Post #200

Well its been a while a lot of stuff has happened in the mean time but it has been a good time.. nerve racking at times but really good overall.


I am feeling pretty good having a 3 days away with Catie up north in Alpena for the 4th of July. The time away with Catie was cool and really nice and really needed... Alpena was a bit... dull. But it didn't matter much Catie and I just enjoyed each other without kids. We even got a chance to go running together when we got home (before Catie's mom brought the kids back to our house). I loved the time away... I was ready to have my kids back by the time they were dropped off BUT the feelings were a bit mixed :)

So what else has been going on you might ask? Well here it all is in a nut shell


As of last Thursday I had my last day at Menards. I was excited but nervous because I was quitting for sure hours for something less stable... well kind of...

The less stable job is working for the summer/early fall with a friend (Brian Woltuis) doing construction/contract work. He has a lot of it and we had been talking about it for a while and he asked if I wanted to do some work. BUT that work is just the back side of what I am doing with Brian.

About 5-7 years ago Brian started a non-profit in his neighborhood (on 16th street) that was focused on meeting people and uniting people and the city neighborhood... in a very organic way... one on one relationships to try and make a solid impact in people's lives. He began planning to do this through his barn he has behind his house (he actually has a double lot in the city with a good sized barn behind his house). He has been working on his barn for about 5 years and with the help of others has transformed a dirty falling apart barn into a very usable space that has a small library, art studio, woodshop, meeting room area, kitchen, computer lab (soon to be), 2 sets of washers and dryers and a bathroom with a shower. It is made for people in the neighborhood that need a place to hangout and learn and a place to just connect to one another.

For about 9 months I have been bugging Brian about the posibilty of doing Americorps with him and his non-profit. Americorps is a government funded program that has "volunteers" (who receive a living stipen, insurance and scholarship money) who work in selected areas (usually with non-profits) working in areas of need (full-time is about 34 hrs a week with no vacation time.. if you take time off you work more hours per week). There are tons of different areas to work in but I have been looking in community service areas in Americorps for about a year now. Anyways, finally after 9 months Brian and I got together and started to really talk about Americorps and working with his non-profit. I was just really interested in what he is doing and I really have a heart for people but don't feel like I need to be in the church arena at the time so this seemed to be a perfect fit.

God really lined this whole thing up amazingly, better than Brian or I could have if we tried. When I first started asking Brian about Americorps he wasn't sure if it would work or how to go about getting that done. We didn't know who to talk to or if it was even possible to try and work out. But while months ticked by Brian met a head Americorps leader who actually lives down 18th street (like 2 blocks from me). He is head of 50-60 Americorps member from California to Michigan and is one of the decision makers as to where Americorps members are placed. Now the best thing about this guy is that he has a huge heart for what Brian is doing and actually specifically moved from the north side of Holland (and a nice house) to live in the neighbor"hood" of Holland because he wanted to really connect with people (he is also the head of a RCA community building organization).

So anyways, Brian has been meeting with this guy (Jay) in the last 4 months started talking to him and meeting with other head people in Americorps about setting everything up and it is about 90% sure than Oct 1st I will be doing Americorps in my neighborhood. This entails me just getting to know people in the neighborhood, connecting neighbors with neighbors, finding out what people want out of their neighborhood, setting up community projects, and working with Brian's non-profit (3sixty) doing whatever he needs me to do. I am really pumped. One of the requirements for for the job is be talking with people from the neighborhood 50% of the time I am on the clock... and I thought... "perfect, I could talk with people 80% of the time".

So it seems God is working everything out. Money will still be tight but I believe everything will work out. (Yet, I still tend to worry... I hate worrying) Next we need to find a babysitter for about 1 day a week... we for someone for most of the days so we will be ok... hopefully :)

That is most of what has been going on. I will give more details in days to come.


Josh