Hi all! How is everyone out there doing? I hope you had a beautiful Easter and beginning to your spring. We spent Easter Sunday with a few of our friends from our class, enjoying a scrumptious potluck (seriously, T and I agreed that the food our friends brought was easily as good as any Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner we've ever had) and a lively egg hunt in the playground behind the church. I tried very hard to stay "in the moment" that day, realizing that celebrating Easter with these particular friends was truly a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. It is SO bittersweet thinking that our time here is almost over!
I was happy to hear that you enjoyed reading a bit about our lives here this year. I feel like I've kept things kind of under wraps, which hasn't been my intention at all. It's just that we've been SO busy and I have felt like I've been trying to drink out of a fire hose most of the time. All of it has been good, spectacularly so, but I think I've been doing so much learning and growing and changing and definitely also struggling, that I haven't been in a place mentally or otherwise to put much of it into words here. I hope to write more about some of the things I've been learning here, but that will probably take awhile to put together. For now, here are more highlights from our lives here:
Gym Day. Every Thursday morning, the church opens up one of the gym areas for the wives and kids to hang out/play/run off some steam together for an hour. This is definitely one of the highlights of the week for the kids and I! All the kids have a blast running around together and the moms sit together and talk and talk and talk. The best part of Gym Day though, is when the Dads come and join us at the end. We all miss them so much during the week, getting to see them in the middle of the day, even for just 15 minutes, is precious time indeed. The kids start looking out for them as the time for their arrival approaches, and absolutely lose their ever-lovin' minds when the first Dad is spotted. They go running and yelling for them, jump in their arms and just about hug them to death. It's fun to see all the Dads running around with the kids, throwing balls and getting down on the floor for a quick wrestling match.
When it's time for the Dads to go back down to class, all the kids
line up for a race around the gym. It's not uncommon for the younger
kids to do their lap bobbing around in their Dad's arms or on their
back. I've watched the Ronanator's head almost snap off a couple of
times as T tucked him under his arm and took off at the blow of the
whistle. The Shookie is actually quite fast, but hasn't discovered his
competitive streak yet and tends to run his lap smiling and enjoying
running with his friends rather than trying to win the race. Such a sweet boy he is!
Another large part of our time here are the many meetings we go to
every month (at least one a week, sometimes two.) Like I told you in
my last entry,
the ladies meet by themselves the first Saturday of the month with one
of the dearest women I've ever known. Once a month the guys and the
girls also have what I've nicknamed "Meeting w/ the M's", where we have
2+ hours to ask the president/leader of our family of churches and his
wife ANYTHING we want to. From how he chooses sermon topics to
traditions they have honored as a family throughout the years to their
opinions on books/authors to personal disciplines that have most helped
them as a husband/wife/father/mother/pastor/friend -- it is all fair
game. The emphasis is on the practical, and I'm telling you, by the
time these evenings are over, my hand is almost cramping up from
writing down all the "pearls of wisdom" we've been given.
The class has also been split up into 3 care groups, and each of these care groups groups is split into even smaller fellowship groups. The care groups (ours has 8 couples I think) meet once a month with dear B. and her husband, where we dig even deeper into our marriages. Not only have these meetings helped T and I to start looking at and talking about areas of our marriage that we need to work on, but I've seen my friend's marriages being changed in huge ways as well.
I also meet twice a month with 3 ladies from our care group/fellowship group. And yes, you guessed it, the three of us dig in even deeper. It is an opportunity to share more specifically the struggles, triumphs, joys and difficulties of our day-to-day lives, and to pray for each other. I have benefited immensely from the relationships that have formed from this group, and with at least one of the ladies (my friend from Germany that I mentioned before), I think I have found a life-long friend. Such a blessing!
Last night, at another "Meeting w/ the M's", I was looking around the room and my heart was filled with such affection and thankfulness for our new "family". Just 8 months ago I didn't know who most of these dear people were, and now I can't imagine my life without them!
There is a verse in the book of Luke that says, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap." This picture of God's blessings being poured out in such a way that they cannot be contained describes our time here to a T. Certainly, there have been difficult times -- being away from family, moving to a new town, not having our own space -- but not for one second would I ever trade this experience. Not for all the treasures in the world.
As you've read this, if you have any questions about what I've said here, please ask! I'm sure some of it sounds a bit odd, and knowing me, I've probably been a bit unclear at points. Still, I hope you've enjoyed this little peek into our crazy lives!
