Almost Home...

Well, as I write this (i know it's been quite some time...sorry!) i have just finished cooking my THIRD Old Fashion Cream Pie since being here in Fresno. HAHA! COSA is having a "Thanksmas" (get it? b/w Thanksgiving and Christmas?:) party tonight and I had to make a pie and a hash brown potato casserole. Also, I only have 5 more days until I come home! I have never been so excited to come back to Lima! I am so looking forward to spending time with everyone! The Christmas season has not been the same here in California...partly because of the lack of snow...but I have been faithfully listening to holiday music since the 1st of November! :)
Life has been VERY busy this month with COSA, church and just other MVS stuff. At COSA, we are getting 3 new circles together which is very exciting but very stressful at the same time. Since we work with volunteers only, it is very difficult to find 4-5 people that can meet at the same time every week for an hour and a half. It is also hard to find volunteers in general. 3 new circles means 12-15 new volunteers which is quite a lot! That is something Clare Ann and I are working on...volunteer recruitment. This week, I have been using Clare Ann's car to take one of our core members to work in Kingsburg (25 minutes away from Fresno) every morning before I go into the office or to circles. It has been such an amazing transformation in his circle as he has been looking for a job for about 5 months with no luck! Our circle has been working very hard to work on that and with the right connections and knowing that the core members has had past truck driving experience we were able to make trucking school happen for him AND get a job aligned with a friend of Clare Ann's who has a heart for parolees...especially se offenders. We were able to raise $1000 from the local Menno and MB churches and pay his trucking school in full which puts in a very good name for COSA, that we are reliable. Maybe we will be able to call on that school for other core members in the future?
Also at work, we celebrated 2 core members one year COSA anniversaries and 1 core members 1 year anniversary of being out of prison. He has been in prison since he graduated from high school and this is so great to celebrate! So COSA has been very fulfilling this season. I am ready for a break though! Going to Vegas for Thanksgiving was wonderful, but jam packed with things to do so I am ready to sit on the couch for a couple days! hehe. It was such great fun to visit not only Danielle and Mark, but have our friend Ashley there from Virginia! It was such a special Thanksgiving...I will never forget it. I will post some pictures up here from Thanksgiving in Vegas and from our MVS unit after we decorated it. Daniella would not let me get a real tree because she says that is so wrong and she would be very upset with me if i got a real tree. I tried to explain to her that have Christmas tree farms specifically to cut down the tree and then they plant a new one. It's not like they are cutting down part of the rainforest! But we found a fake 4 foot tall tree in the closet so I put that up. It was so much fun to put up and decorate Danielle and Mark's tree in Vegas too!
Well, I know I will have so many stories to tell when I come home so be ready! :) I miss you all so much and have been counting the days down for quite some time with the fam in Lima. I have also been missing my North Carolina family a lot this season as I spent it with many of them on Martha's Vineyard last year. I was able to connect with two of the staff members from Martha's Vineyard who had the little girl Olivia and just had another baby! Brett and Liz are their names and Brett just got a job as an english prof at Mt. Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio. It was great to talk to them! I have been listening to a lot of new music and have ound so many new artists that I am enjoying for the first time! It's so refreshing.
Speaking of music, I have been playing my violin the past couple Sundays at church and I am singing special music on Sunday with a men's group which is fun. I have been going to Mennonite Community (our church here in Frenso) after work sometimes to just play the piano to relax and that has been a comfort to me lately. (I have a key to church because many of our circles meet there.) I just started writing another song and that has been quite therapeutic also. Anyways, I think that is all I have for now. See you all sooN!



Peace and Love!
jor