One Month

Four weeks ago last night, we drove into Grabill for the beginning of our brand new adventure.

Four weeks ago today, we got up and headed to our first day of training.

And in those four weeks, we've learned a lot of information, met a host of new people, visited a variety of places, and begun to find our place here in this new-to-us town.

We've gotten a lot of texts, emails, and calls from people asking how it's going, so I thought I would give a quick update! I'll try to hit the questions we've had the most.

* How is life in an apartment? It's new! I lived in an apartment (in a huge old house that had been broken up into three apartments) with a handful of friends for about two months after college, and other than that, neither of us have experienced apartment life before. So far, we don't mind it. The walls aren't paper thin, but we can hear things around us. Between our white noise machines and the TV, most of it just sort of runs into the background or we ignore it. (Back in Kokomo, we had a neighbor who had all her phone conversations on speaker in her yard, and the way her house sat in conjunction to ours made it feel like she sat inside our living room, so we're used to residual noise.)

* Are you still in training? Officially, no. Unofficially, until forever. Our classroom training lasted a week, and then we had a couple of weeks of hands-on training in our building, and those dedicated training seasons are done. But we have so much to learn. (True of all jobs, right?) Every single day here is different, so every single day gives us an opportunity to learn new things and ask lots of questions. We have really patient co-workers who explain anything we ask and offer so much insight. They've been here about a year, so they remember what it was like to learn, too!

* Do you still like working together? Absolutely. We love it and say so out loud just about every day. We are both finding our groove with individual strengths. Ryan works more on the building itself - and he does a great job establishing relationships with the guys, and I work more on the creative/administrative tasks and try to find ways to engage with the girls. But Ryan and I love being in the same work space and seeing each other all the time.

* Are you unpacked? Not fully - but almost. We have everything unpacked except our home office. Since most of the boxes in there contain books, we need to get the bookshelves put together so we can put the books on them! We also haven't put anything up on the walls, so even the unpacked rooms feel a little unfinished. Once we get it all put together, we'll show you what it looks like! (Working full time while unpacking has slowed us down on the settling in.) I think we have kind of an unofficial goal of being done with it by the end of August.

* How big is your apartment? We don't know! In terms of square feet, I mean. It is a three bedroom, two bathroom apartment, and as apartments go, it's pretty big. But Rob couldn't find anything that gave the square footage of it. We were able to keep most of the things we had in Kokomo, but we did have to get rid of just a few. (We're also sharing a few of our things with WillowBridge - like porch furniture and entryway decor.)

* What is a typical day like? Different from the one before. :) We have some tasks that we do fairly regularly, but every single day has a different look to it. Sometimes we're driving our tenants to work/school/appointments, sometimes we're working in the office, sometime we're in meetings, sometimes we're working on the building itself, sometimes we're hanging out with our tenants (games, meals, movies, conversation, etc.), and sometimes we're planning for the future! Truly though, the days are never alike.

* Are you glad you moved? Without a doubt. God directed us here, so living in obedience to Him is the best. We enjoy life in Grabill, we love being part of the work of Gateway Woods/WillowBridge, and we especially enjoy working together. Though it's been a ton of learning and some moments that haven't been super easy, yes, oh yes! We are so glad we said yes!

* What are you doing, again? We know some of you are still not totally clear on what we're doing. We're working with young adults who have aged out of foster care and are learning the skills they need to be successful in life. This short video explains its mission, if you'd like to see it!