Happy Easter! With some happenings from February and March

Hello, friends and family! Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

It is 5:49 a.m. as I sit down to write this blog post, because, well, it’s Easter and my husband is a church worker. That meant a 4:30 wake up time so that he could be ready for the Sunrise Service. I chose to stay home from that service and take a bit more of a relaxed morning so that I could cook him breakfast, plus I’ll be at the next two services of the morning to sing with the choir. (Also because this year I actually have the option of staying home from Sunrise Service because we have two cars, unlike the last few years!).

I have to apologize for the lack of blog posts over the last few months. Our schedules have been incredibly full between two churches and family visits, taking up most of our weekend time (as in, there was not a single free weekend in February or March!). Although really, that’s not a great excuse, so again, I apologize.

I guess I will back up and start with February. One big, exciting thing that happened in February was the kick-off for the young adult ministry that Nick was in charge of starting at Immanuel. It is called Couples Date Night, and he invited all married couples of a young adult age to join and be a part of this ministry. It started with a kick-off event in which we all came together, got to know each other, ate dinner, and played games. Then, we were grouped into groups of 8 people (4 couples) and instructed to make plans to get together four times over the next few months. So that then kicked off a few months of Sunday night dinners every other week with the other couples we have been  grouped with, with each couple hosting a dinner. It has been a fun way to get to know other young couples in the church and spend time with them on a regular basis.

Nick standing by a fountain of hot springs water

Another big, exciting event in February was our trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas! We decided over Christmas break that we would challenge ourselves to visit each of Missouri’s 8 border states in the next year and a half that we are here in St. Louis. We began with Arkansas, because we needed to find a place with more temperate weather, since we were visiting over President’s Day weekend! Thankfully, we didn’t need to worry about that, and we had beautiful 70 degree weather the whole weekend. We went to Hot Springs, which is home to a national park and the site of a lot of old, historic bathhouses that were frequented back in the “age of leisure.” It was such an interesting place, as it was a mix of a national park, museums in old bathhouses, modern and functional bathhouses, and a downtown area with a night scene. We were able to get discounted tickets through our hotel to one of the bathhouses, botanical gardens, and an overlook tower that allowed us to see the whole area and learn more about its history. One night, we went to a brewery that brews their own beer using the hot springs water, which Nick enjoyed a lot. I unexpectedly enjoyed the botanical gardens a lot, as we got to get away from the downtown Hot Springs crowds and also enjoy spring blossoms that hadn’t yet appeared in our area in Missouri. A fun discovery was a cute little cupcake shop that has been featured on Cupcake Wars, called Fat Bottomed Girls Cupcakes. They were incredibly delicious! It was a fun getaway trip for the two of us in the midst of a lot of stressful events in our lives, and I thank God for the opportunity to travel and explore together. We are hoping to plan another weekend adventure sometime this summer to check off another border state!

Nick's flight of hot springs beer for tasting

February turned out to be a month of relief for both of us. We had been facing some stressors in our lives that had been hitting a peak right around the end of January and beginning of February, making for some very difficult days. Thankfully, God provided relief for us in different ways and through different people in our lives. I thank all of you for your constant prayers for us, because even without knowing the details of everything we face in our lives, you are helping more than you know, because we know that we are loved and being prayed for on a regular basis.

On to March! March of course, began the Lenten season (quite literally too, as Ash Wednesday was on March 1^st). This meant that Nick started preaching four times a month – he would take Sunday and Wednesday in a week, and then Pastor Bangert would preach both for the next week. It also meant that my schedule at Immanuel got a little crazier, as choir sings more often, plus we have to rehearse later with Lent services taking our normal Wednesday night rehearsal time, PLUS I decided to join a Bible study that meets before those services. But it is all a wonderful opportunity to be there and be in fellowship with the wonderful people at that church.

A fun event in March was a visit from my parents! They were able to visit over my spring break so that I wasn’t working all day during their visit, but we kept plenty busy! Between church and other church events, our tradition of going to tea, time at the Art Museum, and wine tasting at the nearby wineries, we were constantly busy and driving back and forth between St. Louis and Washington. I was especially thankful that my mom was here because she helped me figure out the sewing machine that I had gotten for Christmas, allowing me to finish some projects I’d had sitting around for a while. It was fun to be able to spend time with them and show them around our current home.

