hello!

I would like to reserve one post for a special thank you to Olivemae Gebhart. I have heard that you faithfully read these posts and are praying for me every day. You don't know how much that means to me. I can tell that your prayers are working. :) I am feeling a lot better about the death of my friend, Jenna. It was really hard that first couple days but I really feel at peace about it. I looked back at my previous post about her. If you remember, I talked about a dream that I had. I really do think that it was a good dream now. I feel like God was giving me reassurance that she's ok. I thank the Lord for that dream now. School is going good too. A lot of the children were out of the country for Fall Break. Because of this, our first week back we had only a few children in attendance. It was kind of nice actually. We got to plan this next term and start thinking about the Christmas program. Turns out that I am going to be Mrs. Claus. That's just super...This week has been good too. Well, today is only Monday. The children are starting to talk me more and more each day. I can also feel myself relaxing and getting used to the situation. It's still not easy and it's still very frustrating but I think that I'm adjusting. I just wish that I could talk to them and know what they are saying and joke around with the little boys and talk about girly things with the girls. But I have to think about what there is and be thankful and stop thinking about what there's not.
So, Thanks again Olivemae and thank you to everyone else who reads this and is praying for me. Praise the Lord for people like you.

that's an idea

Ok so I am at school right now and i just had to come and write this down. I have been put in charge of writing the Christmas program here in the kindergarten. They do not celebrate Christmas here and thought that my input would be very valuable. However, it is difficult communicating and discussing the program with a language barrier in between us.
So, they told me to capture the "Spirit of Christmas." I thought, "Oh good, maybe I can do a play about the birth of Jesus because that really is the true 'spirit' of Christmas." Well, that bubble was quickly burst when I was told that there should be nothing religious in the program. They wanted to have the character of Santa. Santa needed to be in the play. So my revolutionary new Christmas program is as follows: It is a snowy day at the North Pole. Elves are tinkering away in the workshop getting ready for the coming Christmas Day. An elf comes to the workshop and starts talking about some vistors that are in town. These visitors turn out to be missionaries. These missionaries are so good that they come to Santa's house, tell him the gospel and Santa gets saved. In turn, Santa realizes what he has done. He has taken humanity's focus away from the real meaning of Christmas! He quits his job, shuts down the North Pole, and sends all the elves home with New Testaments. He goes public and confesses to the world the true meaning of Christmas. He starts an evangelistic tour around the world.....And that's the play. Any takers?? ;)

Loss of a dear friend...

On Saturday morning, a dear friend of mine passed away. Her name was Jenna and she was only 13. Some of you may know her and have seen me all over Grand Rapids with her. During my summers home, I was privileged to have the best job ever. My job was to hang out with her. I found out that she was in the hospital with pneumonia. They sedated her for something and she never woke up. They ran some tests and found out that she had suffered from several strokes. More tests revealed that these strokes caused brain damage. Her family decided to take her off life support yesterday morning.

We were 10 years apart but she was one of my best friends. We went everywhere together and not because it was my job but because I loved it. She made me laugh every day with her sarcasm and hysterical comments. I remember the first time that I met her. I went to the school to walk with her home. She came out, barely looked at me and drove past me in her wheelchair. I don't think she liked meeting new people. I kept thinking, "This is going to be the hardest job ever!" I tried keeping up with her and talking to her but her wheelchair was always pretty fast. Those first couple of days were hard. But I knew she liked me when she asked me to sit with her on the side of the road while she played her recorder and I held a sign that read, "Tips Accepted." :) I don't know how many times I sat on the side of the road with her, selling jewelry, decorated popsicle sticks and lemonade. Oh the lemonade stands that we had!

I have memories of her in almost every place that I can think of in Grand Rapids. Breaking the heater with her chair at Weight Watchers, playing hide-and-go-seek at the library, finding some inappropiate toy animals at Target, chillin' at Caribou, talking loudly and laughing during movies, getting a free meal at Bixby's, picnics at the Pokegama Dam or at the Veteran's Park (which we had another name for), getting yelled at by a creepy boy at Gunn Park, stealing charts from the hospital so we could legitimately play doctor where she would be "Dr. Volleyball", falling in love with a lumberjack at St. Louis County Fair, constant troubles with Ralph William Wannamaker (the stubborn/unpredictable ramp), accidentally locking her in the hot van outside of the library where she pulled through and reached my purse and unlocked it! I am going to miss her silent laugh, her dance moves, her little hands, her unbelievable ability to improv, the squeaks of her wheelchair, her uncanny MarioKart skills, her lip syncing into the rearview mirror, her facebook updates and photo comments, and yes, I will also miss her attitude.

The night before she was going to be taken off life support I had a dream about her. I dreamt that I went to go see her in the hospital. When I got there, she was awake and was talking. I didn't get to talk to her. I saw her and she got up and walked over to her mom. I was amazed. I started talking to her sister-in-law and she told me that everything was fine. Some kind of miracle happened. Not only did she wake up but she could walk. She walked again for me with the help of her mom. I can't decide if it was a good dream or a bad dream. I was happy during the dream, but then I woke up and remembered. It does give me hope that she is in heaven and she really is able to walk. But it still made me really sad to think that she won't be there when I come home. That I won't be able to have her as a bridesmaid. :) assuming that I get married. I won't be able to spend another summer doing crazy things with her. I am praying that I am able to dwell on the times that I did have and not dwell on things that will never be. It's not healthy to think that way, I've decided.

I looked at her facebook page recently and found a quote that she had put up. I don't remember seeing it before. It said, "“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together.. there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. i'll always be with you.”♥ I will always remember her and I will forever miss her too. She taught me to be braver. Not care what other people think. Act silly. Speak your mind. Let people stare at you if they want to. And to love life regardless of the one you've been given.

more pictures from fall break

Train trip to Kiev

It's finally Fall Break so we decided that it was time to get out of the country. Four of us American teachers took a train to Kiev, Ukraine. It was an overnight train that left Moscow at 11:30pm. It was really nice because we sleep most of the way and then woke up and voila! You're in Ukraine. Ok so it was a little more complicated than that. So we left at 11:30pm. We booked our own compartment. It had four beds and a door that we could lock. At about 4:30am, the train stops at the Russian border. The train attnedants knock on the door and we had to open the door and wait for the passport agents to board the train. Then an agent comes to the door and takes our passports. He varifies our identities...looks through his book....asks us questions that we don't understand....walks away with our passports...makes us nervous...and then comes back and then we're off again. They like everything to be very official. They didn't like that some of our stamps were upsidedown. Oh Russians...gotta love them. :) Then we went back to sleep and about thirty minutes later we stop again and get to meet the Ukrainian passport agents. Then we leave again and sleep until we get to Kiev. We got there at 8am.
Once we left the train, we had no real plan about where we were going or what we were going to do for 17 hours. So, we started at a McDonald's look alike called McFoxy. Always a safe start. We get coffees as well as weird looks. It seems as though if you're speaking English and wearing a backpack...you're a novelty.
So we find the metro and decide to head to a station that looks promising. Oh and by the way, I just got my new Mukluks in the mail thanks to my mom! They really got broken in while in Kiev. We walked so much!! My roommate estimate 20 miles but we don't really know. Anyways, back to the story....we exited the metro and ask a man selling glass animals where to find a monastery. We walk the way he points and find a monument that looks like the Washington Monument. Turns out it was the The Monument of Eternal Glory at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier. Then we spotted some golden domes. We have been trained to walk towards them. :) There's always something to photograph. Turns out it was the Kiev Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves). We walked all over the grounds of this monastery looking for some caves. But none were to be found. We were on our way out and Kelsie bumps into a man. She says sorry and he replies in Engish. "Do you know where the catacombs are?" she asks. He does and points to where we should go. We walk down the hill and see an entrance to a cathedral. We all cover our heads and enter. Inside they are selling candles (which we were supposed to buy but didn't know that.) There is a small door leading down and it is pitchblack. All I can see is a small tunnel and people faces lit up the candles they hold in front of them. There is a group of people chanting and praying. I walk into a small tunnel and see a glass coffin. There is a body inside covered with fabric. I realize that these are really catacombs and they really buried people down here. I turn another corner and there are more coffins. For more than 900 years the imperishable bodies of the monastery's founders - the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius, Agapit the healer, Nestor the Chronicler, and relics of another 118 saints lie here. It was actually really amazing and interesting. I'm glad that we found it.
We decide that it is time to leave. I wanted to see this particular monument called the "Steel Wench." We decided that it looked to far away on the map but turn the corner and see her in the distance. I guess she wasn't that far away. She is really the Monument of the Motherland and is a memorial to the Great Patriotic War or WWII. There are actually two elevators inside the monument and tourists were once able to go inside the head, sword and shield. But these were closed due to a series of accidents. (yikes.) After that I was pooped. I really needed something to eat. We took the metro to Independence Square. We found a McD's and decided to eat there. After refueling we went outside and just happened to see the Friendship arch that I was wanting to see. This arch was built to celebrate the union of Russia and Ukraine. Next to the Arch were lots and lots of stairs leading up a hill. We decided to take them and discovered a Puppet Palace. It is actually a puppet theater and museum. We took some pictures of it. By then we were really cold and wanted to find some place to warm up. An art musuem sounded great. A little after this conversation, we walked right up to a huge art museum. We spent a few hours here. We also found information about the National Chernobyl Museum. Next we went here. It was a very interesting museum and I didn't realize how close this disaster was to Kiev. After this, we found a tram and took us up the mountain...more like a hill. Here we found a beautiful cathedral and also a monument built for the millions who died in a famine. The rest of the evening was spent eating and waiting around for our 1:21am train back to Moscow. About 30 minutes of that time was spent looking for a Starbucks. :) We asked a couple people making us look like typical dumb Americans. No one knew so we figured there wasn't one in Kiev and sadly, there isn't. I guess this monopoly with it's delicious coffees hasn't yet reached the quaint city of Kiev.
We were all amazed at how much we saw in just one day. Not speaking the language, not knowing the town, and only having one little map. We were thanking the Lord for all that we saw that day. I hope this blog entry wasn't too boring for you all. It was a great Fall Break trip. Now what to do with the rest of my Fall Break??? Work maybe? sleep maybe? ooo...shop? yes, i think so. From Russia With Love, Kristin