September RA social event

Another really good photo of my RA team!

front row: Kelly, Jenna, and Julie
back row: Jon, Bryce, Josh, me, and Ashley

Once a month I do a social event with my RA staff - partly because I really enjoy doing fun things with them and partly because it is a good way to model the community enhancing benefits of good programming on their floors. For September I decided to take them to Winona Lake, IN to a place called the Pottery Bayou. I had been there back in February with my friend Rebecca and really enjoyed it, so I decided to take my staff there for our first social event of the year.

Kelly, Jenna, and Ashley

I decided instead of letting them choose which piece of pottery they wanted to paint that we would each paint a dinner plate and that would be the plate we use all year for our weekly RA dinners. We had such a fun time! It was fun to see the creativity come out of each person - some were very symmetrical in their design while others were quite abstract and outside the box. Here are some photos. of the plates (they are supposed to be more vivid in their colors once the glaze is put on and they are fired in the oven)..

Jon, Bryce (the captain of our basketball team), and Josh's plates

Kelly, Ashley, and Jenna's plates

Julie and my plates

Back to school, grad school that is.

Some of you probably heard me talking this summer about how I had decided not to go back to the grad program at Huntington University. In the spring they restructured the grad school programs. The program that I was a part of was named "Discipling Ministries" and I had an emphasis in college student development. The restructured program, now named "Leadership Ministry," is more focused on church leadership and they have dropped all their courses that pertain to college students. I don't see myself working at a church, so I am currently looking for a different program - one that even if it doesn't focus on college students, will at least be a bit more focused on those of us who are involved in lay ministry or in a parachurch ministry. I had decided not to return to HU, but after reviewing things I decided to continue taking classes, but choosing ones that will help in my current position as an RD or are broad enough in scope to be transferable to another program

So, September 18 & 19 I spent my days in Huntington back at school. My course this semester is called "Conflict Management." The handbook describes the class as follows, "This course relates theory about interpersonal conflict to the life of the church and helps the students consider the personal, theological and organizational dynamics involved in healthy conflict management. Opportunity is given for students to encourage one another by exploring their real-life conflicts in cooperative problem-solving teams." It is a really good class! I enjoy the professor and like the people in my class, which makes the days go quickly even when the material is pretty intense and a lot of information to process. I think I will learn some good things in this class, and even if I don't drastically change how I deal with conflict, I will have a broader understanding of what is going on when conflict is in my life.

Celebrate Service Day

The last Wednesday of September we take the day off from classes here at GC and do service work in the community. We choose this date because it is right before the Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale and there is a good deal of work that we can do to help prepare for that event. For several years I have been the faculty person to go with a group to Pleasant View Mennonite Church where the group helps prepare things for that church's cookie booth for the Relief Sale. We spend the morning setting up tables, putting ingredient labels on plates, and packaging cookies. After lunch we spend a couple of hours decorating cookies for the sale. It's a fun day! :) Here are a few photos...

Here's the packaging assembly line hard at work!

These cookies were all decorated by our group, I made the rainbow one that says "Love", the butterfly, the tree, the sunshine, and the spiral design.

Someone made these boy & girl cookies decorated like Amish people that were absolutely adorable!

Here is the entire group - we are each holding our favorite cookie that we decorated.

September weekend off

My job requires me to be on call 24/7 for most of the school year. One break from that is the much anticipated "weekend off" each month. Each RD has 48 hours during which he/she can leave campus overnight, not answer any calls from GC people, and do whatever they want! One difficult thing about this is that to truly enjoy it you must actually stay somewhere other than your own home to enjoy the break - otherwise you hear the noise, are bothered by the phone and have people knocking on your door. This weekend was my weekend off and while I didn't travel far, I did get a nice break from work...

Friday afternoon/evening I went shopping in Mishawaka with a friend from church, Brenda Kaufman. We both have lost weight this year and were in need of a few new pieces for our wardrobe. I bought new jeans, new tennis shoes, 3 new jackets, some jewelry, and other assorted things. Here are some of my favorite purchases...

a new jacket/shirt/jewelry combo

my new tennis shoes

When we returned from Mishawaka I went out the Rissers place and stayed the night there. Saturday morning Deanna & I got up and went to Shipshewana for some shopping. For those of you who are not familiar with where I live it is about 20 - 30 minutes from a very large community of Amish people. The town of Shipshewana is a well known tourist area for those who are fascinated by the Amish. We've seen plenty of Amish in our lifetime, but do enjoy the slower pace of life, cute shops, and occassional bargains that can be found in Shipshewana!