At High Tea with my mom on spring break!

Nick and I also both got the opportunity to do some learning this March! The first weekend in March is always an Early Childhood conference that I attend with other Lutheran educators from the area. It’s an all-day event on Saturday, which made for a long day, but it’s always fun to get together with other teachers, learn, and come away with new ideas and excitement. The following weekend, Nick had the opportunity to attend a workshop to teach him how to do pre-marital counseling at the Seminary. Our vicarage church is generous enough to send their vicar each year and pay for the cost, so Nick was able to benefit from this wonderful learning experience and he will take this into his ministry.

Aside from all this, and many other events thrown in there, we have been most fortunate and thankful for the time we get with friends and family that isn’t always noteworthy, but it is the most important. Whether over the phone or video chat or in person, we treasure that time, especially in these years of transition. We are thankful to have made new friends here at Immanuel and also to keep the friendships from Seminary, and the people that God has placed in our lives have given us so much love and support over the last few difficult months. Part of this has been that Nick has gotten to spend a good amount of time with his brother, Mark, over the last few months. Mark is in his last year at the seminary, and will be receiving his call in just a few weeks, and so Nick has appreciated the time they get to spend together playing and buying new board games. Nick is also blessed that one of the teachers at Immanuel can be a running buddy while we are here in Washington. Nick is just a few weeks away from his third half marathon, and I chose not to run this race with him for various reasons, which is hard for me, but I am so proud of him and how he has trained for this race. And as I said, he is blessed with someone who he can run with occasionally, even though I can’t. We know that God has put each of these people in our lives and we are thankful for the time we get with them, even when time seems to be running short.

We want to conclude by saying thank you again for being patient with us while we haven’t been posting as frequently as we should have been. And we also want to say thank you for all of your love and support. We appreciate not only your interest in our lives, but also your support and your prayers.

In the name of Christ our Savior,

Nicholas and Mikaela Duerr

Gettin’ back in the Swing of Things

January was a relatively calm month for Mikaela and I, so most of it doesn’t make for good novelization on a blog post, mainly because we spent the month going about our regular jobs without too much exciting going on. Mostly prep for stuff happening later. The month began with the close of Christmas break, when Mikaela had her last few days of freedom, or so it seemed. School began again for her on the 4^th, which meant her first week back was a half week. Her second week was supposed to be a full week, and then her third week began with Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, and so was supposed to be a day short. Except that is not how things happened. On Friday, the 13^th (yes, the irony is not lost on us; in fact, it was a full moon that evening too) after much anticipation that week, school was canceled because of a large ice storm. So on top of having a full four day weekend at home without obligations, other than church obviously, Mikaela’s first full week of school was the last week of January. Of course, after having a large ice storm but a week or two prior, we had such warm weather that I saw an ice cream truck drive by. So on top of having a wonky school schedule, the weather has been all over the place, and rather confusing.

One fun thing that happened was that Concordia Publishing House held an event discussing all of their VBS materials for this summer. Mikaela and I went with the group from Immanuel to see what was what. It was a fun morning of learning some of the dances and songs, acting out some of the stories, and experimenting with some of the crafts. It really whet our appetite for VBS this summer, and we are really excited to be a part of it. Later that evening, Mikaela went to a fundraiser at Our Savior to help put on the event. What was really fun about the fundraiser, though, was that as a part of the silent auction, each class creates some sort of project to sell, that all of the kids mark in some way. Well Mikaela got creative this year and instead of just buying a plate from a paint-your-own ceramics place and having the kids handprint it, she decided to get a little more constructive. She commissioned me to build an approximately two-by-three foot wooden frame for a chalkboard. When the frame was finished, the kids put their handprints on it and wrote their names, after which I attached the chalkboard to the frame. At the spaghetti dinner auction, it went for $275, so I was pretty proud of my work. (Though I do realize that the parents were bidding for the kids’ handprints and not for my moderate quality woodwork.)

