Michelle... finished her training period at Florida Hospital in October and made the switch to begin working nights. She is enjoying the more relaxed pace of work that comes with working nights and appreciates having more time to really focus on her patients. The obvious downside to working nights is the sporadic switching her sleeping schedule back and forth between nights and days. I'm not quite sure how she manages to do it - I seem have enough trouble getting out of bed with my comparatively normal schedule.
I (Mike)... officially completed my time as a "Deacon-in-training" in November and was elected as a Deacon at our church (UPC). It's been a rewarding but challenging process that has showed me a lot of what it means to truly serve others and has consequently given me a greater understanding of just how self-serving I can often be.
One thing that has been keeping me busy has been my work on developing a website for the Deacons at UPC that will hopefully allow us to do a better job of keeping track of the individuals we serve and will hopefully start to show us the areas that we can improve in. I've also recently starting serving on the Stewardship team at UPC. As a team, it is our goal to help develop a sense of generosity for church members and for the church as a whole. We want to find ways to encourage people to be generous with the time, talents, finances, and all other resources that God has given them. While it looks to be a daunting task, it will be a stretching (and hopefully exciting) process as we start our work in earnest in January.
Both of us... enjoyed a trip to Bogota, Columbia to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and niece on their home turf in early November. It was a lot of fun spending time with them and having the chance to see what life is like for them. A major highlight was hanging out with Isabella (my niece) who we have not gotten to see a whole lot of. The only downside to the trip was when both of us started to come down with a nasty case of the flu on our last day in Columbia - which resulted in several days of high fevers and missed work. Despite the last-minute illness, we are so thankful that we had the chance to go down and see them.
Looking back on 2007, there is a lot to be thankful for...
- Michelle's graduation from nursing school,
- a new house (and the shorter commute that came with it),
- and God's continued provision of good jobs for us
... to name just a few of the highlights.
As we look ahead, we are excited about all that is yet to come...
- Christmas with our families,
- vacation,
- and renovating our kitchen (although we're also dreading this one at the same time)
... and whatever other [good] things lie in store for us next year.
Merry Christmas!
