Oh how I wish it were true....

Cute story from today: I was helping a little boy in my class dressed after coming inside. He's become my little buddy and somewhat listens to me and tries to talk to me. His name is Sasha, which, by the way, is the nickname for Alexander. (hehe) Well, he was talking away and I kept saying, "Oh really, that's amazing." Then I told him that it was time to change his pants. I told him to hurry and then I started counting in Russian. He started to count with me and then looked at me really excited. He shouts to the other teacher, "Katerina Michealevna! Katerina Michealevna!!" And then he points to me and says my name and says some other Russian stuff. Katerina starts laughing and says, "He said, 'Kristin knows Russian! Kristin has learned Russian!" Hahaha. Like i just all of the sudden learned to speak Russian and all our problems were solved!!! oh how i wish it were true.... : )

Hello all my loyal followers...the 2 of you..including my mom. :) I also would like to stop and say hi to the Grand Rapids Evangelical Free Church!! Word has reached me here in Russia that my blogs are being read by some of you in the church. I'll have you all know that I really miss going to GREFC. Thanks for all you prayers and encouragement! I know that your prayers are helping me survive here! Well, I'm not just "surviving." I am really starting to love Moscow. My weeks are full of things to do and places to go.

On Tuesdays I go to bible study here in Moscow. I have posted a picture of the group at a recent retreat. I love going to Bible study. I have really missed being involved in a challenging study of God's word. (It's also nice to be speaking English!) I started playing guitar for it too. One song that I have kind of taken on as our "theme song" is God of this City. It's a very beautiful song and really applies here in Moscow. I even found the Russian lyrics for it! So we sing it in English and then in Russian for the Russian speakers in the group. The past weekend, about 40 of us from the "YA-YAs" (Young Adults) took a train out to a small town called Snegiri. It was gorgeous!! We were walking into the town and I was amazed to see a house. I haven't seen a house in so long. Haha! We spent time getting to know each other and relaxing. We also had a missionary couple from Alaska spend the weekend with us and they led the Bible studies each day. Oh AND, I was talking to a "young adult" at the retreat. She is Russian and speaks very good English. She asked me where I was from and I said Grand Rapids, MN. She said, "Really??! I go there every summer! Do you know the Durochers?" What a small,small world....Her name is Galina. Someone else might know her too. She comes here during the summer. She's involved with a Bible Camp that is trying to build on Deer Lake. We talked for a while about Grand Rapids. It was so crazy. Of all the places and of all the people to meet in Moscow!

We stayed in a "dacha" which is a country house that most Moscovites have. They work in Moscow during the week and leave for their dacha on the weekends. So it was a great weekend! On Sunday I went for a walk with my friend Julia. We walked to a small lake and in some woods. It was beautiful and looked JUST like Minnesota. Everyone keeps telling me that Moscow region is just like Minnesota. SO anyways, Julia and I stopped in the woods and it was amazing!! We could actually HEAR the leaves falling. I have never heard that before. It sounded like rain but it was different. All around us were yellow leaves falling to the ground. I couldn't believe it and I will never forget it.

The church that I go to on Sundays is called International Christian Fellowship. We meet in a theater school inside the city. There are people from all over the world. There is currently no senior pastor (which is a prayer request). There are elders that take turns preaching every Sunday. It has been a little hard getting used to a new church. I always find myself comparing it to my church in Oklahoma or in Minnesota. But it's a great church full of people from around the world.

But now I'm back in Moscow. Today I had my "open" lesson at school. Anyone in the school can come and watch. I was really nervous and I wasn't feeling good. I just knew that I was going to be eaten alive by these little children. We got into the classroom and there to watch me was the principal, the head of the foreign language department, the head of the early childhood program, the head of the kindergarten, and two of my fellow kindergarten teachers. "Ok, Kristin...calm down. Think happy thoughts. Think of...think of...." and no happy thoughts came to mind when I sat down in front of my class. But prayers were answered and it was the best lesson that I have ever taught here. The children were un-believably well-behaved. They sat and listened and participated and spoke English!! It was such a relief. I was able to show that I actually can teach. I may look like an idiot chasing around children all day..but I'm not! : )

P.S. GO VIKINGS!

Oi! It's been a long while again. The weeks are really going by fast. I can't believe that it is already October and the first term ends on a few weeks. Life in Moscow is still going great. I find something new to like about it all the time. I went for a walk this past week and it was SO nice. I love just walking around and seeing the city at night. Here are a couple pictures from that walk. I am still in love with Stalin's Seven Sisters. This one is now a Ukranian Hotel and is just a couple blocks from my apartment.

