You may not have heard much from us but we’re still here and going. How about we catch you up?
If you haven’t caught any of our recent updates in our Ministry Group on Facebook, it looks like we dropped off the map. But that’s not the case. We’ve stayed busy as ever.
August 2021-December 2021
When we last updated you via email, Joel was about to spend a week in Missouri at the Ethnos360 Training Center for a video shoot. The time there was a huge success too! Technically and personally, it went smoothly and gave Joel the chance to record a very important introductory course on the topic of learning about the culture of another person or people group. It was genuinely fun for him to shoot with three different instructors in a studio environment as well as the chance to shoot instructor intro videos in various outdoor locations at the campus there.
On the other hand, the “Potter Equilibrium” was rocked while he was gone and we experienced a challenge with Owen’s experience at his new-for-9th-grade school. While Joel was in MO we decided to enroll him at the same school as Jack has been at for the last three years. That made the overall trip a tough one, but the Lord saw us through it and we’re happy to share that Owen is at home in this new environment. Both boys attend classes on campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then work on the homework assigned for their classes the other three weekdays. While we’re content with this, it does require Bethany and I both to be much more involved in Owen’s education throughout the week. And let me tell you what! We are not enjoying the math side of that 😂.
As we progressed through the rest of the Fall and into Winter, we had the chance to take a couple of fun personal trips with the kids and Joel (Bethany’s Mom Lynn is getting to the point where her Alzheimer’s Disease necessitates traveling less. More on how that’s going later in this edition). And while the trip to MO went as well as it did, with there being more education needs (and shuttling to various places during the week) as well as Lynn’s care, we decided for Joel to not travel if at all possible for the remaining video shoots. So, with space reserved at the Ethnos360 Home Office, we made our way through another three video shoots for courses. And in one case, due to sickness, Bethany completely handled the video shoot.
And in between all of that, lots of life took place. We had holidays with family, minor crises’ in the world of middle-school politics 😉 and we also began to gather weekly with a house church. Let me say how much of a blessing, getting to know those folks, has been! God graciously put some new friends into our lives at just the right time and it’s rewarding to reframe our understanding of how a local church carries out the mandate to be the Body of Christ to one another.
Stay tuned for the next post on what’s happened so far this year and what we are possibly looking at further down the road.