Graduate School

Once I catch you all up on life here, I won't be posting every day.  :)  I will try to post at least every other week though.  I'll also work on sharing some entertaining stories from life in Muncie.  I do start SERVE on Monday, so I probably won't be updating next week.

Earlier this week I wrote that I will be starting graduate school.  I will actually be starting classes on the 21st of June for a Master's in Special Ed.  I am really excited about this.  I have wanted to gain more experience in this area ever since my student teaching, but it has never seemed like the right time.  Some of you may remember that three summer ago I helped with a camp for children with Cerebral Palsy.  Since then, my heart has continued to break for these children that are often shunned by society.  Before I left Kazakhstan, some of the mothers shared their desires for their children to receive quality education.  My mind continues to go back to that request.  During the spring I did some research about graduate degrees at Ball State and found one that will fit my desire to work with children like these in the future.  I have no idea what God has for my future, but I sense that the next step is getting a degree that would equip me to work with these children in the future.

I am both looking forward to and a bit anxious about my first class.  I'm not sure I am really ready to start studying again, but I guess I will have to.  Hopefully, I can remember how to read a textbook.  The entire degree is online, which allows for a lot of flexibility in my schedule.  I will take one course this summer and then determine the work load I will be able to maintain in the fall.  I can't wait to see where this all leads.

Memories

Today I had the joy of spending some time with four of the youth that I worked with back before going to Kazakhstan.  Several of them just graduated from high school and are moving on to University.  It was so fun to have the group back together and catch up on life and share memories of the past.  I look forward to seeing the choices that they will all make with their futures.

Starting Sunday I will be making some new memories with a new group of youth.  Last year I helped with something called SERVE for the first time.  Over 200 children and youth participate on teams that go out and serve the community.  I had such a good time last year and am looking forward to the memories that will be made this year.  My co-leader is the same one that I had last year and we will be working at the same location.  We begin Monday morning and don't finish until Friday night (including spending the nights).

We will be doing yard work, cleaning up a neighborhood park, swimming with children from a community center, and many other things.  I look forward to getting to know everyone in our group better.  I know we will spend a lot of our time laughing as we work hard to serve our community.

Today also marked the packing party for the first delegation that I have officially helped prepare to go to Kazakhstan.  They leave on Saturday and will be gone two weeks.  Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything important.  :)  Although my heart breaks not to be returning this summer, I look forward to the memories that will be made here.

Long Overdue Update

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I figure I will write several short updates, since I don’t like reading long updates that people write and am guessing you might be the same.  Overall life is going great!

I am loving the moment.  I am going to be living in the same house in the fall.  I will need to stay somewhere else during July and August, as he will be back from Spain for a couple months before returning for the next year.  I am still working out the details of this.

Here are some random things that have been going on ... I will work on giving some more details for them in future posts for those that want more detail.

• helping at a week-long service project for youth in Muncie next week
• sending off two delegations in the next week for Kazakhstan
• completed a handbook to prepare delegates for travel to Kaz
• completed paperwork for 25 visas and received them with minimal problems
• playing on a summer softball league
• finished an 8 week leadership course that really challenged me in so many ways
• applied and was accepted to begin grad school at Ball State - my first class starts June 21st
• continue to be involved in a great small group at my church
• 5th graders that I worked with before moving to Kaz graduated from high school this year, so I have been going to a bunch of open houses

My church had a "small group olympics" recently.  Our small group triumphed in a close put-off tie breaker.  Here is a picture of four of us competing in a corn hole relay.