What am I up to these days? My June punch-list:

• Watch over 12 staff budgets, my Area Office budget and 7 school accounts as we head to Fiscal Year End.
• Interview 5 staff about things happening at their school related to evangelism/outreach.
• Make video recordings of as many interviews as I can using zoom!
• Hung out with my Regional Leadership team in Atlanta writing a new Strategic Ministry Plan for the next two years.
• Waiting on our 4th grand-child to be born (due middle of July). You can make it, Phoebe!
• Writing up my year-end ministry review (9 pages, micro-dinky font).
• Reading each year-end review my staff are required to write (and conducting performance reviews with them).
• Fasting and praying one day a week for people and situations that need urgent provision.
• Working through the book of Micah in a MSS study. A little more time for reading and researching.
• Hosting our local GCF brunch – Belgian waffles and the Sermon on the Mount!
• Repainting the floors in my office and reorganizing my work space.
• Checking in with friends and ministry partners. Agonizing in prayer for many with life threatening illness.
• As always, messing around with photography. I just discovered how to make stickers from pictures I take on my phone.
• And … I learned that the Icelandic word for Oak-leaf is Eikerlauf! (aykerloof)

If reading this list wears you out, know that I feel wiped out writing it! And June is only 2/3rds the way over. Let me kill this post by saying again how grateful I am for my ministry partners. I was commiserating with a fellow former church employee just yesterday. “When you do this InterVarsity thing, Robert, you get to pick who’s on your team and forget about everyone else.” I told him I have the best friends, family and supporters a person could EVER want in ministry. That means YOU (if you’re reading this). Thank you for supporting me, praying for me and my family, encouraging me and making my life rich in relationships. I genuinely do feel like the richest person around!

Blessings, joy and peace to you. Enjoy your summer! I hope to show you more grand-baby pics perhaps the next time you hear from me.