I had finally decided to go to Russian school. My parents had been eager for me to go since before we even moved to Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country where my parents are missionaries. I was intimidated by the idea at first and attended an international school our first year there, but then I felt I had to go or I would always wonder what I had missed.

I enrolled in the fifth grade in School 54, a couple blocks from my home, and anxiously awaited the first day of school. That first day everything was fine, but Tuesday, the second clay, I found out what Russian school was really like. Fifth graders were treated like high school students, switching classrooms and teachers every period. I would often get lost between classes in the swarms of children, desperately trying to find someone from my next class. On good clays would try to copy the meaningless words on the blackboard, but on bad days I would stare at the walls trying not to get bored.

I was used to sensitive, good-tempered American teachers, but in this school they taught by yelling. It usually wasn’t necessarily that the teachers were mad—although some clays you had to wonder. They just used intimidation as a teaching method! The worst part was that some teachers didn’t accept the fact that I was an illiterate American as an excuse. They would light into me when I wasn’t taking notes or answering their questions, and my friends would desperately try to explain to them that I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Finally, my mom decided to demote me to the fourth grade. The Russians were ahead in their curriculum anyway so it wouldn’t set me back that much. At first I felt a little bit like I was wimping out, hut I decided to try it. My mom and I went to look at one of the fourth grade classes.

The teacher was Maya Nikolievna, a large Russian woman with a worn but kind face. She was wearing a faded house dress and had wiry golden hair, barely pulled up in a Gibson knot. She gave me a stiff hug and then introduced me to the class, which was in the midst of art instruction. I curiously looked around the room over the heads of at least 20 kids. The room was filled with all kinds of overgrown plants, their branches over flowing wildly from their pots. The walls were covered with posters entitled “Uzhekistan My Homeland” and “Uzbekistan.” There were shelves and cup hoards at the back of the room. One even had a stuffed bird on top! The wood floor was worn, the furniture was old, and the curtains were faded, but it was cozy.

Maya Nikolievna seated me at the back of the room beside a pretty, smiling girl named Diana. She told Diana to explain my assignments and to walk me home after school. Then she stepped outside to talk with my mom.

At first I was alarmed to he left alone with all these new people, but then I looked out at the sea of beaming faces around me. Everyone was quiet for a moment, then some tried to talk to me in broken English, offering the few phrases they knew. “How are you?” and, “Hello!” The art teacher quickly snapped them back to attention and brought me a piece of paper to paint on. I started to paint as all the kids gathered around to see how “the American” drew. They sweetly complimented me in soft voices, trying to make me feel comfortable. My mom came in and gave me a kiss goodbye, and I knew I was staying there for the rest of the school day and the rest of the year.

When art class was over, Maya Nikolievna came in to teach. All the children straightened in their chairs as she entered the room, expressions of pride and admiration on their faces. It wasn’t that Maya Nikolievna didn’t yell, she could yell with the best of them, hut everyone knew she loved them, in her own gruff way. She was the empress in her classroom and her subjects gladly obeyed her. After all, she had been their teacher since the first grade, as is usual in the Russian system.

While the other children were studying Uzhek language, Maya Nikolievna pulled me out of class to help me with my Russian. I stumbled along through a story about a bear as she sat beside me and corrected me. explaining to me what things meant. I was embarrassed at how poor my Russian was, but she pulled me along. “Soon you will be reading like a machine!” she would say. After that first day I knew that this was where I belonged. It wasn’t that everything was suddenly perfect; I would still come home some days and cry until I could laugh at the ridiculous situations. But God had sent me Maya Nikolievna, and I knew He would help me with every challenge that lay ahead.