Thursday, September 29, 2011

Back to Normal???

~~what is normal anyway but a setting on your dryer?~~

Good Morning World!! What looked like *FROST* on the landscape this morning has quickly dissipated in favor of a sweet sunshiny sort of day. I treasure any sunny day that comes after Autumn Equinox. 

I've been so intent on logging every detail of our road trip that the things going on concurrent to my writing have faded into the background. Things like...

We started a new ALPHA course on Monday nights and have 9 people registered! Much smaller than last winter but we are actually kind of glad to have the size we do. We can take more time in our discussions and get to know everyone a little better.

Mom! Took her to the orthopedic surgeon on Tuesday and she DOES NOT HAVE TO COME BACK TO SEE HIM!  She was pretty excited about that! She doesn't need to wear the boot-- which had actually been reduced to an air cast in recent weeks-- and she won't need to wear that either! Paperwork is being shuffled and we have an anticipated going home date of this weekend!!!  I think she is excited and yet a little nervous about being back in her own little apartment. After all she has had round the clock care for over 3 months-- almost 4 months! To be released and responsible for everything can feel a little intimidating to say the least. But we are doing everything we can to help ease her back into a *normal* routine.

One of those things is mealtrain.com This is a GREAT online resource for setting up meals for someone recovering from illness or surgery or a new mommy. I love the way you can see the calendar spread out for weeks at a time and who is bringing what when. Sure makes is easier to schedule and arrange. (I remember setting up something like this for my sister when she had baby #4 and it was a lot of work coordinating 4 weeks worth of meals-- on the phone for hours filling in the dates--wheew! This is super fast and super organized!! We like that!!!)

Mom doesn't know about the meal train service yet. Thought it would be a great surprise to present her with after we get her home. I have it set up for meals 3 x a week since it's just her and I am thinking a casserole or pot of soup will feed her for more than one meal. She can reheat or freeze left overs. 



The third thing this week was the start of a new school year... that's Dream Realization School. Yes, I graduated last spring. But I'm coming back this year as a table leader! Each class is divided into table groups of 5-7 with one person as the table leader, (or facilitator-- a much friendlier word) and that person prays for the people at her table, helps keep them on task during discussion time and reminds them of their homework and is sort of a liaison between student and teacher. I am excited about my role and have 5 beautiful young women under my care. They range in age from 17 to 32, some single, some married with kids. All with beautiful hearts for mission. We had a good chunk of time that first night to get to know each other a little bit and I can tell that our times together will be lively and challenging! There are some real thinkers and feelers in this group. 

I am also the BUS DRIVER! True, I no longer have my CDL as I never expected to find myself behind the wheel of a school bus again, but a 15 passenger van is totally within my control. It started with me encouraging Wendi to attend DRS. I met Wendi last year when we went to Macedonia together on the church mission trip. I see great potential in Wendi and know God wants to see her built up in the Word and Knowledge of Him. When she said she would love to attend DRS but had no way to get there, I said impulsively (but sincerely) "I'll drive you!!!" Well that quickly morphed into a car pool as several others from the Kendall Campus wanted to attend DRS too. AWEsome!! Pretty soon my car was too full. That's when Kate, our DRS director (my former boss) suggested I could use the church van and bring everyone to class. And if I was bringing everyone to class would I stay and be a table leader? 

We have 8 people from the Kendall Campus attending! In a class of, I think, 24, that is a huge percentage! Very exciting! For the first class-- Tuesday-- we didn't have the van thing worked out and Bruce ended up driving his van and me, the car, to get everyone down to Lynden. You have to understand that there is a bit of a distance between the Kendall- Peaceful Valley area where these folks live, and Lynden, where the church main campus/office and school, is being held. For a lot of these folks, gas for extra trips like this is a luxery and if you have to chose between staying home or using gas you need for getting to work, you'll stay home.

Wow, if that wasn't enough for this week, Bruce and I also launched a new small group! We met for the first time last night. Yah, I know. On Our Anniversary. Not good planning but we reasoned we'd truly celebrated all last week with the trip, if we delayed another week it would be October, and we wanted our small group study focus to correlate with the sermon series, which started 2 weeks ago. So we had 2 of the 3 couples we'd invited present. (the one couple missing had a family emergency at the last minute) We're going to do Crazy Love by Frances Chan, using the book and the DVD series to move us through the study. Excited about that and about this new small group. 

The motivation behind our starting this is simple. Bruce and I would have never developed into small group leaders or leaders of any sort, if someone else had not come along side of us and encouraged us and mentored us. We feel in this season of our life, it's time for us to do the same for someone else. So we prayed about it and asked God to speak to us about other couples in our church who had (untapped) leadership potential. 

And in the midst of the small group kick off, we did celebrate our anniversary. We shared a little bit of our love story with the group last night as our way of 'getting to know one another'. And looking at each other from across the room, knowing we were doing what God has called us to do as a couple, relying on each others strength in our areas of weakness, and seeing our oneness played out in a tangible way, well, I can't think of a better way to celebrate 15 years of marriage. 

So we have half the week behind us and still plenty to do before the week ends. 

Bruce is still moving forward with the mission trip to Japan. Looks like late October travel dates and we need to expedite his passport renewal process. Between that and a little annoying detail known as 'earning a living' there is homework and housework and winterizing the travel trailer. Oh and moving Mom home. Never a dull moment but I think that too ranks as *NORMAL*

1 comment:

  1. I've always loved that quote about normal only being a setting on a dryer. For so much of my life, I've wanted to be "normal" until I realized I really don't know what that is!

    I'm glad you dropped by my blog and that I've "met" you. I see that we have a lot in common! I'll be back ...

    ReplyDelete

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