give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

I am employed! I am having a hard time actually believing it; after a year of uncertainty and financial strain, we are out of that valley! Everything for this job came together so quickly and effortlessly, it was clear to me that God orchestrated it. I'll be teaching middle school language arts at Lynden Christian, the place where I did part of my student teaching. My dear friend, Shelly, who teaches at LC, let me know of the opening last Thursday as soon as the staff received the email. I immediately contacted the principal, who attends our church and was my supervisor for my student teaching assignment.

To make a long story short, I had a good interview today and was offered the job an hour later! The principal said the decision was unanimous (I had been interviewed by 5 people) and they were ecstatic (yes, he used that word) to welcome me on staff.

How unexpected. And full of grace. When I look back over this past year, I see that God has challenged me and grown me in ways that would not have happened had I been fully employed. I (we!) have had to rely fully on Him for provision and strength, and He gave it to us abundantly.

I know this year of teaching will bring many challenges and obstacles, and I'm looking forward to all of them. Most of all, I'm looking forward to belonging somewhere again. I've belonged in our small group and in our church, but the I've felt detached in the employment sector. I can't wait to be part of a staff again.

Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. We really appreciate it...and I won't turn them down even though I'm not unemployed anymore. :)

Praise the Lord!

they were shining there for you and me

Well, I was going to load pictures. But Blogger is dumb. Maybe I will ditch it for something else. Is there any way on Blogger to load more than 5 pictures at a time? Or rearrange the order without complete redoing it? For now, you'll just have to check out the album I will be putting up on Facebook in the next week or so once I get around to it.

Anyway.

California was fabulous. Not necessarily relaxing, but fabulous. We did everything I listed in my last post and more. It was truly delightful! Some of the highlights were:

-experiencing sunshine!
-eating breakfast on the porch
-bbq with Philip's cousins
-seeing Andrew & Melissa's new place
-spending a great couple of days at Yosemite with Mom & Dad and Rod & Vonnie
-seeing bears at Yosemite!
-spending all that extra time with Philip
-taking Highway 1 up the coast with Dad & Mom (very very curvy!!)
-camping in the beautiful Oregonian "wilderness" with Philip's extended family
-reading Lord of the Rings aloud in the car since our CD player apparently stopped working...
-celebrating our anniversary with a $5 pizza and a nice hotel room with a TV!

We arrived home on Monday afternoon and greeted our kitty. She forgave us pretty quickly for abandoning her for 11 days, which was considerate of her. Now it's back to the grind. The unpacking isn't all finished yet and there's lots of cleaning that needs to be done. I went from seeing Philip 24/7 to barely seeing him at all, since he's volunteering this week at a Cub Scout camp in the evenings. It took a bit of adjustment, but we're getting there.

I also had an interview yesterday with a woman from our church who owns her own tutoring business. She started it one year ago, but it's rapidly growing and she needs to hire an additional tutor. It sounds like I'll get the job and I can even do it during the school year, depending on what I find out about next year. Still haven't heard from the school in town about an interview. I'm grateful to my knitting instructor from church who dropped my name to this woman while I was on vacation! God really does provide in various ways through various people. Praise God!

And a FB album of our CA adventures is forthcoming.