Deanna and I getting back to our roots!

Deanna trying on a new hat for winter!

We ended our day at the Essenhaus in Middlebury. Again, for those of you who are not familiar with the area, the Essenhaus is a tourist attraction in Middlebury that has an Inn, an excellent restaurant, a bakery and several shops. We shopped in the shops, ate dinner at the restaraunt, and stayed overnight in the Inn. (Deanna had won a gift certificate for a free night's stay in the Inn from an alumni event at our high school - the owners are Bethany grads.) Denise joined us after dinner for the night which included swimming and a movie (Ratatouille).

My DELICIOUS dinner at the Essenhaus restaurant...turkey manhattan with cooked carrots!

Sunday we slept in a bit before checking out of the Inn and heading back to Goshen where we went out for lunch at El Camino and saw the movie "The Women" with some friends from GC -Nelda and Char. It was a wonderful and relaxing weekend away! :)

My beautiful door!

Each RA has to make name-tags, or door-tags as we call them, for each member of their floor. Some are ornate while others are really quite simple. Either way they add a bit of fun and personality to each floor. It has become a tradition over the years for them to make one for me too. So, this is a photo of what my office door looks like with all the door-tags...

Kratz/Miller Awesome Bonanza Palooza Day, Yo!

"Kratz/Miller Awesome Bonanza Palooza Day, Yo!" is the name of the event that my staff planned for Saturday, September 13th. We planned a slip-n-slide on the lawn during the afternoon with popsicles followed by a game of Walk-a-Mile to the college cabin where we'd have a BBQ with live music. Such great plans...unfortunately we didn't think of rain plans when we scheduled it!

I started getting worried looks on Friday afternoon as it had been drizzling most of the day. Around midnight I started getting emails asking if the event was still on. I kept holding out hope that a burst of sunny weather would break through, so I didn't respond. When my alarm went off on Saturday AM and I heard the rain pounding on my roof I knew I had to come up with a rain plan.

After consulting with some of my RAs, I sent out a dormwide email saying that the slip-n-slide was cancelled, the walk-a-mile game was a go - pending any last minute weather related deterrence, and that the BBQ was on rain or shine!

The event ended up being a blast despite the missed slip-n-slide opportunity! We had a little over 100 people end up at the cabin for our BBQ - some playing walk-a-mile to get there and others driving or riding their bikes. My staff worked so well together! And really did an awesome job making sure details got done AND making sure they mingled & had fun too!

RAs hard at work setting up chairs!

Jon cooking up the burgers.

Jenna and Kelly sharing the hot dog & veggie burger duty.

Jules & Ash looking beautiful as usual!

Here comes the walk-a-mile group!

The food line.

Live music with Scott.

More live music with M1 and friends.

The crowd enjoys the music.

Life is full

It's been another busy week here on campus. I started my "feeding rituals" this past week. The RDs here are encouraged to find ways of connecting with students that fit with each RDs personal gifts and talents. I, as you likely know, enjoy cooking and am pretty good at it! Lucky for me college students are good eaters! So, much of how I connect with students is over a shared food experience. Each Sunday I host or arrange hosts for the group of students that attend my church, I have my RA staff in each Sunday evening for a "family dinner" and business meeting, and I host "Supper at Susie's" for students that sign up to join me for dinner. It keeps me busy in the kitchen, but I connect with lots of different folks and I get to cook a lot...everybody wins! This week I hosted 25 students...not bad for my first week! :)

Friday evening was the other big event for the week - a memorial service for Deanne Binde, the GC student who was killed in an auto accident in May. I spent the day running errands getting ready for the various events of the weekend and didn't really prepare my heart for dealing with the memorial. It made for a difficult evening. We had a meaningful service in the college church with vibrant decorations that reminded us of Dee, music that was beautiful and gave glory to our God, and the sharing of stories that made us both laugh at the joy she brought to our lives and cry at the realization that we only have stories left. It was a bit like pulling the scab off the healing that had happened since her funeral and experiencing the mourning again in a new way. It was hard to participate in, but I am thankful that I did.

