the all-consuming, life-sucking, lots of overtime grant that i mentioned a while ago has finally announced grant recipients, and we got the award!!

now i just need to figure out how to manage a 1.5 million dollar grant… ::insert panic attack here::

this sunday, june 13, 2010, at 2:30am, ross and i will be heading down to new orleans for our week long mission trip with the youth group.  almost everything has come together, not necessarily in the smoothest way, but God has been gracious and faithful to not let us completely fall on our faces. which is kind of amazing if you think about it, because the leaders for this trip are made up of 1) someone who’s never been on a mission trip before, 2) someone not even 25, and 3) a short kid who looks like she could still be in youth group.  now that’s an all-star team right there.  that’s God’s way of saying through ME you can do all things.

we’ll drive 13ish hours through the night, periodically stopping to relieve ourselves or stuff ourselves and will arrive at our site on late sunday afternoon.  there will be 4 other churches present:  2 from texas, 1 from illinois, and 1 from california.  we’ll be participating in various social or construction ministry sites (we won’t know until we get there) and getting to see a bit of the city in the evenings through a tour of historic downtown, attending a local church service, and hosting a cookout.

on the way back (friday) we’re planning to spend the day at an amusement/water park and spend the night at a birmingham, AL  AMiA church before driving home on saturday morning.

please please pray for our trip, for traveling mercies, group unity (8 of us in a suburban for 13+ hours – two ways), boldness, building relationships, and growing in our faith.

our group:

katie

mary kate

kellen

casey

J.L.

todd

ross

jennifer

i know God will do awesome things on this trip.  i know this, because he is God and he always shows up in a big way when we’re obedient to his call.  Nawlins, here we come!

I guess I should make it official and announce that Ross is no longer a bank employee!!

The whole process happened so fast, its hard to remember how it all came about.

A woman came in to do some banking and Ross happened to wait on her.  He realized she worked for an agency right across the street called Family Preservation Services.  Ross had always been interested in the agency and asked the woman a few questions about her job and what she did.  The next part I’m fuzzy on, but somehow she mentioned they had an opening and upon finding out Ross had a Psych degree, encouraged him to apply.  [how she was able to do that while standing in his place of work is unclear, but it happened!]

The next thing he knew, he had put together his resume – his Psych degree and 7 months at Discovery School being the two factors that made him qualified to apply – and had an interview scheduled.  The second interview came quickly and before we knew it, a job offer had been made.  Interestingly enough, two positions within the bank that Ross applied for and was a very strong candidate for, were denied, yet this job that he barely had enough qualifications for and was a complete career change fell into his lap in a matter of weeks.  um, thank you God for sometimes being so clear in where You want us to go.  we don’t always get the message on our own.

Ross’s official title is Therapeutic Day Counselor and he has been placed at Dublin Middle School, which is in Pulaski County.  I imagine that his job description will become much clearer once he’s spent some time on site, but basically the program works like this:  based on income and behavioral conditions, Ross will be assigned 3-6 kids every school year.  He’ll work up an “action plan” of sorts for them based on an evaluation of where they need help and improvement and will be with them off and on throughout each school day, acting as an in-house social worker, in essence.  During the summer he’ll be able to participate in summer programs hosted by FPS in order to not go three months without a paycheck.

Last Thursday Ross began his first day of work – Thursday and Friday were in-office training days, today is his first day shadowing other counselors in the school, and tomorrow he’s on his own with his kids (four 7th graders – three boys and a girl).  crazy!

This is a huge change, obviously, but with Ross’s experience at Discovery School (in a nutshell: living 24/7 outdoors with 15 at-risk teenage boys), our experience leading the youth group (this will be our 4th summer), and our dream of someday owning a camp for at-risk kids (lofty, we know), we both feel like this was a huge change in the right direction.  Time will tell how well things will start to mesh, but please pray for Ross’s quick and easy transition into this new job.  we’re excited and nervous and very very thankful.