Happy Fall everyone!
Here in St. Louis, we are so happy to be feeling the cool
fall weather, although it’s seemed to almost go from summer to winter in a
week! Compared to last year, it stayed hot longer this year, so it was nice to
get a cool down. We especially like it because it means we can stop using the
air conditioning and save money on our electric bill! So here I am on October 4th,
sitting in warm socks, long pants, and a sweatshirt, because it’s been overcast
and under 70 degrees all weekend. It all brings back lots of flashbacks from
last winter. Although the prospect of another long winter is a little daunting,
it’s important to remember the exciting things that come with this time of
year: the holidays, the fall colors, cool afternoon walks, and of course,
delicious treats involving pumpkin and candy corn! This year, we get to throw a
visit to California into the mix!
Life is back in full swing again for the both of us.
September included a number of evening meetings, weekend events, and of course,
the usual work for me and homework and school for Nick. Nick is really enjoying
his classes this quarter. He is especially enjoying his Homiletics 2 class, in
which he is learning more about the art of preaching and delivering sermons. He
will get the opportunity to preach several times at Our Savior this year. Nick
continues his job as a supervisor in the mailroom on campus, as well as his
other odd jobs helping out around campus. He goes to campus each day and stays
on campus the whole day, riding his bike back and forth right now while the
weather is still nice.
My month in the classroom has been a month of adjustment and
learning. As I look back on pictures from the beginning of the school year, I
see how much my students have already grown, and that is so encouraging! This
month included one day off to go to a professional development seminar called
“Teach Like a Pirate.” The speaker and author, Dave Burgess, was really
inspiring and helpful! It also included our first class field trip of the year,
to a fun place in St. Louis called The Magic House, which is essentially a
children’s museum, but probably the coolest children’s museum I’ve ever been
to. It was a fun experience for me and for the students!
Together, we have been working hard toward our training
goals for our half marathon this month. Well, really, this month was just a
“Let’s see if we can actually run and train!” And it turns out we can! After
deciding at the beginning of September to work toward the goal of a
half-marathon, we signed up for a 5K and a 10K and wrote out a training plan
for the 10K. We ran the 5K last Sunday in Forest Park. It was a nice, cool
morning, but still humid, which was a bit bothersome. It was a fun event, and,
running the whole race together, we ended up finishing around 25:00, which is
the best time we’ve run since we started training a month ago. He finished 11th
in his age category (males ages 21-29 or somewhere around there), and I
finished 5th in my age category for females. Now we are working
toward a 10K trail race on November 7th, which we are really looking
forward to. It will be a new experience for both of us! We have also officially
registered for the half-marathon in April, so we are fully committed and
enjoying working towards this goal together.
Another September event was our first vicarage preparation
meeting! This begins the year-long process of meetings, interviews, and then
the worst…waiting. The first meeting was a pretty basic informational meeting,
mostly comprised of information that we have already acquired through our
friends who went through this process last year. But it was good to go and get
to know the professor who’s in charge of assigning vicarages, and to be in a
room with all the other people who will be going through the process with us.
Our next meeting is this upcoming week, and this meeting is the one in which we
will be given information about the interviews, and the things that we will
have to think about and decide our preferences for when he is assigning the
vicarages. We would really appreciate prayers for wisdom and patience as we go
through this process!
We thank you all again for all the support and prayers! We
are so appreciative of the financial blessings that we receive – it is so
comforting for us to know that we are not going in more debt during this time
in seminary, and that we are actually able to be aggressive in paying off our
current loans! We have received an extra blessing in that the Food Bank at the
seminary has announced that everyone will be able to shop twice each month
throughout this school year, rather than once a month that we did last year.
This is an extra blessing and we are very excited! God constantly provides for
our needs.
In the name of Christ our Savior,
Nick and Mikaela Duerr