Lately, school has not really gotten better. I almost feel like it might be getting worse! Most of the kids do not listen to me during the lessons. It is so frustrating. That's something that I can improve. I just need to get into Super Teacher mode and come up with new ways to keep their attention. It's hard enough keep the attention of a 4 year old but think about teaching one that doesn't know what you're saying. They also do not respect my authority. They run from me and laugh. (Some of them, not all.) I just don't know what to do about it. I can't even talk to them and tell them why it's wrong. I can't sit down with them and talk about their behavior. I can't even scold them properly! And there's no discipline system to start with here. I just need to remain calm and pray all day. I know the Lord brought me here and I just need to stop complaining. I'm sure He doesn't want to hear me complain about it all the time. I get tired of hearing it too. Now that I think about it...i'm sure you're sick of it too. So...on a lighter note...This past Thursday was Teacher's Day in Russia. That means that the school day ended early and all the teachers got together for a party. It was so....um....different. You would never see something like that at a school in America. There were tons fruit and finger foods and a huge cake. There was also SO much alcohol. I don't even know how many bottles of vodka and champange and whiskey. SO much. It was all so weird. After a little while, the show started. Teacher's got up on the stage and sang. Some performed little skits which were so weird. There was one with some teachers dressed up in skimpy little genie-like outfits doing belly dances. It was supposed to be funny. Then the American teachers had to perform! We through it together the day before. We read a poem and thanked the school and Moscow. It was partly funny. I don't know. I think they liked it. At least we didn't have to sing....

Another new development this week: One of the American teachers that I went to OBU with got appendicitis and had to have surgery Wed. night. Her first surgery and it had to be in Russia. She was very brave and is doing good. She has to stay at the hospital for a week which none of us like. In the states, they just boot you out the same day. But we are praying for quick healing and no complications.

Speaking of complications...I have mold growing in my room. Gross, i know. I felt sick today and decided to stay home instead of going shopping. :( I moved my bed and part of my wall is all moldy. That's never good. So hopefully that will be taken care of soon. I will be sleeping on the couch until it does. What else can go wrong with our apartment? Broken washer...check. Horribly clogged sink...check. Explosive faucet...check. Moldy wall...check! Now i think all we need is like a fire or something...knock on wood. Oh wait...everything around me is fur or marble. dangit....................................

One month...check

Ok so it's been one month already. It's strange to think that I have lived here for that long and that I will be here for 9 more months! What has happened?...I've really been enjoying my church family. It's great to have a good church way over here in Russia. On Tuesdays we have a young adult bible study. This last week I brought my guitar along and played a couple songs. That was nice. They are trying to get me to play for church. I don't think I'm ready for that yet. Maybe after a little while. Um...last night my friends and I went to this amazing look out spot. The pictures are from here. You could see the whole city and almost all of the Seven Sisters. The Seven Sisters are seven beautiful buildings that Stalin built. Probably the only nice thing that he did. I LOVE them. Every time I see one of them I just can't help but stare at it until it's out of sight. It's just amazing to me that I learned about Stalin in history class and you hear all these things about him and it doesn't really seem real. You know it happened but it still doesn't seem real. But now, being here makes that part of history come alive to me. I can see and touch something that Stalin built. I could go see his bunker and walk in his office. I saw Lenin's body! It's so amazing. That's what I love about Moscow. It has so much history. It's a modern city but they hold on to their history and honor it with passion. Their are statues of was heroes all over the city and most of the people know who they are and what they did. Some people even bring flowers. The Seven Sister that I walked by is now the University of Moscow. It was a fun night. It was late and there was a lot of walking but it was still really fun.

School is still really stressful. The kids are just starting to like me. I think they are realizing that I might be an OK person. They are asking me for help and trying to talk to me. If you can remember back to a blog about two girls swinging. At first they didn't know how to ask me to swing them. Then I got them to say, "Again, please." Now they are saying, "Swing me again, please." I think that's amazing! So after all that progress and a little light starting to shine at the end of the tunnel...it all changed. I was told yesterday that I will now be responsible for all of the kindergarten not just half. This means that I will be a teacher to twice as many kids and be constantly moving around. I feel like I'm starting all over again. I was just getting used to the schedule and now it's all changing. I was just getting these kids to talk to me and like me. Now I have to start all over again with a new group of kids. Anyways, this may mean nothing to you but I felt like crying. Right now at this moment, I would take my old group of kindergarteners in a heartbeat. I thought student teaching was hard?! I remember thinking, "This will be the hardest class that I will probably ever teach." Nope. This is SO hard. How do you discipline children that can't understand you? How can you help a crying child when you don't know what's wrong? I just have to keep going. I'm here and this is where the Lord wants me so I am going to do my best.

