Birthday & Misc. Activities

The Student Missions (SM) office has been busy busy these days!  We had a booth at the Serve Expo, where all the different ministries around campus could share what they are and how to be a part of it.  We had a booth at the club fair, kicking off this year's Student Missions Club, which has already had its first vespers and has its second coming up in a couple of weeks.  We had a missions Chapel, highlighting several of our recently returned SMs.  We had our re-entry retreat for those who just returned, I just finished training a couple of SMs who plan to go out in January, and we just sent off our first box of care packages!  We've also been working on some fundraising, including sending letters our to about 600 SM alumni, and a fundraiser with Apple Valley where they'll donate 5% of their profits for a day from the purchases of staff, faculty and students! 

 Fall has come and is sadly on its way out I think, and bringing winter in.  Jon actually saw the first snowflakes of the season! :o  Before that happened though, we managed to get lots of lazy afternoons in the yard in, with lots of rolling in the leaves and chasing balls for Gromit.  Our wildlife spotting was pretty exciting, lots of deer, a couple of turtles, the turkey flock, lots of squirrels and chipmunks, woodchuck families, a bunny here and there, and maybe a raccoon or two,?, oh, and a pack of coyotes howling one night.   



 We've also had lots of soup & games night, and our group has grown to about 13 members (including us), plus 3 children, who have an open invitation to come whenever we have soup night.  It hasn't happened yet, but what am I going to do if they all decide to show up at the same time week?!  I think I may need more chairs and bowls lol. 

 

 

 For my birthday, I got lots of lovely new clothes leading up to and on my birthday from mom and Julie, new music and books from various people, a new game from Julie, one from Jon, and since my boss got me some birthday cash and the game store was having a sale that day, I got one for myself as well :)  Lots of delicious food was eaten as well, including Baguette de France, decked out pitas, and homemade vegan mud pie.  Yum yum. 


Jon's doing well also, acing his midterms, and starting to wind the semester down.   He's been working with a pastor from Pioneer Memorial Church (PMC) to do his TFE (Theological Field Education), a mentorship program the seminary students need to do before graduating.  Technically he doesn't have to do it since students with previous pastoral experience are exempt, but he figured some mentoring in the area of small groups would be a good idea, so he's working with her in her small group this term (as well as being the mentor for some other small group leaders), and next term he'll lead his own small group, probably doing a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University (FPU) class like we did back in Oak Harbor!  Sure helped us out a lot financially, and there are plenty of seminarians here who could use it.  Only 3 more weeks till Thanksgiving break, when his parents and sister will come and we'll celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with them.  After Thanksgiving he only has a week of classes and then a week of finals and then it's Christmas break which we'll celebrate with my family!