Update from prayer requests

My cousin's baby finally got to come home today. She is a week old and adorable. I hope they are enjoying their first night at home as a family of three. I can only imagine what an incredible feeling that must be.

And...I took the job! I was concerned about the time commitment before Ryan left but it turns out we get to choose what clients we take on and the hours are fairly flexible. Some clients may need only 4 hours a month where others may need 30. Even then you work with the family to decide which nights and weekends so that is nice. The pay is way better than I thought it would be and it just sounds like a really great opportunity. It's a new program that was just starting when I was finishing up my internship with this therapeutic foster care agency last year. They offer home based mentoring, counseling support, and family visitation supervision to varying degrees. Each client has different needs for services and different treatment goals so those are all disclosed before I would take on a case. There is the possibility of my running some social skills groups which I have enjoyed at my internship this year and the mentor position comes with a stipend for taking the kids to do fun things. I think it's fantastic to see the agency stepping up to the call to provide more in home support to offer the kids the best chances possible of staying with their families. In the cases of supervising family visits it sounds like it is mostly observing how things are going and taking advantage of teaching moments when appropriate. All case notes are court records for those and I might have to testify in court depending on the case but even that would be an interesting experience.

Overall, I just feel really fortunate to have something other than babysitting and cards to help pay off all of our bills. Everyone on the team has a full time job or in my case, full time school/internship and they find it manageable/worthwhile to do this so I am excited to be on board and I hope to keep up with it after I start working. I'm not sure when exactly I'll start but I have a lot of paperwork to fill out and a few things to make sure I am up to date on.

On another note, my first dual degree class was definitely worth the drive to Richmond. I am really encouraged by others who have felt called to pursue both degrees and by the discussion that we had today about integrating the two fields and the challenges we face by wearing both hats. I love how the professor put it: "you are called and privileged by God in a peculiar way." We are the minority in both fields and yet the two fields need each other and feed into each other so well.

Back to making some cards and finishing a paper. Here's to hoping the kids are good for me tomorrow.

Here is a picture of Laura with her finished wedding invitations: