Cha Cha Cha Changes

I'm still having blogger issues as you can see. One day it will all come together. One day.

Diana leaves in about 2 weeks. She's going to Disney World for 4 days and then.... who knows? She's saved a good chunk of money, quit both of her jobs and is gonna travel. Maybe London, maybe Thailand, perhaps Africa.... she hasn't made up her mind yet. I'm just a little nervous not knowing where she'll be. She said she'll text me when she decides. :) She's so much more determined than I ever was. She says she gets nervous, but just faces it and achieves her goals. Amazing.

Sharaya and Ryan bought a new car. Their old car was on it's last legs and they were desperate for something better. This car is an automatic so now Sharaya can drive it. Ryan has been the sole driver for more than a year because their car was a stick shift and Sharaya didn't want to learn on such a poor vehicle. She could have burned the clutch pretty quickly. Their new car is a Ford Explorer.

Beth has a working interview on Thursday at Marshalls. Instead of sitting down to a traditional interview and answering questions about yourself (something Beth wouldn't be good at) she'll actually perform the duties and depending on how well she does, she'll be hired. Her interview is at 10:30 PST so if any of you are thinking about her around that time, please pray for her. She really wants to work.

Chuck filled out the Jury form telling them that she wouldn't be able to serve due to her having Down Syndrome. We received a post card in the mail today telling us that they have postponed her jury service date to give us time to get a note from her doctor.  Then we'll mail the docs to the courthouse. I may also include a copy of her WA State ID card.

Our church is going through some restructuring. Some of our departments are being eliminated and the work loads will be decreased. We're moving from a programmatic system to groups. We'll be creating multigenerational groups that build relationships and help disciple people into the church body. Right now we have about 2000 people on a Sunday and it's hard to make friends in a setting like that. With the groups, we'll become closer and be able to assist each other when the need arises. If someone in my group is moving, we'll be more likely to help rather than someone randomly calling the church office and asking if there is anyone willing to help.

I'm excited about the changes but that also means my job description will be changing. This week my boss asked me for a list of my duties and how long it takes me to do each task. Then he sent me an email saying not to worry, he just needs to know how much time I would have to work on the new database. If I haven't mentioned it before, we're getting a new database. Our 4th one in 6 years. To be honest I'm kind of excited. I absolutely love working with the database. I'm not skilled at creating new databases or reading a manual and figuring it out on my own, but when someone teaches me the basics, I can usually figure out the rest. I just love it.

Then Chuck sent me an email yesterday. He had just gotten out of a meeting where they were told they were going through a restructuring! There will be 47 jobs eliminated. Thank goodness his is not one of them. But it was close. There are about 200 employees in his group. Out of the 47 being eliminated, starting from the newest person hired and going up by seniority, he is number 53. And he's been there almost 17 years!

MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meets at our church. One of the leaders stopped me the other day and said she was looking for speakers for one of the MOPS events. My name came to mind. Would I be willing to speak to the moms about special needs? She couldn't give me a topic or any ideas, she just felt I was to speak. I'm only aware of one MOPS mom that has a child with special needs. Never done anything like this before. I said yes. Gulp. I have until April to figure out what I'm going to talk about. I figure I'll open with Beth's birth. And then...... ?

Someone came into the church office yesterday and gave our receptionist a postcard. It's in invitation to a one day conference for people who want to start a ministry for people with special needs. Uh, yea! I'm just at the beginning stages but it consumes my thoughts. It's being hosted by Young Life. On the postcard was a picture of a large group of adults, some with special needs! I did some research and Young Life has a group called Capernaum. It's a Young Life group for, what looks like adults with special needs!! If it is (Young Life is usually just high school) I plan to talk to them when I go to the conference this week. This could be an answer to prayer for us. They meet just a mile from our house and it's biblically based. We love the group Beth is involved with now and she'll probably continue with them, but this will open an opportunity for her to make more friends both with special needs and those without, all worshiping the Lord and doing His work! I'm so excited about this and am hoping and praying it's for 'older' adults.