And speaking of my moderate quality woodwork, I took some of my time off this month and decided to make some things for the house that Mikaela and I had wanted but had never purchased. So I set out to build a mail organizer to sort all of the mail that had been left on the counter. It took about a week, but at the end, I was able to hang it up in the living room and sort all of the mail, clearing it off of the counter. And while I could point out to you all of the places where things aren’t quite right, it has held up to a couple weeks of strenuous mail holding.

And finally, I want to talk about an upcoming event I am putting on and am really excited about. Part of what the seminary requires for vicarage is that I begin or expand a program at the church to further their evangelism efforts. Part of my expectations at Immanuel is that I would begin some sort of young adult ministry. So I decided to merge those two and begin an evangelistic young adult ministry. The first event will be held shortly, so I have begun to do a lot of the legwork for the event, making sure I have everything that I need, and that everything is ready to go. Hopefully next month’s blog post will be full of tales of success, but I guess I should wait until then to get too excited.

In any case, January has presented us with some unique challenges as well as some great times, but February looks like it will be quite the fun month. We already have something planned for every weekend, as well as for a significant number of weeknights, so hopefully next month’s blog post will be full of tales of our adventures. You’ll just have to wait until then to hear about them.

For now we want to say thank you to all of you who have been supporting us with your love and prayers. We can see God working in our lives, and while sometimes we aren’t happy with some of His decisions, we are glad to see that he has a plan which we are striving to follow. And we pray that He would work as clearly and lovingly in all of your lives as well.

In the name of Christ our Savior,

Nicholas and Mikaela Duerr

Holiday Happenings

Hello friends and family!

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy 2017! I have to apologize for the lack of blog posts recently – life here in Washington, MO has been busy and full! We have been kept busy with work, friends, and family, all of which are wonderful blessings!

November brought about our first major break of the school year at Thanksgiving. Although I had several days of professional development with my staff over the week of Thanksgiving vacation, those extra days off were extremely enjoyable, as our only break before that – Labor Day – was busy with my sister’s wedding in South Carolina. Even better was that the weekend before Thanksgiving break, I was able to fly home for a (very) short time to surprise my sister and be with my family for a glorious 36 hours! My mom gave me the gift of a plane ticket so that I could be home with my family for the secondary wedding reception for my sister (since they got married in South Carolina, most of our extended family was not able to attend). It made for a few late nights, but we packed those hours full with family time, including my almost 2-year-old niece, Teagann, and it was wonderful. Nick and I were both busy with church services on Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Eve – he was doing liturgy and I was singing in the choir – and were kindly invited to Thanksgiving dinner by a church family. We spent the day after Thanksgiving getting the house all ready for Christmas, which was so much fun! We put up all our decorations, bought a tree, and then watched the Washington Christmas Parade and Tree Lighting. Those few extra days made all the difference and allowed us to catch up on projects around the house and prepare for busy weeks ahead.

Getting our house ready for Christmas!

Ready for the Washington Christmas Parade

Coloring with my Teagann!

Another exciting November event was helping out with Immanuel’s Pork Sausage Supper. Most churches in the area put on a sausage dinner of some kind, but Immanuel’s was unlike one I’ve ever seen. Since it is a large church in an area full of small churches, their sausage dinner is very well attended by the church members and community – about 1,700 people are served over the course of the day. On top of that, for the majority of the day, they serve the meal restaurant-style by seating groups at tables and serving them. Nick and I worked a 3-hour shift at the dinner, and our job was to serve food to the tables and clear them when the people had finished eating. It was incredible to see the way that everything was run and how everything worked together like a well-oiled machine – it is obvious that they’ve been doing this for many years. It was so much fun to be a part of this huge event and get to know more people at church by volunteering alongside them. On top of that, all the food was incredibly delicious because it is all homemade, from the sausage to the applesauce. We even bought some to take home with us and eat for dinner!

