Letter to friends
The kids are all back at school; Sam at the science and technology magnet school in 10th grade (he’ll be doing10th and 11th grade this year) Sophia is a freshman at the International Baccalaureate high school just a few blocks away, and Tessa (7th grade)and Riah (5th grade) are at Pittsburgh Urban Christian School (PUCS). They are getting back into the groove, but I still mourn the loss of time together and the flexibility and spontaneity of homeschooling. However, for their sake I am glad that they are learning to navigate the world and all its challenges while they still live at home with us AND want to talk about everything and pray about it together. Mike only has 2 more trimesters left in seminary, so he’ll finish up classes in March, but his ordination will end up taking awhile longer. I think he may be able to get job before he finishes the ordination process, but we really are waiting on God for where and who we’ll be serving. In the meantime, I continue to run my little cleaning and organizing business. I find that it still offers me good wages and great flexibilty for this season, though I am beginning to look beyond to what will come next. I am praying about going back to school, working in the non-profit/consulting world, and serving the church in some capacity, but what exactly I am not sure. In the meantime I am using my 28-32 hours a week working to listen to books, lots and lots and LOTS of books. Right now I am an a WW2 and history of Nazi Germany binge. I have listened to: The Seamstress, The Hiding Place, Bonhoeffer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Coming Of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy and Heresy. It makes for fascinating listening and it is is astoundingly timely. I want to listen to a Brief History of the Middle East again soon since I feel like I do not understand what’s at work and how to pray for Syrian and Egypt these days. It’s amazing to have the gift of uninterrupted hours to just listen and absorb (when the kids were babies and I couldn’t do anything without being interrupted, I prayed and asked for time like this, oh God’s ironic sense of humor). When I get a chance, I am still writing for Catapult web magazine and just recently my story, I am the Little Red Hen(www.catapultmagazine.com, vol.12 num.16 Let’s Get Together 11), was the feature piece, yeah! We have also been working to get some of the unfinished projects done around our house, so now our powder room is done (almost, the doors to the cabinet are going on tomorrow!) Okay okay I know this is getting long, but it’s the first letter in awhile so there’s a lot to catch up on 🙂 So I am thinking of you, praying for you and look forward to hearing from you, you can leave a comment if you want or you can email me. Always your friend even when you don’t hear a peep from me,