Something New

This week has been tiring, but pretty amazing. Last Friday I bid farewell to 3 of my co-workers and it was a bit sad. Working with people for 8 months in a pretty close knit community makes for fast friendships. It is always hard to say good-bye to people, but everyone has to move on at some point. If we all stayed in the same place forever life would be dull and not the adventure it is meant to be. My new co-workers are great. I feel like we have all instantly bonded with one another and I'll be honest, I was worried that things would not be as good as they had been. This week was crazy because of the adjustment period, new kindergarteners, new classes and general chaos. I do believe that the next 4 months are going to fly by incredibly fast and while I'm looking forward to also moving on, I have begun to contemplate staying with BIS for another year. I am blessed to have this job, I have a great apartment, a fantastic boss and I love my students. It'll be interesting to see (for me at least) what will happen over the next few months.

This afternoon I went with Chris and Lauren (my new co-workers, they are from Denver and just got married in October) to a meeting with our recruiters, Adventure Teaching. I was reluctant to go at first because Chris and Lauren had mentioned that it would be somewhat religion based and probably something like a bible study/group. I don't consider myself religious, but I have been thinking about things like religion for quite sometime now. However, I still didn't want to sit around and read passages and everything (my stereotype, sorry). I thought it would be what I call uber-Christian and not what I really wanted to get into. I still went though because I'll try just about anything. I was incredibly relieved when I discovered that many of the people there had the same frustrations I have about church and religion. The basis of the group was to introduce a Missio Community. I'm still in the research phases, but one of the main things about a Missio Community is community itself. Its having a group of people who will help you out, share ideas with you and just be there for you when you need it. Its about sharing our passions in life and bringing people together in various ways. I'm very excited for this new opportunity and phase of my life because like I said, I have been grappling with ideas of faith and religion. I don't want to step overboard just yet, but I do believe that God has been more prevalent in my life than I'd like to admit. This is new, uncharted territory for me and I can't wait to learn more about this and also become part of something I truly believe in.