After working at the Pork Sausage Supper

December kept us quite busy between all the events at our two churches. In a matter of one weekend, we attended a Christmas piano concert, I had my school’s Christmas service and dinner, and I attended an Advent by Candlelight event at Immanuel. We added on top of that Wednesday night Advent services for Nick, extra services and rehearsals for choir for me, and a very fun staff social night with the Immanuel staff that included an outrageous White Elephant gift exchange.

The highlight of the month was, of course, Christmas. It was fun to be living in a house in a cute little small town for Christmas. Nick and I were also very involved in Christmas services – me in choir, and he did liturgy on Christmas Eve and preached on Christmas morning. Unfortunately, Nick was sick for the whole week before Christmas, but he regained his voice just in time to preach! Christmas for us also included a visit from Nick’s family! Since this is most likely the last time the whole family will be able to be together on Christmas, his mom, dad, sister, and brother made a road trip out from California, and his older brother drove out to Washington from St. Louis, and they all came and made our house a little (or a lot) more cheerful, busy, and noisy for a week. We had so much fun with them here! We got to attend Christmas services, open presents, decorate cookies, eat good food, and play lots of games together, which was so much fun. We also took a few adventures into St. Louis, one day to St. Charles to take old time photos, and another day to go race go carts and see the Arch. It was a fun week full of wonderful family time, and we were sad to see them go, but we are thankful for the memories we made.

At the Arch with photobombing siblings!

We were able to take some time to ourselves in this busy time. One Saturday in December, we drove into St. Louis to see a movie (Rogue One, in case you’re interested) and go to Mauhaus, a new cat café that opened recently in Maplewood. Yes, you read that right! It’s a café where you get to buy food and drinks but most importantly, cuddle a bunch of cats! It was a fun date day for the two of us. We also went to see The Nutcracker right after my break started, which was Nick’s Christmas present to me, as I hadn’t seen this show in years, since I danced in it as a middle-schooler. It’s always nice for us to be able to get away and go on a date occasionally, and we love spending the time together.

Chilling with cats at Mauhaus

At the Nutcracker

One not-so-fun adventure this past month was when an ice storm hit unexpectedly on a Friday afternoon. It hit right around the time school got out, but no roads had been salted, so when I left school, the entire parking lot and my whole car were both iced over. The roads were incredibly slick, and I was nervous about driving home. However, both fortunately and unfortunately, there were several accidents on the highway I take home, so the stop-and-go traffic kept me going an extremely safe speed (almost non-existent), and I got home safely. On the unfortunate side, my normally 45-minute long commute took 3 hours that night. I’m thankful that I got home safely, and I had a full tank of gas and extra snacks in the car, but I am hoping that never happens again!

Now that we are a week into January, we are getting back into the swing of things – I’ve started back to school and Nick is finally just about better from being sick for the last few weeks. We are currently doing a second round of Whole 30, and so far it’s been a lot easier than the first time around! We’re excited to see what we learn this time and how we benefit from it.

Overall, we have had a good couple months, and we are looking forward to what the next few months have in store for us! We thank you again for your constant support and prayers as we continue this seminary journey.

In the name of Christ our Savior,

Nick and Mikaela Duerr

October: A race, a birthday, and student loans

Hello friends and family!

Mikaela here to tell you about our October! I know it’s only been a few weeks since our September post (we’ve been getting behind on our blog posts), but I’m going to try and get this one posted on time! October has been a wonderful month, filled with wonderful time with friends, wonderful weather, and some awesome accomplishments in our lives!

October is a wonderful month in St. Louis – the humidity goes away, the air is crisp, and the sunshine is pleasant rather than oppressive. October is also the season for Oktoberfests, sausage suppers, and races! One of the benefits of a semi-local vicarage is that we are able to attend some seminary events, so early in the month, we drove into St. Louis on a Friday evening and spent the evening at Oktoberfest eating brats, listening to polka music, and catching up with lots of friends who have returned from vicarage.  That same weekend, I got to spend time doing just about the same thing at Our Savior’s Fall Festival/Sausage Supper. We had the opportunity to spend time with some new friends from Immanuel, which is fun because we are getting to know the people of the congregation and making new friendships! This weekend, we drove into St. Louis again to go to a Halloween party at the house of some friends who are here on a local vicarage as well, and it was so wonderful and refreshing to spend time with them!

