Sunday, February 21, 2010

Another Movie Night! (minus that whole movie part)

This past Friday was our return to form with English Movie Night.  We had been on a pretty long hiatus (due to holidays and our absence from Moscow), so this was kind of our kickoff for this semester.  We had a decent turnout, but we all decided not to watch a movie-- but talk instead.

Here's some pictures from the evening!














Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Back to the Grind!

Since returning to Moscow from Germany, we've much of our time catching up and resuming our normal schedule.  Here are a few things that have resumed since we've been back:

  • English Kids Club -- we started teaching last week, and continue to spend an hour with 15+ six and seven year olds each Wednesday
  • Alpha Course -- Last Thursday was the big kickoff to this semester's Alpha Course.  Our friend Andrea and I will be leading the discussions.
  • English Movie Night -- This Friday is our big kickoff!
  • English Cafe -- Because of a wedding, we don't know if we will be able to attend, but the bi-monthly English Cafe will be held this Saturday.
We are also going to be able to see some great friends in the next few days.  Our friend Tanya, whom we have not seen in months, will be meeting us for dinner tonight!  We are so excited to see her!  

Fun story.  Tanya is a big Anne Rice fan.  Rice is THE author of vampire novels.  But recently, I want to say within the last 5 years or so, she gave up vampire novels when she became a Christian and started writing novels about the life of Christ.  One of the last times we saw Tanya she handed us the first book Christ the Lord:  Out of Egypt to read.  She wants to know what we think about the book since we are believers.  Beth's in the middle of the book now and I plan to read it after.  It will be interesting to share our thoughts, and compare/contrast what Rice has written to the actual writings about Jesus in the Gospels.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

We Got a Package!

Today Beth and I went to the Post Office to pick up our first package we've received in Russia!  We were pretty excited!



If you can't see this video, click HERE




What we received were baby clothes and a book from our good friends Eddie and Lisa!!  Thank you guys so much!!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Our Trip to Germany

It is very hard to put into our last two weeks into words.  I feel like anything I write or say about what we've experienced cannot even scratch the surface of actually telling you about it.

Fortunately Beth brought along her trusty camera, which will definitely come closer than anything I could formulate.

For the first week Beth and I attended a conference in Rehe, Germany.  We were able to reunite with many friends we had met almost a year ago exactly.  We were also able to dialogue with others who are serving overseas, as well as listen to those who have been in Europe for many years.












After the conference, Beth and I, along with three other couples, drove 3 hours south of Frankfurt to the Black Forest, where we had rented a cabin for the week.
















We were close enough to both France and Switzerland to be able to make a day trip into a city in each country.  On Monday we drove to Strasbourg, France-- one of my new favorite cities!  We stopped at every bakery we saw, and ate pretty much everything in sight.
























On Wednesday we were able to spend part of the day in Freiburg, Germany and Basel Switzerland:




















For more pictures, check out the Picasa web album HERE.  It's kind of disorganized right now (and by kind of I mean extremely), but I'll try to have it cleaned up soon.