How's she goin' dere b'y?
Very pleased to announce there IS some news! Hooray
Gonna make you work for it though:
Work - is work. And some days it's more work than others. Today things were pretty light but that has more to do with Wednesdays in general than anything else. Alyssa's school is slowly dropping classes from her timetable one by one and sometimes giving her cover lessons to fill the gaps. There's a weird kind of staggered finish thing going on here; not all students go until the "last day of school" - the yr10s and 11s are writing their big standardized tests and finding out if they've passed their classes now. So the final half term in June-July (i.e. when we'll be gone) will be spent revving up for next year and complaining about not getting part marks. Younger kids have lots to do until mid July. I have no idea what the A-level kids are doing in yr 12 and 13; killing themselves over the stress of tying all their academic achievement up into 3 or 4 big tests, probably. I don't mean to sound too much the cynic, but if I don't rant about what I miss in the Canadian education system to someone else every now and again, I might really aggravate my poor, patient, long-suffering wife.
It seems like every week I'm feeling more involved in church than less. Odd, but I don't mind. I am clinging doggedly to my decision back in the fall that I wouldn't hold back from doing life with the people God would bring us to just because it wasn't forever. If you let that be a reason to not pour yourself into relationships, you won't do it. And though it is really, really, really going to hurt saying goodbye to our new family here, I'm happy we came and did it anyway. There will be plenty of time for catching up later.
Of course, we've been doing a study in homegroup on heaven and misconceptions thereof, which has been really enlightening. Last week was a discussion of why the classic "left behind" model of the rapture might not be the best biblical interpretation of how the last days will go. Blew our minds. It's good to challenge your preconceptions. Like any growth, though, it can sometimes be a bit painful.
Travel - Last weekend we went on a really lovely sea side day trip with Helen and Anthony down to Bournemouth on the south coast and a country drive back through the New Forest. Photos and more detailed story-telling pending another good opportunity to write and upload, hopefully soon. We were lent a couple passes that will get us up into St Paul's Cathedral free (each parish gets a couple, apparently. They say we're "welcome guests". Cool!) that we plan to use Saturday, hit the london eye around mid-day, and then maybe hit the imperial war museum, maybe just go home. Depends on our legs.
Our big exciting weekend plan still is the following Saturday - we're going to try to do the monopoly day and it looks like we'll very likely have at least a couple friends available to come with. We have to have a chat tonight with some of them and send an email round, though. Anna had a great idea that we do a kind of theme thing where we carry around facsimiles of the monopoly pieces; someone with an iron, someone with a top hat, someone with a...scottish terrier?
The big news, however, is what's coming, and not just us to Canada.
I got a job. For the summer, mind you. I got offered a spot doing the interpretive natural heritage education thing at the provincial park I did two summers ago. Not only is it a lot of fun, but the pay isn't depressing and it is actually a really nice opportunity to use my qualifications and education in an unconventional environment. I am very seriously keeping an open mind to non-classroom teaching-ish work. Could be a future here.
That notwithstanding, I start almost as soon as we get back. Which means our detour through Brampton en route to North Bay will be less of a pit stop and more of a bounce. The scheduling of errands and seeing people has commenced quite furiously.
SO, if you're in Southern Ontario and you want to see us before we go 4 hours out of reach, the suggestion: come to my parents' house, dinnertime, Tuesday the 12th. We'll do a BBQ, and hang out together. If you can't make Tuesday, you're welcome to crash the quieter, less-extravagantly-catered Monday night homecoming. And we MIGHT be staying in town on Wednesday, but that's pending some schedule-shifting. That, I'm afraid, is all the South gets. Just like the civil war.
We'll be heading to North Bay for the summer. We'll work, we'll go to whatever bible study might be running that fits our time off, and we'll be in a good spot for camping trips, visits, and hurling applications at schools in every corner of the country.
And then we don't know. God's been working on me and my faithless tendency to keep worrying that we don't have teaching jobs. He's set a road before us and all we need do is walk it, and I'm learning that I can trust Him not only because He's never let me down, but because He really does know better than I do.
If you need any details (timing, arranging a visit/excursion, my parents' address, etc), then email or message me.
I think that about wraps it up. Phew. Tired fingers.
Dreading leaving but can't wait to come home. Peace.
