Almost a Year… What’s Going on?
It’s hard to believe that I have not added anything to this blog in almost a year. So what exactly has been going on? Obviously more stuff than I can possibly fit into a single blog post, but I will try to hit the important notes. It’s been a heck of a busy year.
The first change is in my role at my job. I originally moved to the KCMO area to work as the lead IAM Architect for my company even though it was being bought out. For several months, nothing changed. However, in June, the company released a lot of people – by God’s grace, I was not impacted. I continued to work towards IAM things with my team until about August 2018. I was asked to help out another part of the team with some new security tools since the team was getting small (down to 1 person). However, after about 3 months, my entire life was absorbed by the new security tool. Then, in February of 2019, the one person I was supporting apps with left the company. I am now in charge of 3 tools, none of which are IAM.
The second change is with teaching. I had a very tough teaching term back in summer 2018 and almost lost my ability to teach because of a mixture of stress and life changes. The family had moved in to KCMO completely (instead of me watching only the two oldest kids) and now the house was constantly busy and so was my work so I fell behind in teaching. However, I took a break during the summer and then picked up solid in Fall 2018 and have done well since then.
Lastly, there were lots of family challenges this last year. We invited one of our exchange students back to our home for a second year and brought in another student that we had never met. It was definitely a tough time because the new student was from a very different culture then what we were used to and it caused lots of friction. In the end, it was a good experience.
Mix together all 9 members of the family, extensive taekwondo classes, work, teaching, ministry, etc. I am usually either busy until the last part of the evening so I choose to relax with a video game or a movie during that time. I just have not had the time or the inclination to blog as much. I also stopped doing the Daily in the Word (DITW) bible study as I have been getting most of my bible study with my Men’s Coffee group. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, but with all the other pressures of life, I just couldn’t keep up the study regimen.
So what’s next? Well, we are entering the second full summer in KCMO. I am not teaching at the moment but will be hopefully teaching in the next term. I am still doing my normal job. We have lots of fun travel plans for June and July. We’re going to see some old friends and make some new ones. Then, in August, two brand new students, one from Japan and another from Egypt will be joining us for the exchange year.
Now I wait to see what God will do next.