A Glimpse of My Life

Wow it's been a long time since I updated this thing. I feel like some kind of prodigal. A lot has happened in the past few months, so in order to catch us all up I'll give a little update on each area of my life.
How does that sound? :o)

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Family

We've had two new additions to our family this fall. On Sept 14th my sister gave birth to her baby boy, Jacob Jr.

We call him Coby. Look how much he's grown!

And of course, the twins are getting cuter every second.

On November 2nd my sister-in-law gave birth to a baby girl,
Olivia Joy.

Andrew and Carissa are totally in love with her.
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Work & Ministry

I have a great job! I'm on staff at Evergreen Christian Community in Olympia, WA, where I serve as the Chaplain of the K-8th grade school that is based out of the church. My job description entails a lot of different things, but most of my time is spent preparing the two weekly chapel services, preaching, and teaching. I teach an elective class for Jr. High students. It's a spiritual formation class, so for the first half of the semester I taught them about the spiritual disciplines and how they could incorporate those into their lives. This second half of the semester I'm teaching them about Christian doctrine and theology. I have had to write or at least piece together from several places the curriculum for this class, so that has been both challenging and rewarding. I couldn't ask for a better set of co-workers, pastoral staff, or a better boss! This is an exceptional community of people, and I'm really blessed to be a part of it. Plus, my brother works here as the youth pastor. So awesome!

Some really cute 2nd graders that like to come eat lunch with me.
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Future Plans

I feel like God just handed me my future on a silver platter. In the past week I have really been seeing how God has positioned me in a place of incredible blessing, favor, and opportunity. I think I knew that before....sort of....but it's become very real this past week. I love where I work, I'm surrounded by wonderfully supportive and encouraging people, and my living expenses are next to nothing. When it's time to start Graduate school, I'll have enough money saved to pay for my entire degree, and most of my living expenses while I study. Unbelievable, right? I am really excited for the future. I love where I'm at and God is doing a lot here, so I'm looking forward to being a part of that. But I'm also anticipating what is beyond this.

I keep getting this picture in my head...it's hard to describe, but it's like God has asked me to close my eyes, then taken me to the very tip of a high mountain. I open my eyes to see a valley that stretches beyond my vision. It is beautiful. I look and look but I cannot see the end of it, nor can my senses fully comprehend what He is presenting to me. I am overwhelmed with the beauty -- no spoken language could possibly even begin to describe the wonder. It's like He's saying, "Anna, you can do whatever you want. This is your furture." Not that I should do what I want because He doesn't have a course mapped for me; rather I can do whatever I want because the desires in my heart were put there by Him. I can sense His delight and excitement...and it's contagious :o)

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Friends and such

Like I said before, God has set me among a really great group of people. I miss my friends in Scotland and Missouri, but God has put a lot of quality people in close proximity to me. I'm really enjoying my growing friendships with fellow pastors and youth staff workers especially.
I also joined a soccer team. Yep. One of the pastors at my church played through college so every year he puts together a team to play in the city league. We had our first game last Thursday and got creamed. It was super fun/demoralizing. Seriously, though, it is really fun to play and it's great exercise -- although I am realizing I need to run more if I want to compete with the Latinos that play year-round :o)