There was a brief reception with snacks after the memorial service. I was in charge of this portion of the evening. I had purchased all of the food and done much of the prep work. When Deanna (my friend and fellow GC employee) got off work she came over lend a hand. We ate a quick dinner of leftovers and then worked together for a bit until I had to leave to go to the memorial service. Deanna finished the food prep and set up the table area during the service. It was a huge blessing! I was thankful to be able to be there for the entire service and not worry about the details that still needed to be done because I knew she had it under control. When the service was over I went back and we worked together to keep the trays of food and punch bowl filled. It was good to work together.

I went to bed both physically and emotionally tired that night, but knew that God would give the rest I needed and the strength to keep moving forward the next day.

A few photos from Move In day

Here a few photos from move in day. More snapshots of my RA team...the people that I seems to be spending all my time with lately! :)

My girls...Kelly, Jenna, Jules, and Ashley

The whole gang! Wouldn't you want to live with these fun people?!

Silly self portrait - Jenna, me, and Ash

Papa John's for lunch fueled for the rest of the day!

Missing Chalex

For the past four years I worked with two other guys on the RD team here at GC - Chad and Alex. I referred to them as a pair much of the time and began using the affectionate term of "Chalex" when I referred to them together. This year Alex is leading our SST (Study Service Term) unit in Peru. I am thrilled that he and his wife are doing this - they are going to be wonderful leaders - but I am sad to see the end of Susie and Chalex. (I enjoy the new additions to our RD team and am confident that their gifts will take our program to the next level, so don't take my sadness as a reflection of the new team!) I just miss the familiar banter and the way we each knew the role we each were to fill in a given event. Alex has an ease and calm about him that always made our meetings a bit more relaxed, a quirky sense of humor that added plenty of laughs, and a welcoming personality that added joy to our daily life. I sure miss him, but am so thankful that he's doing good work for GC in Peru.

This is a photo that was taken the last time we all got together in July.

Susie & Chalex

Alex, me and Chad

Monday time with famly

Despite being very busy with the beginning of the year duties I did sneak off campus Monday morning to spend a couple hours with some of my family. My brother Jack was in town, so my mom made a big breakfast of biscuits n gravy with all the fixin's. There were about a third of us there for the meal - Mom, Mike, Jack and his two kids - Jake & Sarah, and my niece Megan with her two kids - Lily & Gavin. It was a relaxed time of eating delicious food, watching CNN coverage of Gustav and chatting. So fun! Here are a few photos...

Lily & Jake

Jack - not sure what he was doing!

Sarah

Gavin - isn't he beautiful?!

Some thoughts as I start a new school year...

This weekend the students moved back to campus. It's a wonderful time of the year! I am dog tired at the end of the day, but I so enjoy meeting the new people and accomplishing the task of getting everyone in and settled!

This weekend I met many concerned parents. I listened intently as they shared the special things I would need to know to help their child adjust, patted their backs as the tears came to their eyes when talking about leaving their child in our care, and laughed with them when they became exasperated with their young adult. I remember when I first began this position - I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of details that there were to care to. I am certain I did not make the parents feel more at ease about leaving the most precious piece of their heart in my care. I am thankful for the growth I have experienced in this role and all that I am able to offer them now.

On the flip side I'm not sure I made as great of an impression on my new students as I did when I first began. I am 7 years older than that first year (I'm nearly twice their age now) and am closer to the age of their parents than I am to theirs. I sometimes let that freak me out and chip away at my confidence. I am then reminded of the good work that I continue to do with students - usually through an encouraging word from one of them about the impact I've had on their college years. I consider it a great privilege to be in their lives.

My prayer as I head into a new year is not for popularity with students, nor is it for a year free of conflict. It's not for co-workers with whom I always see eye to eye or for students that always follow the rules. My prayer is that when we get to the end of May we all can look back and see growth in our lives and in those around us, that we learned more about the people that God wants us to be, and that we felt loved along the way.