Jobs, Conferences, and Friends

My goodness, things have been crazy busy around here. I keep meaning to write another honeymoon post but keep getting sidetracked by everything that's been going on! Last Wednesday, I GOT A JOB! I've been searching for full-time employment for over two years now, so it was definitely a blessing to get the job offer. I'll be working with Georgia Power headquarters in downtown Atlanta, and I start in a week and a half. I'm a little nervous about the urban corporate job since I've never had any job even remotely similar before, but it'll be a challenge. I like challenges.

Since getting the offer, everything has felt like a complete whirlwind of getting the appropriate forms and paperwork completed and returned and getting follow ups scheduled to be sure everything is ready by the time I start. Yet another "new" thing with this job is all the paperwork required to work for a large corporation. I feel like I might as well be signing over my first-born somewhere amongst all the contractual terms. Regardless, very excited to start!

Levi has been working a lot recently. His job is very stressful and requires long hours more times than not. We're very grateful for the work for him but also hoping something lower stress with normal hours will come open in the near future.

Another thing going on that has been keeping us busy is that I'll be teaching at AWANA conferences around the state this month and next month. I've already taught one conference, and I have 3 more to go. I grew up in the AWANA program and have a huge part of my heart reserved for it, so I'm very pleased to be able to contribute to it by teaching at training conferences. For those of you that don't know, AWANA is a Bible curriculum used in hundreds of thousands of churches around the world to teach children, ages 2 through 12th grade, about God and the Bible. I love it. And I love telling people about it. My class at the conference focuses on AWANA International and what AWANA is doing overseas and how individual churches and AWANA clubs can get involved more with the international mission. Two things I love: AWANA and international missions. :)

Last weekend, we drove down to Warner Robins, GA, for the conference there. In the next few weeks, I'll be going to Dacula, LaGrange, and Augusta. It's fun and challenging to go and teach at these conferences but also exhausting. I'll be happy when we have our weekends back.

In addition to the conference last weekend, we also hosted some of Levi's "family" from Lebanon. They're on furlough to the States for the summer, and we were able to spend some time with them on Thursday and Friday. Levi hasn't seen them in person since he left Lebanon in 2012, so it was a true joy for him and them to be able to spend a couple days together. And I liked hearing some more about the stories and the people that made up Levi's life when he was overseas. The plan is to go to Lebanon next summer to visit them in return, but that trip is a bit up in the air now that I've gotten a job. We'll see how all that goes.

The last thing we've been busy with lately is getting more involved in a church in Marietta. We've been attending services for a couple months now and have been going to the young marrieds' Sunday School class for the past couple of weeks. We really like the classes, the teaching, and the people so far. One of the things that has been at the front of our minds ever since we married and moved to Atlanta is getting involved in a local church and local small group and making connections with the people there. Neither of us have any friends in the area, so it's great to meet new people and hopefully form relationships with a few of them in the future.

So yes. All that to say this: life is crazy busy and crazy beautiful. And God is good.

What's been happening in your life lately?