And she's back!!!

Hello everyone!

Well, it has been a while I know. First we had Christmas, then my Mum came to visit, and then we disappeared off to Budapest for 2 different conferences, and then to Moscow for a third. We have now been back in St Petes for exactly 2 weeks, which have been spent in lots of planning meetings, meeting students again after the break, and I have also moved flats. Hopefully things should calm down a bit now.

I expect you want to know why I have moved, and why we have had to do so much planning. Basically, Jo is now 3 months pregnant, and will be leaving Russia in April, to go home to prepare for having her baby. Aaron will obviously go with her. This works rather well, given that Jo cannot stay in Russia beyond April with her current visa. Luke and I will be staying on, but we will be working in close conjunction with the Polytech team, which was going to happen anyway, as they are now left with 2 members, as the others are away on maternity leave too.

So that all sounds very complicated really. But I have managed to find myself a great new flat, living with a Russian landlady, and it is only 15 mins walk from the others. She is absolutely lovely, and doesn’t speak any English. And there is a great view of the Finnish Gulf from the window.

The conferences were all brilliant. The first one was a time to relax and refresh ourselves, before we got charged up at the second one. That was one for all the staff of Agape/Campus Crusade in Eastern Europe and Russia, and there were about 1000 people there in total. It was amazing to meet so many people, all so enthusiastic about their work. It was also really good to meet lots of people my age doing the American equivalent of Impact – STINT, lots of whom were also in Russia.

Finally, we travelled to Moscow (via Stuttgart – a really pleasant airport!) for the Winter Bible Conference. This time, we were the ones in charge, and the conference was for all the Christian students in Russia. It was so exciting to see that there are so many (there were about 200 there) Christians here. There were also 17 students from Korea, who were going on to do STINT in Irkutsk (in Siberia). The theme of the conference was “The Power of One”, and the idea was to equip the students to see how powerful even one of them can be alone, if they use God’s power.

Right, think that is probably enough information for the moment – I will try to update this a bit more regularly from now on!

I hope that you are all well, and enjoying the Spring.

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx