Joshua Tree Trip

We're not so good at keeping this blog up to date, so here I am to catch you up and give you a little insight into our lives...

Last weekend we went to Joshua Tree National Park with some friends (Thank you Kendigs for the NP Pass!). You can see pictures taken by our good friend Joel Shenk at this link http://picasaweb.google.com/JoelShenk/JoshuaTree . The people in the pictures are some of our ethnic Mennonite friends. It 's fun getting to know them and learning about their lives growing up in Mennonite families, churches, and attending Mennonite colleges.

We've been really involved with church things lately. Aaron is serving on the Pastoral Search Committee, which will probably work to find a new lead pastor for our congregation for about a year. They just started the process about a month ago and it is a lot of hard work. There are just eight members of the committee so it's quite an honor to be chosen to serve the church and represent the congregation in this way. I am serving on a committee called the Gifts Discernment Committee. We work to help the church discover and practice our spiritual gifts both inside and outside the church. Much of our practical purpose is to ask people to serve in positions in the church as leaders and workers for things like Leadership Team, Personnel and Finance Committees, and in ministry positions like the Chairs of Missions, Education, Worship, Prayer, and Congregational Life Committees. It's really neat to get to know people and help connect them with ways to serve! We're also still teaching Sunday School with the preschoolers and they are some of our favorite friends we've made here.

Of course outside of those commitments we still have work and school full time, time to hang out together and time to get together with friends. Work has been really busy and trying for me lately, but I've decided I still want to pursue education and a career in Higher Ed. Administration. I'm look at grad schools and studying for the GRE! Aaron is still loving every second of his classes and reading his books. He is sad at the end of each quarter because he will miss the professors! I think he will go through withdrawal while he's in between the MDiv and PhD programs; speaking of which he is picking out his favorite schools for that too!

This weekend we're headed to San Fransisco and Berkley with some of our best friends the Mayfields. They have a precious baby, Livia, who is eight months old. We'll hang around the city for a few days and then the guys are going to an academic conference on Sunday. We'll try to post some pictures when we get back.

That's all for now! We'll try to update again soon!