Winding Down & Starting Up

Since 1986, my life has followed a pretty distinct schedule: August through May, school; June & July, time to play! From Kindergarten, to college, to my teaching career, I have quite enjoyed this routine. Well, it seems that ministry follows this pattern, too, except, come to find, youth ministry is the busiest in the summer because of all the free time the youth have to simply hang out and have fun (oh, the days of old!).

So as we near the end of summer (ignore the fact that it's over 100 degrees and summer is technically not even close to leaving!), things are winding down. The insanely busy youth schedule is slowing to make time for them to go back to school. Ryan and I have also been co-teaching the high school youth Sunday school class, which has been a theology course based on Knowing God by J.I.Packer. It's been an awesome study, and we'll be finished with it this month. We are also done traveling until the holidays, having just come back from a great trip to Atlanta to see family and friends.

While on one hand things seem to be slowing, other things are kicking back into full gear. Ryan is preparing for the upcoming school year by plotting out his teaching series and making the youth's fall schedule. I am busy preparing to coordinate Redeemer's after school tutoring program for neighborhood kids beginning in September. I'm also excited to announce that I will be teaching preschool two mornings a week at Covenant Presbyterian Preschool! This position is a great way for me to meet some new folks, teach a little, and make some extra money. Evan will be with Ryan one of the days, and one of my new friends here agreed to keep Evan for me on the other day. Teaching preschoolers is definitely going to be different than third graders, but I welcome the challenge!

Here's some photos from our trip back home!

The boys and their black trucks:


Ryan and our niece Lydia:


Evan and Lydia hanging out: