Tis the season for meetings...lalalalalaaaaaaa...lalalala...

We're in our second week of no students. I'm not really sure what to do with that. lol. Actually as I said in my last blog we've been very busy with conferences and meetings.

Last week we went to a conference in MI to do some planning on Chapter Focus Week (week long summer training camp for students), and get some training. We had a great speaker come that made us think and encouraged us; and the worship was AMAZING. I don't think I have felt the presence of God in a worship service like that in a long time. it was really wonderful.

The track I was in was planning for a Chapter Focus week track called Large Group Leader Training. We have tracks training in a variety of areas of IV...except for LG. I'm very excited about this track. I think LG is something that IV hasn't completely hit the nail on the head yet, and the things we talked about for this track is really going to help us push forward into new areas. Great things in the making last week.

This week we have some more meetings. Today we met with our area (Pittsburgh Team), to talk about the upcoming outreach, Andrea and Jason moving to plant an Asian chapter on campus, and to "interview" a guy for a part time position with us. It was kind of funny being on the other side of the table. I kept thinking "was this how I was in my interview???" lol. Not that he was bad, but you could tell he was nervous and wanted to say all the right things. We also got to learn some stage sword fighting from one of our coworkers (Amy). She likes sword fighting and is in a group that reinacts all the fun stuff of the mideival times. She showed us a few moves with swords, which was a lot of fun...good way to build trust on your team lol. I'm hoping to add to our team's fighting skills by teaching some hand to hand stage fighting. ^_^

Tomorrow we have a meeting with the whole tri-area (all of PA, WV, and OH). I think our main agenda will be the outreach and assigning people to needed positions.

I would like to share some fantastic news...aside from work. Many of you already heard through other venues, but I'm so excited that I am litterally in tears. Monday my dad finally had surgery to have his pain pump removed. This is something we've been trying to do since August (He was under unbearable pain), and the Dr.s didn't want him to do it. They finally decided to take it out Monday. When they removed it they saw that it was broken in 3 places! Apparently dad is way too active to have a pain pump...which is funny because even when he's in so much pain he's practically debilitated he's still too active.

Anyway...so it's a good thing dad was persistant in wanting it removed. The best thing is he called me a few hours after surgery. He called just to tell me that he got out of the hospital bed, stood up straight (which he couldn't do before), and walked to the bathroom almost pain free! And then he ate a lot of crackers lol. It's hard to imagine my dad being able to move in a relatively normal state and with no pain. I'm so excited to go home to see him not squinting and clutching his teeth. As great as he feels with all that pain gone, I think he's more excited about being able to eat again lol; which he couldn't do before because the pump pushed on his stomach.

So yeah...talk about a joyous week! Thank you sooooooo much for your prayers, words of encouragement, and friendship.

Happy Advent!!!