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So It Begins... Again

 Sometimes I find myself needing to write a paragraph or two regarding my month. Please bear with me!

July went as fast as it came! In my head, I wanted July to last as long as possible. There were a lot of projects that were going to come to a head at the beginning of August: onboarding the new apprentices (19 of them!), getting the campuses ready for the new school year, and most notably, SICM. But as August is already here, please pray for me and our team as we run into the new school year with hopeful eyes for the students that have never experienced any student life on their campus. Please also pray for our student leadership training conference on Aug 8-13, that we can remain safe and still have a good time teaching our students how to purposefully minister to the students on their campuses.

You may or may not have known, but I actually got married in July! It was a small ceremony and celebration with only a handful of participants. Afterwards, I was able to video chat with my siblings and cousins and had a good time with some of the filters. :-)

On our honeymoon, me and Steph went to Maui for a week! What a surreal experience. I'm not much of a traveler, so I never imagined that I would be able to go (or should I say I never imagined that I would ever plan to go). The weather was beautiful every day, a cool 75 with a nice breeze and the views were killer!

At Brandon's suggestion, we took a helicopter tour. I mean, such a crazy experience!! Being in a helicopter is so different from flying on a plane and the places that they fly you over are so untouched and uninhabited, it's mind boggling. We flew over the island of Molokai, which used to be a leper colony (I learned a lot about the history of Hawaii on this trip, it's a wild ride.)

This is (part of) the banyan tree in Lahaina. It was planted in 1873 to mark the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant mission in Maui. One of the freakiest looking trees I've seen. 

Though through their online reservation system, they were booked for several months, we were able to get into Mama's Fish House. (They wrote us a note saying 'happy anniversary' even though I definitely told them it was our honeymoon. 😂) I can tell why this is always on a list of the top-rated restaurants in Maui. Everything they brought to the table was ah-mazing. Even the butter for the bread tasted so good!

I took a vertical panorama of this rainbow eucalyptus tree. How can you not marvel at the bark that looks like it has been painted? 😍

Snap back to reality. Now that I'm married, I moved out of the house and got an apartment with Steph... though we literally only have a bed. So I had to make a makeshift desk to work off of using this air-chair and a tv tray.


Here are all 19 of the new apprentices that will be joining the team for this upcoming school year!  They're all so eager to start the school year and make an impact on the student body and I'm so excited to see what they can do!

Right after the licensing & commitment ceremony, we were all whisked away to staff retreat out in Bridgeport. What a sweet time to get to know everyone on staff a little better. This past year, our fall staff retreat was canceled due to COVID and we haven't had very many all-staff events, so it was different getting to see everyone in person for a few days.

Finally, we have SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) coming up on Aug 8-13. This is where we take (prospective) student leaders in our ministry and teach them for a week on how to be purposeful and effective leaders. After attending SICM, many of the students go on to become corefas (small group leaders). Here is a team of ministers helping prep everything for a smooth week of training! I feel like a broken record, but please pray that this conference goes well!



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