Happy Thanksgiving...and an announcement!

Current location: home in Glenview!

Happiest Thanksgiving to all you readers out there! We love Thanksgiving at our house and have the great opportunity to host my mom's side this year. I'm on the Cooking Committee...grocery shopping, brining the 23-pound bird, baking pies, mmm...perfect job for my food-loving soul. In recent years, my family has come to love themed family get-togethers. Last year, we celebrated a Flannel Thanksgiving followed by Tacky Sweater Christmas. This year, with dad and Jen serving on the Party Planning Committee, we are hosting a Murder Mystery Thanksgiving. I've never done one of these parties before, but we're all pretty pumped for it. With all the knives I'll be wielding, I sure hope I'm the culprit...hah.

How are you celebrating Thanksgiving this year? What are your favorite holiday recipes? Jenny and I have recently fallen in looooove with all things pumpkin, as was evident today with pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin-spiced hot chocolate, and pumpkin pie in the oven.

Sunday will mark one month until Namibia...wow! So soon. So exciting. Last week, I finally received my placement and have been itching to tell you about it. Here's part of the email I received from our wonderful field director:

Greetings from Windhoek!  After much consideration, We have decided to place you at [PSSS] in the recently pronounced town of Helao Nafidi.  PSSS is a secondary school teaching grades 8-12 and has about 900 learners and about 30 teachers. PSSS is located in north-central Namibia, just off the main tar road that goes north to Angola, and is in the Ohangwena Region.  The local people there come from the Owambo tribe and speak Oshiwambo...PSSS is interested in having a volunteer teach English Grades 8-12 and help in the library...Your school is eager for your arrival and I am confident that you will excel in your new living and teaching environment. 

Helao Nafidi is located right on the border of Namibia and Angola:

Teaching high school English is a dream come true, in an odd way. It's something I've clearly never done before and have little experience in, but I can already feel enthusiasm coursing through my veins and can't wait for the great adventure that being a high school English teacher is sure to be! I can't wait to meet my students (or "learners," as they're called in Namibia) and dive into this adventure that will be the 2011 school year. I know I will learn just as much from them as they'll hopefully learn from me.

And seriously, what's more perfect than being the school librarian? Love organizing, love wearing glasses. Perfect.

I am nothing short of thankful for the great challenges and tremendous joys that I've been brought through this past year. Rejoicing in anticipation and gratefulness.

My GCCs

Current location: Frothy Monkey, coffee with a friend and doing work (and sitting by Matt Wertz, nbd)

Introducing Glenview Community Church - GCC#1. Located just three blocks from my house, I spent my first eighteen years of life growing up there. I was pleasantly surprised this week when they ran an article I had written for our weekly newsletter on the front page - complete with photos and very kind words from our pastor. Check it out here!

GCC#1, I am so grateful for your consistent support, prayer, and encouragement! Thank you for the ways you have loved me in every season of my life.

When I moved to Nashville four years ago, I realized I couldn't escape life at GCC when I began attending Grace Community Church. Welcome GCC#2. Since becoming a member soon thereafter, God has repeatedly surprised me in the ways that I have encountered authentic Christian community, scripture-centered sermons and studies, and genuine adult friends. It has been a source of constant support and encouragement through many difficult periods of growth over the years and I'm so grateful for their support as I head north-left (shout out!) in...46 days!!!

I look forward to seeing all you Glenviewites (Glenviewans? Glenviewers? What are we, anyway?) soon at Thanksgiving!!  

It's Official: 55 Days Away...

Current location: my couch, watching "The Holiday" because it's cold and rainy outside. If the stores are allowed to start celebrating Christmas, so can I.

This morning, while having my quiet time & tea, I was led to a devotional called "Submitting to God's Purpose," which then led me to this awesome verse in John 15 that reads, "you did not choose me; I chose you. And I gave you this work: to go and produce fruit, fruit that will last." I haven't been able to let go of it all day. How radical is that? That I didn't choose to be God's; He chose me. That I didn't choose to go to Namibia; He sent me. I don't know what it means to produce fruit - and especially don't know what kind of fruit lasts (other than plastic fruit) - but I'm ready to discover more.

It's update time! Our official departure date has been set for December 28. For those of you keeping track, that means we're only 55 days away. Six more weeks in Nashville; less than eight weeks to Namibs. I'm grateful to have a couple extra days at home than I initially anticipated. And this totally justifies me staying in Nashville an extra day to see Garth Brooks perform for flood relief...yesssss.

Prayers for this week: that more support will come in soon, that I find the motivation to begin a packing list, for relationships among the 13 of us heading over in December, and for my students and colleagues.