I spent three days in Frankfort, IN at a FLAME class. I had the privilege of taking Intro to Homiletics with Dr. Jim Dunn - my former boss turned professor. These are the flowers Mark had waiting for me upon my return. Awww...he missed me :).
On our way back from a family reunion in Northern Wisconsin, we made a quick side trip to hit up the highest point in WI: Timm's Hill. It's only 1,951.5 ft. high. We've hit up Mt. Whitney [CA], Mt. Hood [OR], and now Timm's Hill [WI]. 47 left to go!
Mark's parents rented a house on Lake Tomahawk for a week during the family reunion time. This is a sweet sunset overlooking the lake.
We were super blessed, and surprised, when Paul Kind and his dad Kerry, stopped by for a surprise visit on their way to Chicago. Just so happens that we were headed to Chicago as well! We were also blessed to have Amber Abel visiting the same week! It was so fun to have a little bit of the IWU crew back together, if even for a night!
Paul and Kerry in Chicago with the skyline in the background.
Navy Pier.
We ended our day in Chicago with some good ol' chicago style pizza.
But that's not all...
One of the main things that has kept Mark and I super busy these past few weeks, besides a bunch of extra meetings, is our separation into two jobs! In the past few months we have had both of our student ministries pastors resign. We hired Nate Kingsbury to work with our Middle School Students, and Mark has agreed to step in as an interim in the high school area. He will be working with the high school youth until at least January, and possibly until the end of the school year. That has left me to do Young Adult Ministries, which has been super fun, but has kept me pretty busy! We are really excited to both have our own areas of ministry to focus on and invest in, and are really looking forward to seeing what God will do in us and through us as we are both challenged to take a step of faith and step it up in our responsibilities here at the church. Aaron [our former high school pastor] just finished up his final week last thursday [and is probably on his way to Oregon as we speak], so Mark officially takes over full responsibility this week for the ministry. We will now go from sharing a job, an office, and having a lot of free time, to not sharing a job, an office, and having a lot of free time. We believe this will be a good thing, but will challenge us to be more intentional with our time and energies.
Thanks for checking back, even though I've failed in my faithfulness to update lately!
