My goodness gracious, but it has been an eventful year (even if it is only half over!) Although, as any of you who have tried to call me can attest, I have never been the world’s most accessible communicator, this past six months has been so full of excitement that I sometimes feel that I’ve all but disappeared from human company, with the notable exceptions of my long-suffering wife (at least, occasionally), my family (even more occasionally), and about 105 high-school Spanish students. Nonetheless, now that I am finally done for the summer, and have just gotten back from a much-needed vacation at Port Ludlow (thanks to the generosity of Jenn’s cousin Kristen), I finally have the opportunity to make good on several months’ worth of unfulfilled good intentions and to let you know that (1) I am still alive; (2) I still value our relationship (even if I’ve done a poor job of showing it); and (3) I still appreciate your thoughts, prayers, and insights as we set continue on our exciting journey together.

Where to begin?

The last that I left you, I had just ended six months of job-hunting frustration, so my exciting crash course in teaching high school Spanish is probably a decent place to start. As you might remember, in December, I was offered a part-time job teaching Spanish I and Spanish II at Bellevue Christian High School. (My first few weeks on the job were interrupted by my unanticipated visit to the hospital in January, but afterwards, I was able to continue without interruption). These past six months have been both wonderful and exhausting. On the one hand, for the first time, I have been doing a job that I can see as a career and a vocation. I have loved teaching at BCS: the students, the camaraderie of working in a Christian school, the challenge of inventing lesson plans and devising systems for all those mundane little details to which I gave no thought when I was on the other side of the teaching podium. I love to see lights turn on, and I have had many opportunities to do so in this past few months. On the other hand, however, I was decidedly ready for summer. Officially, my position was half-time (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with occasional stints of subbing on the off-days). In actuality, however, my “half-time” job took probably an average of 55-60 hours per week. There were, of course, the usual challenges that any first-year teacher faces: establishing systems of classroom management, pedagogical style, learning how to interact with different kinds of students, building a repertoire of lesson plans, project, and ideas to reinforce the standard curriculum, etc. (I never realized before this year how much thought had to go into every detail that I took for granted as a student, from where, when, and how to turn in papers, to how to respond to disruptive or disrespectful behavior in class.) However, in addition, there were some extra challenges. Since I came in mid-year, the students had to change gears from the previous teacher(s) that they had already experienced in the Spanish program, and that I had to work especially hard to create a new class culture mid-stream. Additionally, BCS had adopted an experimental “online curriculum” this year, which I quickly found to be more of an impediment than an asset to the learning process. Consequently, I had to effectively build a new curriculum from scratch, working out a course plan to try and get the students caught up to where they should have been, designing my own worksheets, projects, quizzes, tests, and other homework assignments. And then, of course, I had to grade them all. And, since I haven’t gotten my teaching credential yet, I had to pretty much wing it. Basically, this past semester combined all of unique challenges of student teaching, first-year teaching, and substitute teaching in one very condensed six-month course.

The consequence of all of this was that, on each of the three days per week that I was technically “working,” my days ranged from 12 to 15 hours, arriving at 7:30 in the morning, and leaving usually sometime between 7:00 and 10:30 at night. And, of course, on many of the days that I was not “working,” I was also working. Consequently, by May, it felt like a race to see if the school year would kick the bucket before I did. It was close.

Now, I’m not saying this so much to look for sympathy. (Well, maybe a little bit). The reason I had this schedule was because I chose it, and the reason I chose it was because I genuinely loved what I was doing. Not every aspect of it, certainly, but on the whole, it felt like an opportunity to share my gifts for something that mattered, and that made it worth it. For the most part, even on days that I was riding the bus back home at 7, 8, or 9 at night, I would still feel excited about the prospect of coming back two days later (although, granted, also feeling grateful to have a day to recover in the meanwhile).

So, that’s why you haven’t heard from me in the past six months.

But wait! There’s more! 

As I think that I had told you before, the reason that we were in Seattle was that we were hoping that Jennifer would get into the Occupational Therapy Master’s program at University of Washington. Last year, she got waitlisted, and in the end didn’t get in, so she buckled down, doubled her volunteering hours, got a job at a PT clinic, polished her essays until they sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight…and got waitlisted again. By March, we had basically decided to postpone the Occupational Therapy dream and start trying to start a family, and at precisely this moment, she got a phone call from University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, informing us that her hard work had paid off, and in about two and a half years, I will have a live-in occupational therapist to help me with all that ails me.

However, exciting as this news was, it also brought up another challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with Washingtonian geography, Tacoma is only about a 45 minute drive from Seattle…at least, if you happen to be driving between 10pm and 4am. However, given that neither of us anticipated our classes being graveyard shifts, this presented a formidable logistical challenge, since traffic often doubles or even triples this commute time. We have loved our little apartment on Queen Anne, having Seattle friends around, having a church group in Seattle, having my siblings in the neighborhood (and anticipating having even more siblings in Seattle next year!) Just when we had started to settle into a routine, this felt like a bit of a painful uprooting. Nonetheless, our first priority is our marriage, and since I didn’t know how to be a good husband while only seeing my wife on the weekends, it looks like we’re Tacoma-bound.

Change: that one word seems to sum up our lives right now. This past few months (and the next few as well) have been and will be devoted to the pursuit of new things: a new dwelling-place; a new job; a new academic program; even (thanks to being rear-ended on I-5 a bit over a month ago) a new car. On the one hand, this feels a bit exhausting; after our car was officially declared totaled by insurance, Jenn declared (á la Reb. Tevya, from Fiddler on the Roof), “God, we’re grateful for all this character growth, but if it could stop for a while, that would be great!” It’s frightening to face new challenges, particularly for two introverts who would prefer a more settled existence. However, it’s also a great opportunity, not only as a career and vocation for Jenn, but also to learn more about who we are, who God is, and what it means to live faithfully. In the meanwhile, we appreciate your thoughts and prayers for the journey.