Never having worked in education, this the first time that Nate and I have had the summer "off" from our regular jobs. It's a strange feeling to have our whole little family of three in the house each day. But despite not reporting for our regular job assignment, we are keeping plenty busy!
- Nate is running a summer soccer camp. It is small this year, but has been an excellent way to spend hours pouring into a limited number of kids, most of whom attend the Alliance Academy during the school year. He runs sessions, plans the next ones and has spent time connecting with various local churches and individuals to identify more kids. I think he plans to write more details about this soon since Canaan and I accompanied him to practice yesterday and took a few pictures.
- One of our main "jobs" this summer is putting our house together. We moved in during a very hectic part of the school year - and the beginning of my pregnancy - and nothing much happened with our home until June. Going from zero belongings to setting up a functional house takes a LONG time, something we haven't done since our first day married. And it takes even longer when there is no such thing as Target or Home Depot to run to, where we can pick up every day basics.
We've spent hours of legwork looking for a microwave bigger than a toaster for less than $150 (still working on that one so we are learning to use the stove well!), made an unthinkable number of trips to different paint stores in an effort to find paint where one gallon of color matches the second one you buy (no calibrated, computerized dye machine!), and hours taking taxis to fabric stores that each have a very small selection in order to find fabric for our couches and pillows. We've had some furniture made, as that seems to be the cheaper option here, but business is done in person instead of by phone. So you travel to the furniture maker to tell him what you want and he gives you a delivery date. That day comes and goes and of course no one answers phone calls so you make trips back and forth checking on your furniture. In fact, today we are waiting for delivery of our office furniture. This is the fourth delivery date we've been given but no signs of delivery yet! Our house is now functional enough to host dinner and visitors but is a LONG way from done still!
- And finally, we are spending time prepping for the next school year. Nate and I are reading potential bible study/devotional books in order to have a selection of materials available for interested students or adult leaders of small groups. Nate is beginning to flesh out ideas for specific weeks of chapel based on the themes we picked and we've now secured our main speakers for the Spiritual Emphasis weeks the next two semesters.
On this note, I am so excited to say that our head pastor of our church in Chicago, Pastor Mark Jobe, will be our Spiritual Emphasis Week main speaker in our Spring semester!! We are thrilled to have him come down and see a little of what our new life is like. But more than that we think he's going to be excellent with the kids. He drew us to New Life from the first time we heard him 9 years ago. With his background as a missionary kid in Spain and Chile and his ability to speak Spanish fluently and translate himself we think he'll connect. And he's a pro at youth conferences, having led the largest annual Christian youth conference in Spain for years!
