of my favorite parts of going there in the fall is when all of the skinny white birch trees change to bright yellow.

Matt and David, a former student teaching here for a year, on the lovely little bridge. 

Leaf crowns are very popular with Russians in the fall and we were all very impressed with the sheer size of this little girl's wreath. 

A highlight for us was feeding/trying to feed squirrels! The squirrels tend to be well fed since they are novel for everyone and the park sells seeds and nuts. We found this little guy and both Matt and I were able to feed him. It was terribly cute because he put his little paws on our hands while he ate!

Our group! Matt, David, Natalie (my fellow English and theater teacher), Renee (junior high teacher), and me!

Continue to pray for the play as now we are into planning stage and sets and costumes and getting everyone memorized!

Spiritual Retreat

Greetings once more!

We are back from an eventful week!  It is still hard for us to think that our fourth and last spiritual retreat at IA has come to an end.  Spiritual Retreat has been a special part of each year that we have been part of IA, and this year proved to be no different in that respect.  Due to a last minute change of plans, I ended up going on the high school retreat instead of the junior high retreat as had been originally planned.  Once again, we were blessed to be part of this time of seeing our students grow spiritually and in friendship with one another.

In yet another sign that Amanda and I are now veterans and no longer the new people, we were the only teachers on the high school retreat who had been to more than one retreat at IA.  I was also in the unusual (for me) position of being the teacher who spoke the best Russian and therefore got to handle the logistical details with the staff at the seminary facility where we went. Its strange that we are now often the go-to people for things like this, and is a reminder of just how much turnover and lack of continuity there is in schools like ours.  Teachers who stay who for four years are relatively rare, and it is even rarer for teachers to be able to stay for four consecutive school years, but that is probably a topic for a different blog post.

Our theme for retreat this year was Not a Victim - Victorious, and our speaker was actually the person who served as our interim headmaster two years ago.  While most of the students knew him as a stand-in administrator and teacher, his greatest gifting is his heart for Third Culture Kids and the issues that they face, and this retreat bore it out.  

Our sessions focused on the Book of Daniel and the ways in which Daniel represents someone in the Bible who was torn away from his homeland and was forced into situations were he lost friends and family and suffered persecution, all the while refusing to feel and act like a victim and glorifying God.  This is something that resonates deeply with our students as they have all been moved to Russia due to their parents work and ministries, and many have mixed and confused feelings about being in Russia and their own identity. 

The temptation to feel sorry for yourself or to feel powerless and marginalized is a big one for our students, and this retreat spoke to those very issues. Our students were challenged to live victoriously by looking to God for stability and identity.  We left feeling that the messages given at retreat were exactly what our students needed to hear, and were excited to see the way they responded in our group sessions and small group times.

As always, getting away from the busyness of life in St. Petersburg and out into the countryside was a wonderful time to refocus ourselves, and our students all seemed refreshed by it.  Please keep praying that the decisions and convictions that took place during our time would continue in the lives of our students.  Its easy to focus on God and hear from Him during times like retreat, but much harder once the normal pressures of life come rushing back in.

The retreat was also filled with lots of fun games, team-building exercises, and even some spontaneous musical theater (more about that below).  Here are some photos that documented our time!

The first night we played Castles and Cats, a game that Amanda found for her literature circles last year that has rapidly become a favorite for our students.  They even play it on their own sometimes:-)

This game was a variation of musical chairs that involved people having to fight over possession of a football to continue on in the game.  Much action ensued.

Amanda getting ready to toss the football into the melee. 

In the courtyard area next to our dormitory and near the dining hall.

One of our sessions on Daniel.

An intense game of Red Rover was also a part of the festivities.

Steal the Bacon, another favorite game, led to some epic grass stains and a few minor injuries.  What can we say, we have some tough and competitive students:-)

One of our team-building games involved trying to complete an obstacle course while blindfolded.  The point was that the obstacle course was unsolvable and the only way to find what you were looking for was to ask for help.  The idea was to teach the students that asking for help is not a sign of weakness and in some situations is the only solution.  It took quite a while for many of the students to catch on, and it was over an hour before everyone had figured out what to do.

One student even scrawled a message on the blackboard while blindfolded:-)

Trying to balance people on wooden pallets stacked on top of tires was another team-building exercise.  After successfully completing it with two pallets, they were forced to fit the entire group onto a single one.  It took some doing, but they achieved (very briefly!) the goal.

After team-building it was time for some good, old-fashioned every man for himself games.  The object of this game was to force other people to touch the tires or to let go of their partners hands.  People kept getting eliminated until only two remained.

The first game ended with no winners, but in the second game I participated since more people were needed and was actually the winner!

Things got quite acrobatic.

