Wool in June

I've coined a new term: seasonal dissonance--the uncomfortable feeling caused by the lack of agreement between the season I'm experiencing and the season I associate with this month.

June was always one of my favorite times of year. The school year was over and the long, sunny, days of summer stretched out in front of me.

Today it's drizzling and in the 40's. The sun rose at 8 am and set before 6 pm. Not too bad for the end of November, but odd for the end of May.

Yesterday we listened to Vince Guaraldi's music from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Perfect for the weather but Christmas isn't just around the corner. In fact C.S. Lewis might have had Argentina in mind when he wrote about a land where it was "always winter and never Christmas."

It's going to be disconcerting to wear wool in June, but I look forward to pulling out my flip-flops in November.

Stampede

In the first 3 weeks since we opened registration, 352 youth leaders have already applied to attend the youth workers institute, and we receive more each day. Classes begin in August.

After more than 2 years of working with the team that will be opening campuses in Argentina and Guatemala, it feels good to receive such a enthusiastic response from Latin American youth leaders. Classes don't begin until August and every day we receive new applications. Each campus only has space for 50 to 80 students, so as part of the selection process every potential student must be interviewed personally.

Annette and I have 100 people to interview over the next 30 days... and if the 6 people we interviewed on Thursday are representative, it will be tough to select only 1 out of every 2.5 of them.

Time Lapse

Earlier this week we returned from a trip to the US which included our twice annual meeting with our OC team, the IMT (International Ministries Team), time with family and visits with individuals and a church who give to our work here in Argentina.

The trip was chock full of great things* but the most helpful was being with so many people who see our life in terms of years, not days. Each morning I have my list of things I want to accomplish and throughout the day I am frequently frustrated by how slowly I can check them off. For example, email feel like Hydra’s head: I finish off one and three more arrive in its place.

However when we gave our ministry report to our team, who hold us accountable for our goals and objectives, I saw that a lot has happened since we saw them last. Besides the web site, which continues to go strong, and personal mentoring, the EJ Institute for youth leaders has a director, a location, professors, a web site, on-line registration and we’re deep in the process of selecting our first group of students.

And over lunch at Bonita Springs Presbyterian Church, Paul Fahenstock reminded us that a few short years ago we didn’t know what we should do after finishing our project in Mexico.

It does feel like we’ve come a long way.