getting ready

When we think about moving a lot of emotions pop up, like excitement, nervousness, sadness...
this has been a week of sadness.

We resigned from our youth ministry position at church on Sunday and have been meeting with our kids to tell them that we're moving. If you know us, you know that we don't always have glowing reports of our church, but for all its quirks, our church is still hard to leave. We're working to set something up so that the church will have a youth director in place very soon and hope that works out. I've been at church for three years and was hoping that i would see one more class graduate.

I'm learning to trust and pray that God will continue to grow these young people to know and love Him, even though I won't be a part of that.

some of our youth group in Pittsburgh last summer

In other news, Andrew has heard back from one church in the Wheaton area. He made it through their first round of elimination. They had a second meeting last night, so we are waiting to hear back in the next few days. It would be great for him to get an interview!

a new home

We have our new apartment!
now to begin the major downsizing of all our belongings...

The apartment we'll be in for the first six months (atleast) of our time in the Wheaton area is the basement of a family's home  in Lombard. Like I mentioned before, it's a large-ish one room basement. The rent per month is right in our price range and we're thankful to not have to dip into our savings quite as much just to get our feet underneath us. It will definitely be a different lifestyle-- I'll be walking or biking to the train station to get to campus and Andrew will be looking for some temporary employment while we wait on a few youth ministry jobs.

Today begins the last month of our time in Grand Rapids. It will be full of weddings, game nights, VBS, packing...

downsizing

after our apartment hunting trip to the wheaton area, i'm beginning to understand the reality of our move. we spent the morning on campus taking care of health forms, etc and both walked away thinking "was undergrad this big of a deal to set up?" either our parents took care of nearly everything, or our alma mater was significantly more simple in their operations. it's probably a little bit of both.

prior to heading down to chicago-land, we had scoped out apartment complexes online. the first thing we did was drive around those places and found the pictures online to be pretty deceptive. after asking at the housing offices on campus, we found a few private rentals and called one property owner to try to visit. we went and saw a basement apartment of a family that is a few miles away from campus and only a few blocks away from the train station. it is definitely the most affordable we've found and includes a lot of amenities (like a private washer and dryer!!!!). the  downside is that it's a one-room basement apartment, so there isn't a "bedroom" per se. we know that we can make it work, but i am still a little nervous about not having any division between the rooms...it will make our mess more difficult to hide :)

anticipating the move, we already downsized to one vehicle and i've started mentally purging our furniture. it will be good for us to live more simply.

walking around campus and not seeing anybody i knew also brought home the fact that this is a new start. a really new start. i am not convinced i like that idea, yet.

to get our blog started, here are some highlights of the last year

 

our wedding was june 22, 2009. 

(credit to walcott imaging for the picture)

then we took our high school students from Newhall Community Church 

to The Pittsburgh Project for a week in July

 

it's been a huge blessing to be surrounded by great friends 

from Kuyper for our first year of marriage! these are some of my girlfriends and roommates

 

andrew has enjoyed getting an ultimate frisbee club started at Kuyper 

and continues to play through the summer

 

we had a fun time celebrating our graduation with our families and our classmates

in june, we spent a week in jacksonville/st.augustine florida 

celebrating my mom's doctorate graduation. 

we're really proud of her and had a good time 

at a beach house with the siblings and grand parents.

the past year has been such a growing year for us. we're looking forward to seeing what the next year (and years after that) bring! we're preparing to move to chicago-land where i'll start graduate school in Wheaton College's MA in Christian Formation & Ministry with a concentration in Student Development. andrew is in the process of applying for youth ministry jobs in the area. our apartment hunting trip is coming up, so we will have a better picture of our life there in a few weeks!