Amanda was a great sandcastle cheerleader.

Our last night always ends with a bonfire where we sing, roast marshmallows, and share what we heard from God during our time.  It's always a fun, emotional, and bittersweet moment.

Our students loaded up onto the bus on the way back to St. Petersburg.

One of the special highlights from retreat was when our students secretly organized a flash-mob to perform a song from the musical Les Miserables during lunch in the dining hall.  The incident was captured on video and was a hilarious and unexpected moment:-)

As you can tell, retreat was a great time and we pray that the things that took place will be used by God as a foundation for even more growth in our school.  Next week marks a normal school week, but its the normal routines where we are often challenged the most to live out our faith and we pray that as a school we will rise to this challenge.

Thanks for reading and for your prayers!

-Matt

Settling In

Hello again,

Our school year is off to a good start, and we are enjoying fall-like weather here in St. Petersburg.  It already feels like summer was something that happened ages ago, and it feels normal to be back at school.  Our classes this year have been going very well, and it has been great to see old students again and to get to know the many new ones we have this year as well!

This past week also marked the start of drama for this year.  This year drama is an after-school elective program, and not a required class as it has been in years past.  Amanda is once again directing the play, and is also working with Natalie, one of our new teachers this year.  Natalie has done theater before in her previous teaching job in the U.S., so it will be good to have two people to help with rehearsals.  Since drama is not required, Amanda was a bit nervous that not enough people would turn out, but thankfully there was an excellent group of students who showed up.  Casting was made difficult by the fact that we had so many students who were capable of doing the roles, which is always a good problem to have.  I'm sure we will have more about theatre as preparations for the play continue.

While Amanda has been working with the drama, I have been involved in our after-school tutoring program and continuing my Russian language lessons.  Both of those things are going well, and its good to be having formal lessons again after a summer of self-study.

This week is going to be a bit shorter class wise, because we are having spiritual retreat starting on Wednesday!  We have decided to schedule the annual high school and middle school retreats for earlier in the year (usually they have been towards the end of September).  Amanda will be going with the high school students to the Finnish Lutheran seminary just outside of the city where we have had retreat in past years, while I will be helping out in St. Petersburg for the one day junior high retreat this year.

This will be the first time either of us has had the chance to participate in the junior high retreat, which should be a good experience.  This year Amanda and I are the veterans since most of the teachers who will be going on the retreats have never done one before.

Please be in prayer for these retreats and in the days leading up to them.  The high school leaves from school on Wednesday afternoon and returns on Friday, while the middle school will have its retreat on Thursday.  Spiritual retreat has been such a blessing every time we have been on it, and God has consistently used this time to work in our students' hearts.  We have had students accept Christ as part of the retreat, and many more deepen their walks with God.  In addition, the retreat has been a great way to build up a sense of friendship and community, and we believe that God will work in a similar way this year.

Outside of school, we had the chance last weekend to enjoy one of our favorite annual events: Agro-Rus!  Agro-Rus is an annual farmers' market held at the convention center near our apartment in which hundreds of vendors come to sell honey, meat, produce, honey, clothes, gardening accessories, and honey. (Seriously, over half of the vendors are selling honey.  There are literally over a hundred different stalls selling different kinds of honey).  It was a lot of fun, and we enjoyed seeing the livestock, eating delicious food, and buying some interesting honey (it has pine nuts in it!).

Below are a few recent pictures that show what we've been up to:

Just one of the many rows of tents for vendors selling things at Agro-Rus.  This was the part of the exhibition that was mostly selling clothing.

Some of the produce stalls selling delicious looking vegetables:-)

The yellow stall with the bears is the honey vendor that we bought our honey from.  The woman working the tent was extremely nice and had us sample at least a half dozen different kinds of honey.  They were all delicious!

This was the map of the exhibition.  The areas in the dark golden/yellowish color (mostly on the right-hand side of the map) are the areas that were set aside for honey.  As you can see, honey took up quite a lot of space!

This has nothing to do with Agro-Rus.  Its just a picture of an enormous pepper that I bought at a store a week ago. I had two peppers on my grocery list, but for obvious reasons decided that one would be sufficient:-)

I can't really explain my fascination with Angry Birds.  I don't even play the game, I just find the birds extremely amusing, so of course I couldn't pass up a chance to buy Angry Birds soda.  The beverage was pretty mediocre, but seeing that big cardinal always brings a smile to my face.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for being in prayer about the upcoming retreats.  We will post something soon afterwards to let everyone know how things went this year!

-Matt

End of Summer, Beginning of the Year

Hello again!

Our summer break has come to an end and our school year has already begun.  This past Wednesday was our annual first bell ceremony to kick off the new school year, and Thursday and Friday were our first normal days of school.  The year has gotten off to a good start so far, and we are looking forward to spending more time with the great group of students we have.

Last weekend we had the chance to take in one more bit of summer fun before the start of school.  A friend of ours told us that she knew some people who were going to be participating in international restaurant day, which is apparently an event in which people open up their own "restaurants" for a day to serve food and have fun with people.  There were lots of make-shift restaurants setting up in various locations around the city.  The one we went to was located in a hostel downtown and was serving a mixture of Russian and American food.  It was called "American Pie" (phonetically transliterated into Russian), and we had a great time enjoying the handful of dishes available.  To make it even better, it was all free!

We have record enrollment at IA this year with 116 students currently enrolled, so first bell day was even more packed than usual with all of the students and their families.  It is shaping up to be a challenge to just find the space to fit everyone, and we are already having to make some changes regarding lunches, classrooms, etc. Still, it is a huge blessing to have so many students to be able to minister to, and we have already enjoyed having students who were gone last year return and meeting the students who are new to IA this year.

We also have a number of new and returning staff members this year.  It has been great to see people coming back who were gone last year, and it has also been fun to meet the new teachers.  Things are looking different on the secondary level with two teachers from last year back in the States for the year and three new teachers (including a new English teacher!) to handle those courses.  It is a funny feeling for Amanda and I because at this point we are the veteran teachers, and of the foreign teachers at the school, we are the only ones on the secondary level who have been here every year for the past three years.  It doesn't seem that long ago that we were brand new at IA and immersed in the newness of teaching and living in Russia.  Time certainly flies!

This year Amanda is teaching 9th, 10th, and 11th grade English and directing the school play.  I am teaching 7/8th (Ancient History), 9th (World Geography), and 10/11th (Modern History).  Because of how we have done the schedule this year, I actually have two sections of World Geography and Modern History, so my challenge for the year will be to try to keep both sections at roughly the same point.  One nice thing for both of us is that for the first time, we are only teaching courses that we have done before.  It will be nice to be able to go back and make changes and try new things with these courses instead of just working to pull together material for the first time!

With all of our work preparing for the new school year, we haven't had the chance to take too many pictures, but here a few from this past week:-)

The counter of the "restaurant" we went to last Sunday night.

The walls of the hostel where the restaurant was are covered with chalkboards in the kitchen so that people who stay there can write on it.  It makes for a fascinating record of the travels of people from all over the world.

Looking out over the seating area.

Me enjoying some basil lemonade and a "Russian hamburger"

Amanda enjoying her dryaniki (a kind of potato pancake)

The door to the hostel advertising the restaurant.  It says "American Pie" in phonetic Cyrillic letters.

Families and students filling in the third floor on First Bell Day.

The oldest and youngest student always join together to ring the ceremonial bell to start the new year.  This a tradition from Russian public schools that IA always enacts.

Our academic principal goes over some beginning of the year reminders for the high school students.

And of course, the new year would not be complete without some creative nail painting from Amanda!

Thank you for reading and for your prayers.  Please continue to pray for our school and our students as this new year gets under way!

-Matt

Trip to the U.S.

Many of you who read probably saw us this past month as we were in Indiana for the end of July to the beginning of August. It had been 2 years since we had been back to the states and we had several goals for our time there. 

We left Russia smoothly and since our longest leg of flight was from Helsinki to Chicago, we flew right over Greenland. We've seen the edges of it before but this time we were able to see a lot of the land and that was pretty cool. 

Then we jumped on a tiny plane that was very hot for our last leg. We did lose one bag but it showed up the next day so we weren't without anything for very long. 

When we were with my parents we did all sorts of things. We went to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky (I hadn't been there in years and Matt had never been), the NCAA hall of champions, the Indy Zoo, and for the first time in four years we saw 4th of July fireworks. One of the first days we heard people speaking Russian behind us in a Spanish tapas restaurant and that was fun. 

We also spent a lot of time that first week driving to different colleges in the area so he could meet professors in the programs he will be applying to grad school. He got positive feed back and while we do know it is very competitive we are hopeful that it will all work out. 

We both had a somewhat odder experience this time than we did the first time we came home since it had been longer. Some things we noticed we did not miss (the SIZE of everything in the US) but other things were a nice sight after 2 years. I was always impressed at the shapes of clouds in Indiana. You don't really get big puffy clouds like this where we live and they were very common on our long drives. 

We spoke at several churches while we were in the US as well. It was nice to be able to do so since the last time we were home we had only been at IA for 1 year. We really tried to emphasize how teaching is a ministry and what we are able to do for the Christian and non-Christian communities in our school through IA. It was encouraging to hear people tell us that they thought we explained our ministry well since this is something we care about very much!
Here's Matthew with our table and assorted Russian things. :-)

Us speaking in a service

We were able to speak to the children's Sunday school classes at the church I grew up in and that was a lot of fun as always. The kids always ask a lot of questions which we really like and a lot of the kids this time had friends from Eastern Europe. 

