August 2007 Update

Its been awhile since I’ve posted an update. I hope to do this at least once a month. I was waiting to find out more about Dawn’s job situation. When we first got here she got hired at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They had promised her a certain position that would be opening up shortly. In the meantime she was working register and stocking, etc. This was becoming problematic since they were having her work until midnight some days and started scheduling her for Sundays even though she was very adamant about getting Sundays off. She interviewed for a costume design job at a local community college because she was thinking it might be more fulfilling. The interview went well but upon learning more about the program she felt it would be a little overwhelming considering her relatively small amount of experience. Shortly after this, the original position at Bed, Bath, and Beyond opened up. It would be mostly daytime hours and full-time which would be a lot better than what she is getting now, and she would be a little more independent which would be nice. So as of now she is going to take that and start training soon. Hopefully this will be a good job for her and will help us to get closer to covering our monthly bills as well as tuition, etc. Thanks to those of you who were praying about this, we think God has made his will clear even though it wasn’t what we were expecting.

I took a part-time job at the bookstore on campus. I’ll be working 3-6 on Mon and Thur and 9-3 on Sat. It’s pretty laid-back. I mostly receive shipments and run the register. I also get a discount off books, including textbooks, which is nice. It works well for us, having only one car, because Dawn or someone from the apartments can drop me off here and I can study when I am not in class or at work and then Dawn can pick me up when she gets done.

Speaking of studying, I am almost done with Greek. Our final is next Thursday. It is incredible how much you can learn in three months! I think I have about 600 vocab cards, so that is a lot of words. We are translating 1 John now. I find it goes fairly quickly and I am owning a lot of the common words without having to translate into English in my head (whatever that means). 1 John is the easiest book, grammar-wise, so I am sure Greek in Exegesis this fall will be a humbling experience. I have it on good authority that Hebrew (next-summer) is easier so I feel like the worst is over. Our teacher says the first 20 years of learning a language are the hardest so I have that to look forward to.

In the fall I am taking:

Spiritual and Ministry Formation: A class about your “divine design,” personality, calling, etc and whether or not this is a good fit for you.

Preparation and Delivery of Sermons: pretty self-explanatory, the first of many homiletics classes.

Covenant Theology I: Team taught be four instructors, foundational theology.

Greek in Exegesis
Life and Teachings of Luther: This is an elective. I have already started reading the assigned biography by Kittelson and am REALLY enjoying it. Highly recommended if you don’t know much about Luther.

Dawn is taking Spiritual and Ministry Formation with me, which the school recommends – should be fun. She’s also taking Life and Letters of Paul. I’m jealous.

Zoya is still working on napping and eating. Still hasn’t gotten over the squirrels. They taunt her. She tried to chase one up a tree the other day but failed. She likes to push the bigger dogs at the apartments around. She’s like a ninja, small but ferocious and agile.

We think we’ve found a good church. Old Orchard Presbyterian. They have a heart for seminary students and the pastor was very encouraging and interested in mentoring.

Wal-Mart is even more annoying here.

We’re getting to know the city a little but too poor to be eating out a lot or going to certain things. There are a lot of free things though that we hope to take advantage of when we can.

We were blessed this weekend to have Dave and Steven Rozema, friends from Kearney, stop through on their way to take Steven back to NC for fall semester. We had a great time, brief as it was. It was a nice dose of home when we really needed it. Thanks Rozemas!

Still don’t know when we will make it back to Nebraska. Greek is done the 23rd, I have a Bible Content Exam the 25th, and classes start the 30th, I’ll be working a lot that first week so it looks like there won’t be much of a break in there. With both of us working retail I don’t know if Christmas will be any better. Hopefully someitme in between there we can get away for a week or so. Just so hard to miss that much class/work. We are homesick though and wish we were with you all right now!

This is turning into a book so I’ll close. Love to hear from you all. E-mail I check every day so that’s a good way to say hi. We respond to all snail mail as well.

Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever,

David