Turkey in Turkey on Turkey Day!

Hey all! Yes, this is a picture of me eating turkey on Thanksgiving Day in the country of Turkey (as an avid pun-lover, this was right up my alley)! I just returned from Antayla, Turkey, for a missionary retreat for the Nazarene missionaries in the Commonwealth of Independent States field. More details later in the update!

A couple weeks ago, we had our quarterly awards chapel, and the students you see standing are those students of mine who made the A honor roll. Also in the picture are the K-5 classes and Mr. Williams, the elementary principal and assistant director of Hinkson.

Some of the 4th and 5th grade boys guarding their snow fort at recess.

Mr. Hays, my Russian student, and Mr. Lehman all dressed alike on twin day, a student council-sponsored event.

The 5th graders acting a bit goofy, posing in front of the "Bella Notte" background, which was a high school honors choir production from a couple weeks ago.

This picture has been a symbol of what God's been doing inside me these past few weeks. One reason I haven't blogged for a while is because I needed a break...from a lot of things. I had been doing too many things, for too long, at too high a level of expectations and excellence (aka perfectionism). I had a breakdown two weeks ago today, a day in which I really hit the wall on all fronts. After a 1.5-hour conversation with my parents (thank you, Lord, for my wonderful parents!), I was already much better, especially since I had gained some priceless advice that I could begin to apply. It's not that I haven't heard the wise words before. It's that I never really had to apply them. Now that I'm over here in a totally new environment away from my closest family and friends, I must begin to take much more seriously the 2nd greatest commandment: to love my neighbor as myself. I have a tendency to operate on about a 80-20 imbalance, with so much time dedicated to the needs of others and hardly any time spent taking care of myself. How can we really effectively love our neighbors if our cups are almost always near empty? A wise teacher friend recently told me that we're to love others out of the abundance of our cup. If there is no abundance in my cup, then something's wrong.

I'm learning to have to lower my expectations (they often exceed everybody else's expectations of me...and sometimes God's expectations as well), be less hard on myself, and STOP doing so much. Letting go is hard for me. I thought recently about the significance of stoplights at intersections. If stoplights were always set for "go" in one direction and "red" for the other direction, then one line of traffic would never get a break, and the other line would never get to go (duh!). But what about in our lives? If I have the pride to think that my way is always the best and I always have to be "the best" at everything, and thus run myself ragged with work and service, then all I'm doing is 1) setting myself up for failure and breakdowns because I never stop and 2) depriving other people of their opportunity to serve, love, and "go." Life really is a stop and go journey. Jesus really understood that, and I'm just now starting to understand it.

5th grade Thanksgiving Party! We had a time of food; decorating for Christmas; writing letters of thanks to friends, teachers, parents, etc. on nice stationery; singing a couple thanksgiving songs as a class; holding hands as a class (parents and all) and praying a thanksgiving prayer. It was a special time!

Kids love parties!

Walking where the Apostle Paul once did...

Update, part 2! Here you see the beautiful Mediterranean Sea! Antalya, Turkey, where I just recently spent Thanksgiving Break, is right on the Great Sea (as it is called in the Bible). I had the privilege of swimming in it twice, once during the day and once at dusk. It was a bit chilly, but not bad. Weather in Turkey was 60s and 70s, with a couple days being sunny!

On Friday, we went to a big Bazaar, or open air market in Antalya. Quite an experience!

Heika and Cliff Wright (missionaries in Kiev) and Dana Winsinger (another Mission Corps volunteer teacher in Kiev). They became great friends in just three days!

The highlight of the trip for me was visiting Perga, an ancient Roman city from the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. (actually a civilization has been there since the 11th century B.C.). It was awesome! Here you see the inner gate of the city. The apostle Paul visited Perga twice during his first missionary journey (he also visited Attalia...now Antalya), and his bold preaching of the Word of God had quite an effect on the people of the city. As Christ was proclaimed as Lord and as people began to accept Him as their Savior, women began to gain more rights within the social system, and the slave trade was abolished!

Perga's main street. Shops lined both sides, and a channel of water ran through the middle. Everything 1,700 years ago had been overlaid with beautiful white marble, and fresh water from the aqueduct would cascade over the walls of the city into channels on the interior - just gorgeous!

Walking where Paul trod! What an experience!

The ancient stadium of Perga.

I couldn't resist! The runner in me just had to be unleashed! How could I be at an ancient Roman stadium and not run a lap around it?