The next leg of our journey brought us to South Bend, where Matthew's family lives and where we went to college. We went to the zoo there also as well as the Dunes, a wonderful restaurant called Redamacks, and putt-putting. We were very excited to be able to meet friends of ours at a mall near Chicago. Seth and Laura are also teachers serving in the Phillipines that we met at PFO before we moved to Russia. It had been three years since we had seen them last and we were also able to meet their 7 month old daughter. 

Then we headed down to Ft Wayne area where both of our grandparents live. We were able to hang out with our extended families, look at old albums (Matthew's grandmother was an MK in India), do some tech support, kayak, and wander around a giant antique store. We also talked to the Bridgebuilders class (which both of are grandparents are in). The class supports us and we really like being there and being able to speak to them. They are always so warm and have so many interesting connections and stories for us when we are there. The kids' classes and Bridgebuilders are our favorite places to speak. :-)

When we came back to South Bend we were able to see a lot of people that we hadn't seen the last time we were in the US. We met with our friends from college for an evening and were able to catch up on what we are all doing now. We saw Matt's high school friend Joshua and his wife Amanda in Chicago. They were married last year and this was the first time we were able to see them since then. 

We also saw a teacher and friend of Matthew's and had dinner with him. Finally we had a Russian dinner with solyanka and shaslik, and we had friends over for that as well. 

Then we were off to Illinois to see my close friend from college, Rachel, and her husband, Albert. I had not seen her since my wedding and they got married 3 months ago so this was our first time meeting him as well. It was a great joy to see them and catch up after so long. :-D

We ended up in Indy where we were able to go to the movies, go to the pool, go duckpin bowling, and eat Cuban food. Throughout about half the trip we had been trying to figure out when we would be able to head back to Russia. We had to apply for a new visa on the 12th and so we were not sure when we get that back. Our new visas showed up at the end of the month and so we were able to see my family for a few extra days. 

The day before we left we were also able to see our friend Jarod (from IA). He lives in Indiana as well and we really wanted to see him since he is waiting on support before he can return to the school. Then we said our goodbyes and headed off!

For the trip we were blessed with being able to borrow a car from friends of Matt's parents. 

As you can see, we tricked the car out in Russian flag side mirror covers. Matthew got them for free with a hockey movie that he bought and we knew we had to use them as soon as possible! It made it much easier to find our car as well!

Our trip home was far more eventful than I ever wanted it to be but we did get home the day we wanted to (just 7 hours later).

We've realized that we should just stop flying out of small airports to Chicago. We arrived at the Indy airport and they said they would put us on an earlier flight that had been delayed. So we rushed off only to spend the next 3 hours waiting on the plane. There was bad weather so we could not leave. Then when we could leave our flight (which should have left at noon) was given a new route and we had to go back and get more gas while a 4 pm flight was allowed to leave before us. 

When we got to Chicago we RAN through the airport and of course the gate was as far away as possible. Matt made it in time to see the plane taxi away and I dragged up soon after. We were jumped to a flight 45 min later but with only 20 min to get to our next flight in Heathrowe. 

We got to London and it was clear we wouldn't make it but we ran anyway. We were jumped to a flight to Moscow (where we would have to recheck our bags) and were rushed through the security stuff. Even with that they were boarding as we got to the gate. Then we waited for 40 min on the plane for a delayed crew member. Mercifully we were bumped to Economy Plus so that was a tiny reward. 

When we got to Moscow we got in a swarm/line for passport control. I was sure we were doomed until a new window opened and I made a new line out of a break in the metal rail. (If it's big enough to fit through it can count as an opening!) We got our bags easily and went to check in. We had 3 bags and hadn't paid for them on any other flight. This time we had to and they kept our boarding passes to make sure we did. So we waited in another line to pay and then that person wanted to see our boarding passes. She was convinced we weren't flying with them since our luggage tags were all American Airlines. We finally paid, got our passes, and cut through security again. We ran again and they were calling for us over the intercom when we got there.

We knew that people were waiting for us in St P but we had no way of contacting them because our phones were out of money and we never had enough time to put more money on our phones. We missed all of our flights but one and we ran to every single flight. We finally arrived 7 hours late and our lovely headmaster picked us up and drove us home. 

We are now getting ready for the new school year! Pray that everything goes well with the school, with getting everyone back into the country, and with getting over our jet lag!

Thank you so much to everyone who prayed for us in getting our documents and in getting back to Russia!