Advanced Camp and Home

Last week we had three days of Advanced camp with the students that we had gotten close to. This was a chance to just hang out and have deeper conversations without being bound by classes or other scheduled activities. I was able to hang out with Ira in the evenings and see Masha again briefly to say goodbye. Overall, I think the team had some really good conversations during advanced camp and we were able to invest more deeply in the students.
Thursday, just the team went into the city with our friend Tanya and stayed out all night for 'White Nights'. Since St. Pet is so far north there are three weeks in the summer when it barely gets dark and there are people out all night enjoying the extended hours of sunlight. We had a wonderful time and even got to go on a boat ride on the Neva river and see some bridges rise at 2am.
Friday late morning we met the students outside our dorm to say our goodbyes before driving to the airport. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to these students that I have come to love and to realize how much I want to be there long enough to really get to know people.
I arrived back in KC late Sunday night after spending two days in Frankfurt for debrief.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support on this journey!
If you missed any posts during my trip, check it out! kristyssiberiantales.blogspot.com

Last days

Tomorrow is our last day with the students. Today was really hard this morning, I was feeling really purposeless and stupid because of how I didn't feel like I had connected with the students this year and my friend Masha from last year couldn't hang out like we had planned. I was upset too because I did not even know if I would get to see Masha before we leave and I was wanted to say a proper goodbye. It ended up that she was able to come by for a few minutes this evening to exchange gifts and say goodbye. I am so greatful to have been able to see her. It is sad that we only have a few days left, but I don't feel broken hearted by it. Please continue praying for my friend Ira!

ELP- He is my Defense

Our first Sunday here the church we went to sang the song 'He is my Defense' by Marty Goetz in Russian. This is a song that I have only ever heard in the Messianic movement and happens to be one I really like. My friend Katie really liked the song and asked me to help her learn the chords so that she can play it on guitar. I've been singing that song all week and it's so fitting that it's been stuck in my head.

Friday ends our ELP program and we will have a graduation ceremony for the students. This past week has been a roller coaster of emotions and interesting circumstances. I've been praying for clarity on what I'm to do when I come back after IHOPU and realizing that the pace of this program is extremely trying. I know that the next time I come back, I want to be here long enough to be able to feel like this is where I live. Last summer God revealed to me that I would be coming back here for a longer season and now I'm getting tiny glimpses of what that might look like. There is still a lot that I don't know and don't expect to know for a while, but any discoveries are comforting at this point. It's also been interesting leaning how my role and focus here is slightly different than my teammates. We spend almost all of our time with the students in our program, which is great, but since I've been here before I know other people that I want to pour into. I feel confident that this will not be the last time I'm in this city and I know it's going to be important for me to have those connections here. Also, I got to see Masha! Last year, I connected with a girl who is a believer and we spent a lot of time together last year. She had mentioned to me that her family would be moving back to Moscow this summer and I didn't expect to see her at all. So when she showed up at the school the day we did interviews, you can imagine not only my surprise but also my joy! She is a very dear girl and I also got the opportunity to see her mother as well.

This year I'm getting a chance to continue building a relationship with one of the assistants in our program. Every year there are around 3 Russian assistants for each class. The one that I'm connecting with was also an assistant in the class I taught last year. The other night, she came back to the dorm with us and told me about how she needs to know how everything works before she can believe it. This includes how she feels about God, she has read the Bible and has a lot of knowledge, but hasn't made a decision of faith yet.

Please pray for Ira to come to faith, for energy as we finish out the camp and go into advanced camp where we continue building relationships with the students we've really connected with.

Classes

It's hard to believe that our first week of classes is almost done. There have been some good days and some bad, but overall classes have been good. I'm teaching American Film 2 and we teach two groups of students every morning. The students in my first class is doing well and is good at discussing the questions we have, but my second class isn't as talkative. I think they are mostly just shy, but it's difficult to figure out what questions to ask when they aren't talking very much.
On Monday we got to walk around Catherine's park and yesterday we went to visit the Hermitage.

I think I enjoyed the decoration of the buildings better than most of the paintings we saw.

Please pray for: team unity and connections with the students. The school split the students up into personal groups and yesterday none of the girls in my group came to our excursion to the Hermitage. Please also pray for energy, we have a trip to Novgorod  on Saturday and I'm already feeling pretty tired.

From Russia with Love

My team arrived in St. Petersburg at 2am on Thursday. On Friday we did interviews with the students and I was able to see several students that I met last year. We have about 60 students in our program this year. The two girls I got closest to last year, Masha and Yulia aren’t in our program this year because of studying for their exams, but they did come to the school to study and I got to see them.

 On Saturday about 40 of the students went with our team to visit Peterhof, which is a fountain park that Peter the Great and Catherine the Great built. It was a bit of a long day for me and I was a little discouraged by how little my personal group of students talked with me, but I know that the first few days are the hardest.

On Sunday we went to a Russian/English church in the center of the city after church my team went to the house of an American government security man and his family. They are believers and have been in St. Petersburg for 6 months. My teammate Ben plays guitar and we sang a bunch of worship songs with this family. They haven’t found a church yet and were really encouraged by our visiting with them. Please pray for Charles and Ginger to find a good church community here.

Classes start tomorrow; please pray for good connections with the students and for my team to have energy.

Phoenix

Well friends, after a very hectic two weeks and only 36hrs in Lawrence to pack, I made it to Phoenix. I got in yesterday afternoon and was able to spend the evening with three of my teammates from last summer. I meet the rest of the team later this afternoon and we leave for Russia on Tuesday. We'll be spending the next couple of days getting to know each other and planning for classes. Please pray that our hearts will be knit together as a team, for good health as we travel, and for the rest of needed funding to come in (I am still not fully funded and neither are several others on the team). Thanks for your prayers!

Back Home Again

Hi Friends,

Well I got back to KC a little over a week ago. The last days of classes were filled with many goodbyes as my team prepared to leave. We had a wonderful graduation ceremony for the students the Friday night before we left. Over the weekend we had the opportunity to hang out with a few students going around town and such. Then the Monday night before our plane left we had a tour with a bunch of the students around town for White Nights. The sun sets very late in St. Petersburg and the city is very alive at night in the summer, so we got to go watch this bridge rise and see the view on the river. This picture was taken after 1am and you can see how light it is still.It was very hard to say goodbye and I felt like it was too rushed. A piece of my heart is there and knowing that I would have to say goodbye to my team soon was hard as well. It's so hard to put into words how I felt about leaving. The only thing that made it a little bit easier was knowing that I will return to Russia. This trip has confirmed that I am called to Russia. I don't know what that will look like yet, but whether it be for 1 month or 10 years, I know I'll be back. It was especially hard to say goodbye to our friend Tanya. She really was a part of our team and she helped us in so many ways. Our too brief goodbye with her only added to my feelings of not being ready to leave.

Our team flew to Frankfurt to have a couple of days to debrief and hang out with each other before parting ways. Debrief was so helpful in processing all of the things that happened and all of the things that I began learning. I didn't realize the extent of all of the things that God gave me the strength to face until my teammates repeatedly spoke of all of the things they had seen me overcome with being the one not from their region and the challenges of teaching and interacting with the team. God was so faithful to me on this trip. Most of the things I overcame didn't seem that extraordinary when I was faced with them. Yes they were hard, but I knew that God would give me the strength to do whatever He asked of me. And having the team there was incredible support and I knew they would help me as much as they could.
Being back home has been much more difficult than I had anticipated. I miss my team very much. We all became so much like family that I almost feel that a part of me is missing with them not with me. Please pray for the Lord's direction and purpose for the rest of my summer.