Wednesday, January 17, 2007

18 More Days...

...until I depart for orientation. I can't believe it! I never knew time could move so quickly...and slowly at the same time. I keep thinking that I am not sure that I am ready for this, but then, I know I am because I know this is God's call on my life.

Orientation is designed to help us live overseas. It will prepare me for the job that I will be doing once in Russia. On April 18, I will fly from Atlanta, GA to Moscow, Russia, where I will then travel 4 and 1/2 hours northeast to Ivanovo. At that point, I will begin my language training and start my work doing community development. The goal is for me to know Russian fairly well at the end of the first 8 weeks. Yikes!! This information is particularly encouraging:

According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers,[3] requiring approximately 780 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency.

Good thing that I'll be immersed for longer than 780 hours. =)


I also wanted to introduce everyone to my friend, Alys. Alys and I will be living together in Ivanovo, and I absolutely adore her!! I am so thankful God has placed us together for the next two years!



I hope she doesn't kill me for posting this. However, this is a great picture of her! She was on a criuse with her friends who so graciously provided her a tiara for the evening.

2 comments:

Mandy said...

Sarah's back! And bettah than ever. I can't believe you are already preparing to leave for training!!! It is going to be no time at all before you are in Russia. Yay!!!

SP said...

Let's talk soon! I like the post and putting a face to the name I hear about!