Matt Update

I thought it was time to give a little update on Matt's activities. Let's see...where to start...pastor, student, tutor, professor...think Matt has enough jobs? Matt's internship at our church is almost over. He's winding down and getting ready to hand back the reigns to our pastor next week. It's been an incredible experience for him in so many ways. He's had great mentors along the way and we've been overwhelmed at how gracious and encouraging people in the congregation have been. It's been really wonderful to have his calling to ministry affirmed in such a huge way. He'll go back to "just" being the worship coordinator at church next week until a more permanent person is hired for the job. Matt did some Hebrew tutoring over the summer and will continue that during this school year as well. In addition to that, he is a TA (teacher's assistant) for one of the Greek profs at the seminary. That means he'll be grading papers, leading weekly Greek review sessions, and occasionally teaching Greek.
School started last week. Matt's taking Apologetics, NT Narratives, Psalms, and an advanced preaching class. The seminary has changed to a semester system this year, so we'll see how it goes to have 12 weeks of class instead of 9. So far, he's enjoying his classes and hasn't been too overloaded with work yet. That will come I'm sure!
Matt's additional job this semester is as a Spanish prof at Calvin College. One of his former classmates (who graduated in May)had the job last year and had recommended Matt for it. They called at the end of the summer to ask Matt if he'd be interested. After getting all the paperwork in and going through a few interviews, he was offered the job. He's teaching one class of Spanish 201 this semester. He'll know in late October if the numbers are high enough for them to need him next semester.





I should have taken a picture of Matt's classroom to put in here, too. When we stopped in one day before school started Anna asked, "Is this where Papi is going to preach to the kids?" She was a little confused. One other day we needed to leave a restaurant to drop Matt off at school for a meeting. I pulled up in front of the college library (close to his office) and Matt got out. As I was pulling away, she said, "This isn't Papi's school."

Yes, Anna and I do get to see Matt once in awhile. We're back to our schedule of going over to the seminary for lunch several times a week and make very good use of our time when Matt's home and able to be with us! It's hard to believe we're in the final year of our seminary experience. I'm sure this year will fly by! We don't know where we'll end up after graduation, but we know God is preparing a place for us while Matt--and Anna and I--are being prepared as well.