Going with God's Flow

The past month and a half or so I have been so eager to meet people in Duluth, find a job, get connected and start life with Peter. After about, oh, two weeks, my eagerness started to turn into impatience and restlessness. God knew what he was doing the whole time though and his timing was perfect as usual. After fruitlessly pursuing an AmeriCorps position that was unknowingly already filled and several other jobs, I started to assume that I wasn't going to find work for five years at best (note: exaggeration).

On Monday, however, I found myself searching Craigslist out of desperation and found a posting for an assistant teacher position at Summit School Duluth, an early childhood education center less than ten minutes from our house. I sent an e-mail with my hours of availability and resume and was very pleasantly surprised when I received an e-mail the next evening from the school's director asking if I could make it in for an interview the next morning. Unfortunately, I already had plans to clean, write thank yous and run errands.

Kidding! (You were on the edge of your seat, admit it.) I went in for the interview yesterday late morning and it went really well, but I didn't want to get overconfident. After telling Peter how perfect it sounded and how the interview went he urged me to follow up so the director was aware that I wanted the job if they were interested in hiring me. I e-mailed her several hours after the interview and found out just before bed that she wanted to offer me the job! I start on Monday! What an awesome blessing!

I originally thought it was a part-time position, but I will be working Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. with Summit's junior kindergarten class (four- and five-year-olds). Before the interview I wasn't sure with which age group the position was available, but I was drawn to the junior kindergarten and kindergarten ages and, as it turns out, that's who I'll be working with! The best part is that the school's curriculum includes French class (French in Duluth? Who would have thought?), art, music, writing, phy ed, library time and, of course, the usual play time, snack time, recess, etc. I have hoped I'd be able to put my four semesters of French to use someday and this will be a great opportunity. I feel very humbled and somewhat undeserving of this awesome job opportunity, but I know that God very much led me to it and that I'll be successful as a loving and encouraging teacher only if I let him work through me.

Another exciting change this week is that last night I met up with a group of six women for our first weekly dinner-and-a-small-group small group. One of my sister-in-law's friends (Marissa) is co-leading it and we are discussing the book Beautiful Womanhood. It's really great to have one definite night a week set aside to just be with women (some younger, some older), have fun, eat dinner and encourage each other in our marriages. Up until this week I hadn't met any of them except Marissa, but I can tell it's going to be a great opportunity to start some strong friendships. I think there is the possibility that a couple/few more women will be there next week, so it will be fun to see who else shows up.

Lastly, we're eager to see some family and friends this weekend and next as:

• Natalie comes to visit Duluth this weekend while Peter heads to the Brule for both his first steelheading venture of the season and the last weekend of the stream trout season.
• We cheer on Joey for the Andover Huskies' biggest game of the year against Champlin Park.
• We celebrate the marriage of former co-worker Mindy and her fiancé Jimmy.
• We celebrate my niece Raina's 7th birthday (How is she already 7?).

Okay, that's about all for now. This update covers much of the briefly mentioned topics in the past couple blog posts. Below are a few photos from a day trip Peter and I took last weekend canoeing part of the Brule River in Wisconsin. It was a fun day with sunny, "warm" weather, and we were able to see Cedar Island (my favorite part), an estate built in the late 1800s that was visited by fly-fishing presidents Hoover, Eisenhower and Coolidge. It's really beautiful and still well-kept.


See some of you soon!

Miss Justine (my new name as of Monday)

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." (John 7:38)