long overdue

So I suppose I should try to blog more frequently. I don't know why I haven't been in the mood to blog the past 3 months, but certainly enough things have happened to write about. Each of these things could have their own blog(s) written about them, but in the interest of summing up my life since I last blogged...

September was the month of seeing out of town friends. Kim came into town for a week before heading out to England for grad school. It was cool seeing her after so long. I hung out with her, Lois, Grant, and Joseph twice. First going to burger night with other Cornell friends. Then a few days later, the Art Institute. Here's a picture of Kim and Joseph outside of there. I also took a trip to Iowa for a couple of days to see friends. It had been a lot longer than usual since visiting last April, and was prompted mainly by my friend, Sara, moving to Denver in October. You can see photos from that visit here. A new friend made a visit to Chicago during the weekend of her birthday to see her sister and some college friends. Visit her blog, Life in the Tension (permanent link on the side with my other friends' blogs). Lastly, Kyle, Tiff, and Gabe came to visit for Karin and Wes' wedding. I got to see them a couple of times for meals, a trip to the Botanic Gardens, and an excursion up to Wisconsin to visit a nice, small town called Cedarburg. I didn't get a lot but those pictures are here.

I've been joining a lot of new communities, which anyone who knows me, knows that's what I like to do. The church I work at rents space from an English-speaking church, Meadows Baptist Church. I've gone to their high school group a couple of times. I have tremendous respect for their youth pastor, DB, who's been there for over 10 years. I have also been attending services and hanging out with people at the Spanish-speaking church that also rents space at Meadows. I've volunteered a few times at Nuestro Center, where my good friend, Matt, works. I join in on their after-school program, helping kids with their homework and playing games with them. Finally, I just went to Connect, the young adult group at Harvest Bible Chapel. It's under a new format with Pastor James MacDonald giving the messages and an emphasis on building community. I've only gone once and I'm attending again tomorrow night. It's hard to tell how well this will go at this point, but so far so good.

Work at church has its ups and downs and challenges. More on that later...