Where’s Emily Now?

(This post was intended for Sunday, May 31, but something happened, so here it is, late but here.)

The answer to that question is quite complex…and very exciting, if I do say so myself.

Maybe I should start with where Emily has been recently…

The first full week of May, I finished up my second semester at Moody Bible Institute. It was an intense ending to an already very full semester, so as much as I loved my classes, I was glad for the academic part to be on break. I still had one more week on campus before I left Chicago for the summer; this week was full of cramming in all the activities we’d been too busy to do during the semester, some tearful goodbyes and of course—work. Oh, and the one thing I forgot to mention because it didn’t get done until the very end of the week was packing! Who wants to participate in depressing packing when there is so much fun to be had? So most of my packing was saved until the end of the week, and how wonderful to have that pressure on me when unbenouncedto me, I was getting a lovely case of the flu.

My last night in my apartment (and the official packing hurricane day), one of my good friends from Indiana braved the disaster area and stayed the night with me. It was really fun to see her, but she had no idea that she had signed up to stay in the jungle for the night. It took very creative choreography to move anywhere in the apartment that day, but she was such a good sport. Though she had graduated in December, she got to walk the next day…congrats, sweet friend!

After my moving escapade, I went to my parents’ home in Northern Indiana to enjoy a little TLC as I was mothered and nursed back to a state of semi-health. Once I began to feel myself again, I headed down to San Antonio to see some very special people. My grandparents still live there, and my grandmother was retiring from her job, so I was invited to come down for the festivities. I went a little early so that I could see some of my wonderful friends that had been such a wonderful part of my life for the five years I had there before coming to Moody. I had not seen them since last August, so my dilemma was so many people and so few hours!

I tried to connect with people at both of my former workplaces and had the opportunity to see some of my friends from church on Sunday. I also was blessed to have a friend from out of town come down to see San Antonio and Texas for the first time. We taught together last summer in China and it was fun to play tourist and see all the exciting places in Downtown SA. We also made it to my favorite restaurant twice for my favorite tortillas and queso…ah, life was good. My grandmother’s party went very well with more exciting reunions and lots of memories to recall, along with amazing food. A large portion of my mom’s side of the family was there for the party, and it was wonderful to spend some time with them. The trip was really too short, but we had other plans that needed attention back in Indiana.

The day after the party, my parents and I (along with an uncle and aunt) took the ungodly 5:30am flight out of San Antonio to get back up to Indiana. The next three days were a whirlwind of planning and preparing things for my brother’s graduation ceremony on Friday and his open house on Saturday. A change of plans caused us to move the time of the party from Saturday afternoon to evening, and God worked in amazing ways to get all that taken care of. We had a wonderful turnout and my very social graduate brother seemed very pleased (so did the graduate parents, which is equally important).

My job was to get the photos of Caleb’s life ready for everyone to see, which was no easy task. The child went through a phase in life (long phase) when he was stop what he was doing and say, “Mom, I’m being cute, take me picture!” And how can you resist that, since usually what he was doing was pretty darn cute? Not only that, but he has played baseball, soccer and basketball since he was very little, so he has so many sports pictures, it’s not even funny. So we sorted through hundreds of photos to find the most memorable and adorable Leb Moments to share with the masses. We ended up doing a photo album with all of his sports pictures in it, and then a display board with all the other photos, with family, friends, and random pictures of Caleb’s craziness. It was a blast.

So finally, after all that has been done (and I’m exhausted) it’s not time to pack and finish preparations for my trip to Ukraine—we are at T-3 days! I’m very not ready, but finally I can focus on being excited! I need to see a few more people before I leave, and I’ll need to do some serious rechecking to make sure that I’m not forgetting anything. It’s very strange for me not to be 90% packed a week before I leave for a trip…yes, I’ve been told that I’m unusual before. But that’s on the task list for now.

So, where is Emily? Currently, in Northern Indiana…but not for long…