week one...done

Today is Monday. Labor day in America, but not here. I made it through a week of school and it was definately a challenge. The kids are so cute but they don't really like me yet. :) Ok maybe they're thinking about liking me. But think about it...if you were a little kid and it was the first week of school, wouldn't you be afraid of the new teacher that spoke in gibberish?? I try talking to them and they just look at each other and I can assume they are saying, "Did you get that?"..."No, did you?"..."No. She's weird." And then they walk away. :D It's pretty funny. I can laugh about it but it is also very frustrating. I am used to teaching in America where I was constantly talking to the children and they could communicate with me. I have had some moments of mutual understanding with the children and that was great. Today I was swinging two girls on the swing set and I could tell that they wanted me to swing them again. They kept looking at me and saying things in Russian. I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "In English, please." One of the girls really tried. She patted the swing and said, "Yes." So I pushed her and waited. When she wanted to swing again I asked her, "Again?" And she answered, "Yes, again." ! It was pretty cool. Both the girls started to say "again" when they wanted to be pushed some more. I was proud that I had taugh them a new word and it was during play, not only in the classroom.

Here's a quick funny story. Today during lunch I was going around asking them what they wanted to drink. (By the way, serving them lunch is super difficult when you can't speak Russian. I don't have it down yet.) Ok so anyways, they could chose from juice or tea. I knew the Russian word for tea and I THOUGHT I knew the Russian word for juice. (I'm really not supposed to talk to them in Russian but I wanted to just one time...probably shouldn't have tried.) So the Russian word for juice is "cok" pronounced like our word "soak." BUT like a dummy, I pronounce it a little differently and added an extra letter and ended up saying the Russian derogatory term for a woman. You know what I'm talkin' about. The two girls just looked at me and then looked at each other and continued talking. I realized what I had just done and I felt like an idiot!! I'm trying to get these kids to like me and I end up calling them a bad word!! Also, here are a couple pictures of the school for those of you who were waiting for them. Enjoy.

the first day of school....

I'm trying to think about what has happened since I updated this blog last. It seems like I'm always saying to myself, "I'm totally going to blog about this!" Ok, this weekend we went to a REALLY nice and expensive cafe, called Cafe Pushkin. It's named after a famous poet. I got eggs benedict and a cappucino. The inside of the building was so beautiful and elaborate. We were wondering what it had been used for and how old everything was. I got out my handy Moscow book and looked it up. It said that it was a really nice cafe but nothing was authentic. It was all built in 1999. You could almost hear all our bubbles burst at once. The experience was not as fun knowing that it was all fake.
On Sunday me and two of my roommates decided to try another church. We had no idea where it was. We decided to try and find it anyway. We got on the bus and looked stupid for a while because we didn't know how to use the ticket taker thing. We got off after 4 stops and were left to find this church. But we're smart and we found it! We walked a ways and heard some singing. It was exciting to know that we can actually find our way around this crazy city. BUT the service was all in Russian. We decided to leave. And guess where we went?? Starbucks. That's right. It was nice to just sit and talk with my friends and sip my iced mocha.
Today is Tuesday and it was the first day of school. Here it is in a nutshell: Got on the bus at 7:15am. Got to school and rehearsed the song that I was to sing in front of all the kids and their parents. Then at about 8:30, all the children start showing up. Picture black luxury cars parked everywhere, with mean looking drivers and bodyguards leaning on them. Also picture children in Dolce & Gabanna, Versace and Armani with posh parents in tow. There are flowers everywhere! Russian tradition is the bring the teachers flowers. There were roses and orchids and lilies all over the place. The children also bring lots of balloons which are released after the opening ceremony. It was all very exciting. My song went over well. The rest of the day, I just followed around the Russian teacher and tried to get the children to talk to me. They are all so cute. I had a few moments of panic and thoughts of, "What am I doing here?" But they went away eventually. I just have to remember to do my best and to not wonder what the other teachers are saying in Russian. Tomorrow is my first English lesson. I hope it goes good. Now I sit in my apartment surrounded by bouquets of flowers, listening to the jackhammer in our hallway fixing our bathroom door, wondering what to teach to these future diplomats of Russia. Hmmm........