So school ended here back in mid-December. The school year here goes with the calendar year: early February to middle of December. Between that time there's "summer" break (though don't be fooled, up here in the mountains, it's anything but summer during that time). Ben, Frances, and I all went back to the US for the holidays. So before we left we did team evaluations. Personally, I feel like things like team evaluations can either go really horribly or really well. Praise God, they went really well. We each evaluated ourselves and each other and answered some questions about the past year. Then we went down to the city to get out of the cold and talk about them. Most of the time we sat on the side of the road overlooking the valley and discussing the evaluations. We each had a chance to ask any questions about the evaluations others did on us. I have a tendency to get defensive and I'm very aware of that. So I decided instead of getting defensive to ask the same basic question for any of the areas that I was scored lower on: What are some ways I can improve in this area? It turned out to be a really encouraging time. I felt honestly cared about and appreciated. I was encouraged to be more open with my team and lean on them more for support. It hadn't been an easy year, but God used this time to draw us together as a team and love on each other through constructive criticism and affirmation.
We also took time to write down the many miracles God performed this year and the many ways He pulled through. You can check that out here. It's definitely important to have time to reflect. Having that time made coming back after a great time in the States easier.
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| Our Christmas tree |
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| Christmas Eve with my favorite people :) |
I then went back to the US for about 3 weeks around Christmas and New Year's. The very first weekend, I got to celebrate a winter wedding in Blacksburg with my MC friends. I then spent a week helping my clean the house and set up for Christmas. You should have seen us as we picked out a 10 ft Christmas tree and then somehow carried it up the stairs in our house just the two of us and laughing so hard. My dad called and was leaving a voicemail on the home phone when we were midway up the stairs. I'm surprised we didn't break anything! Kirsten then came home and we got to spend lots of time together. It was a great Christmas with family and also my friend Kathy spent it with us (taking Nicole's place, though don't tell Nicole that). Throughout the holidays I was able to spend a lot of time with so many of my great and faithful friends from home. I even was able to spend New Year's in DC with some of my best friends from Tech even though we're now all scattered.
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| New Year's Eve hike with my Hokies |
On the 2nd of January, I came back here to Costa Rica to prepare for the group from my old high school (DCCS) to come do a Spanish immersion trip here. You can read all about that in the blog I wrote for our ADE blog.
Since then we've been preparing for the start of the new school year and settling back in here. As you may have hear, our house got broken into while we were all back in the US. After many hours of cleaning it looks better than before (minus the money and few other things unfortunately stolen). We found out through all the cleaning that the robbers left some of my stuff (from upstairs) in Frances and Ben's room (downstairs), like a cheap necklace and the little remote for my ipod player. But that's not the strangest part...they also left a pocket knife, a set of keys, and a shirt in Frances and Ben's room. So weird. We're trying to find the owners to the keys now.
Anyway, the school year is about to start. We've been busy with meetings and working on hiring new teachers. If you think of it, pray we get some great new teachers for this year and money to pay them. God is good and faithful. I'm excited to see the many ways He will display that this new year!