Very pleased to announce there IS some news! Hooray
Gonna make you work for it though:
Work - is work. And some days it's more work than others. Today things were pretty light but that has more to do with Wednesdays in general than anything else. Alyssa's school is slowly dropping classes from her timetable one by one and sometimes giving her cover lessons to fill the gaps. There's a weird kind of staggered finish thing going on here; not all students go until the "last day of school" - the yr10s and 11s are writing their big standardized tests and finding out if they've passed their classes now. So the final half term in June-July (i.e. when we'll be gone) will be spent revving up for next year and complaining about not getting part marks. Younger kids have lots to do until mid July. I have no idea what the A-level kids are doing in yr 12 and 13; killing themselves over the stress of tying all their academic achievement up into 3 or 4 big tests, probably. I don't mean to sound too much the cynic, but if I don't rant about what I miss in the Canadian education system to someone else every now and again, I might really aggravate my poor, patient, long-suffering wife.
It seems like every week I'm feeling more involved in church than less. Odd, but I don't mind. I am clinging doggedly to my decision back in the fall that I wouldn't hold back from doing life with the people God would bring us to just because it wasn't forever. If you let that be a reason to not pour yourself into relationships, you won't do it. And though it is really, really, really going to hurt saying goodbye to our new family here, I'm happy we came and did it anyway. There will be plenty of time for catching up later.
Of course, we've been doing a study in homegroup on heaven and misconceptions thereof, which has been really enlightening. Last week was a discussion of why the classic "left behind" model of the rapture might not be the best biblical interpretation of how the last days will go. Blew our minds. It's good to challenge your preconceptions. Like any growth, though, it can sometimes be a bit painful.
Travel - Last weekend we went on a really lovely sea side day trip with Helen and Anthony down to Bournemouth on the south coast and a country drive back through the New Forest. Photos and more detailed story-telling pending another good opportunity to write and upload, hopefully soon. We were lent a couple passes that will get us up into St Paul's Cathedral free (each parish gets a couple, apparently. They say we're "welcome guests". Cool!) that we plan to use Saturday, hit the london eye around mid-day, and then maybe hit the imperial war museum, maybe just go home. Depends on our legs.
Our big exciting weekend plan still is the following Saturday - we're going to try to do the monopoly day and it looks like we'll very likely have at least a couple friends available to come with. We have to have a chat tonight with some of them and send an email round, though. Anna had a great idea that we do a kind of theme thing where we carry around facsimiles of the monopoly pieces; someone with an iron, someone with a top hat, someone with a...scottish terrier?
The big news, however, is what's coming, and not just us to Canada.
I got a job. For the summer, mind you. I got offered a spot doing the interpretive natural heritage education thing at the provincial park I did two summers ago. Not only is it a lot of fun, but the pay isn't depressing and it is actually a really nice opportunity to use my qualifications and education in an unconventional environment. I am very seriously keeping an open mind to non-classroom teaching-ish work. Could be a future here.
That notwithstanding, I start almost as soon as we get back. Which means our detour through Brampton en route to North Bay will be less of a pit stop and more of a bounce. The scheduling of errands and seeing people has commenced quite furiously.
SO, if you're in Southern Ontario and you want to see us before we go 4 hours out of reach, the suggestion: come to my parents' house, dinnertime, Tuesday the 12th. We'll do a BBQ, and hang out together. If you can't make Tuesday, you're welcome to crash the quieter, less-extravagantly-catered Monday night homecoming. And we MIGHT be staying in town on Wednesday, but that's pending some schedule-shifting. That, I'm afraid, is all the South gets. Just like the civil war.
We'll be heading to North Bay for the summer. We'll work, we'll go to whatever bible study might be running that fits our time off, and we'll be in a good spot for camping trips, visits, and hurling applications at schools in every corner of the country.
And then we don't know. God's been working on me and my faithless tendency to keep worrying that we don't have teaching jobs. He's set a road before us and all we need do is walk it, and I'm learning that I can trust Him not only because He's never let me down, but because He really does know better than I do.
If you need any details (timing, arranging a visit/excursion, my parents' address, etc), then email or message me.
I think that about wraps it up. Phew. Tired fingers.
Dreading leaving but can't wait to come home. Peace.
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