After this past weekend, I am completely refreshed. I have a new focus for the last three weeks of the semester and a renewed vigor and vision for loving and teaching my kids. A verse that has meant a lot to me this past week is Jeremiah 15:19a: "If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me. This verse reveals one of God's purposes in restoring us: that we may serve him. It's not for our sake. It's not that we were so pathetic that we needed help, although that's part of it. He doesn't restore us just to restore us. God saves and restores us so that we might be used of Him to affect this world! That's why the recent restoration I was given this weekend has resulted in a greater desire to serve my students effectively this week.

On the agenda for this week are Christmas program rehearsals; visiting the classroom of the pregnant rabbit because we might soon adopt one of its babies as our class pet; and studies of correct verb tenses, long division (Daring Monkeys Ski Backwards!...Divide Multiply Subtract Bring Down), biomes presentations, the Far East, reading selections about the Revolutionary War era, and the effects of hiding sin (Achan). I love this profession!

Please pray that not only I, but also the entire staff and all the students' parents here in Moscow, would be filled with the Holy Spirit as we do our work. His power and authority are what make God the most effective Teacher! Pray that I wouldn't lose focus as we close out the semester and I look forward to coming home in less than three weeks. Praise God for all his provision, energy, and ideas! Praise God that he used my low point a few weeks ago to bring about some tremendous healing and growth in one of my relationships! Pray for my class as they are dealing with the sad situation of one student moving away to Korea next semester. Pray for the spiritual development of the students at Hinkson, that they would grow in Love with Christ.

Our depletion, God's completion

You've heard that stress can add grey hairs to your head. Well, try living in a foreign culture, and look at what happens! (Yes, you do see a faint beard forming along my jawbone!)

Oh the pleasures of being a teacher at Hinkson! I was able to be the victim of students who threw saturated, wet sponges at my face last Saturday during the Fall Festival!

Here they are! Davide and Tanya Cantarella took me to a professional soccer game on October 31. It was awesome! Spartok, the Russian team, lost 0-1 to Intermilan, an Italian team. Davide (district superintendent for the Russia North District of the Nazarene Church) was especially excited because he is from Italy! Tanya is the pastor of Moscow First Church of the Nazarene, my home church!

Here's the stadium! The stands were packed, except for the bare area you see in the background. This is the Olympic Stadium where the 1980 Games were held and also where Billy Graham preached first in 1982 and then again in a crusade in 1984. Quite historic!

Sashka and Eara continue to provide much love and comfort for my roommate and me. They are precious and a true gift from God!

One of the most touching events of my time so far in Moscow occurred last Saturday. I had just finished a morning run, and I was about to start my abdominal exercises on my bed. I had put my hands above my head and against the wall to steady myself, and Sashka decided to enter the cavity between my arm and head! She lay down directly next to my ear, and I could hear her gentle purr and rapidly palpitating heart. We sat there together resting for about 10 minutes! It reminded me of Isaiah 40:11: "He tends his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."

"The kids" like to sit on Daddy's lap while he works, too!

We had our first snow early last week, and we just had another a couple days ago. How beautiful to walk into a bright classroom! It's starting to be consistently cold here...in the 20s and 30s, which I hear is quite comparable to Michigan weather.

I took this picture months ago, but it captures the state of my soul lately. While here in Moscow, I have often seen this dear babushka feeding stray dogs with her own meager resources. It touches my heart each time I see it. Neither the dogs nor the babushka appear to have much at all, and yet the babushka's generous and compassionate heart prompts her to give what little she does have to these innocent little stray puppies! How does that relate to me? During these first 13+ weeks in Moscow, I have often come to the humbling fact that "I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me" (Psalm 109:22). I have reached the limits of my natural strength and abilities and found them insufficient. What I have to offer is so trivial in comparison with the greatness of Almighty God, but that tiny bit is what He wants. Really, we're all poor, destitute, weak, and needy when we admit it, and we all need the touch of Love. God intends us weak people to experience His extravagant love by sharing it with our fellow needy neighbors. Only when we approach our neighbors along the lines of our true poverty will we understand what Jesus experienced. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). When we embrace our poverty, we will become the channels through which the mighty riches of God's Love flow to a world in desperate need. Will the world see the God who became poor through people who realize that that is what we are? Will they see the God who "[stooped] down to make[us] great"? (Psalm 18:35). Through our depletion comes God's completion.

Praise God that my parent-teacher conferences went extremely well last Monday! I could feel the prayers being lifted up for me; I felt like I was in a zone through the 15 meetings (13-straight). Please pray that I would continually draw on the joy that is found in Christ...my heart is quickly discouraged at this point in the journey. (I eagerly look forward to coming home for Christmas.) Pray for my kids, that they would grow in faith and their love for others. Pray for my students' parents as they carry out God's work in Moscow (business, church-planting, etc.). Pray for the Russian people, culture, and government...it, like all nations, is in desperate need of God.