Thank you for all your prayers–my voice is back. At least 85% of it. I certainly didn’t want to miss some additional teaching opportunities in the last couple of days simply because… they could not hear me. 
Honestly, I was somewhat nervous about teaching at the Plyoskovo Orthodox High School (30 km outside of Moscow) for one more reason: their chaplain priest, I was told, is very strict and particular about theological nuances. Kids liked me when I presented FaithSearch Discovery Part I to them back in December very much. But will he like it, especially the Part II which does not have much history/archeology but mostly theology?
He did like very much and rushed to me with hugs and thanks after the presentation.“Powerful! Very powerful! Praise God for bringing you here! We need to learn from you how to talk to our students with such clarity and power!” One of the teachers added: “You share it from your heart and they can certainly feel it. Thank you for opening it in your personal stories and illustrations.”
Nothing empowers me more than knowing how powerfully God can use me even in my weakness. After such a response, teaching one more, 3+ hour class on that same evening at my Alma Mater (Moscow State Pedagogical University) was easy and fun. The senior year Philology and Journalism major students only let me go home when the security people started to lock the building. Luckily my next day presentation at the same place started at 1 pm, and I even had time to burn additional CDs (with PowerPoint® presentation) on the next morning.
The Philosophy Professor who gave me her teaching hours said, “These students might or might not ever in their whole lifetime need what I was going to teach them today. But they will definitely be applying your material to their own lives and to their future students–daily.”
A very similar response came today from History Teachers at the city of Kashira Teachers’ Conference. That one, actually, started early and I had to catch some sleep on the two-hour commuter train trip to and from Kashira. The train windows were all covered with frost, the benches were hard and the heating was not the best (outside temps stayed at -17F) but who’s complaining?! Many of the teachers came to this conference by the same train! One of them said, “You cannot imagine the impact of what you have just done by teaching this class and giving us the CDs! Remember, we are all teachers and we cannot help but pass it along to our students! I, for one, will start doing it next week.”
I want again to thank everybody for your prayers that keep me warm, safe and sound (literally)!