Halloween Party

Early morning trail run

We have loved taking advantage of the beautiful weather and the beneficial impact it has on our running! We spent one of our Saturday morning runs on the Katy Trail, running through farmland and enjoying the crisp air and sunshine. We also had fun running in a 5K that Immanuel’s 8^th graders put on as a fundraiser for their class trip. Being a small race, I placed first for overall women and Nick placed first in his age group for men (but that was by default since he was the only 20-29 year-old male to run the race). One of our big accomplishments this month was running our second half marathon! One of the fun parts about this race was that as a Halloween race, we of course had to dress up in costumes! This was also one of the challenging parts of the race, as finding a costume that is comfortable to run 13.1 miles in is not easy. We finally decided on costumes….three days before the race…and Nick spent all day Friday shopping for all the pieces of our costumes. In the end, it worked out great, and we were a comfortable Han Solo and Princess Leia for our second half marathon! The other important part of the race was our goal time – after running our last race in about 2 hours and 5 minutes, our goal was to complete this race in under 2 hours. As the weather got cooler, our times got faster, and we knew we were on track to meet our goal. On race day at the starting line, we made sure to move up closer to our pace group (the people running to meet close to our same goal time), since at our last race, we started so far back that we spent several miles weaving through and passing people. It was a beautiful day, not too cold and nice and sunny, and it ended up being a beautiful 13 miles to run. We got to run past the newly-renovated area around the Gateway Arch and other beautiful St. Louis landmarks. In the end, even after Nick battled an awful side cramp in mile 8, we crossed the finish line at 1 hour and 52 minutes! We were very happy and celebrated by eating a big breakfast and taking naps on the couch.

Immanuel's Dash to DC 5K

After our half marathon

Halloween half marathon costumes - Han Solo and Princess Leia

Another major accomplishment in our lives this month is that WE PAID OFF MY STUDENT LOANS!!!!! Yes, this deserves all caps! We made the first payment on my loans back in November 2014. These federal loans are on a 10 year repayment plan, and through budgeting, extra payments, and extreme generosity from churches and individual donors, we were able to make the final payment on my loans two weeks ago. This means that we paid off about $30,000 in loans in less than 2 years! We are so incredibly amazed at God’s blessings and provision in our lives and thankful for all the people who have given to us so generously. We are so excited to be free from this debt and we are excited for what it means in our lives. Now, we move on to paying off the loan we have on our car, and after that, to Nick’s student loans from his undergraduate degree. However, we did take a little bit of money to celebrate with a nice dinner out that night.

Our "We paid off my student loans" celebration dinner

On the work front, I am enjoying my time with my students. I got a new student in my class a few weeks ago, bringing my count up to 15 students, and we are constantly busy! Although it brings about the stress involved with teaching, working with Kindergarteners is a constant lesson in grace, and their love and willingness to forgive is such an amazing blessing to me. This month brought parent-teacher conferences, which, while they take extra time and writing report cards consumed me for a week, are also an amazing blessing. I love hearing what the students convey to parents and how the parents are seeing their learning and growth at home, and sometimes we just have lots of laughs at what their children say and do.

Nick has been enjoying life as Vicar. He got another chance to preach this month, and continues to assist in Sunday services, teach confirmation and Bible study, and go on visits to homebound members. He had to spend a week walking to work this month after a little trouble getting his car started, but thankfully after a few trips to the mechanic, it was a quick and inexpensive fix and he is back to driving to work again.

We have finished off October by celebrating my birthday today. We got to participate in a beautiful church service for Reformation Sunday this morning, with Nick leading liturgy and me singing in the choir. After church, we ate a delicious lunch on a rooftop patio right next to the river and picked up some local wine and homemade pie from local shops. The afternoon consisted of long naps with the fire going and lots of birthday wishes from friends and family! It was a perfect day and I am blessed and excited for what this next year of life will bring! 

Thank you again for all your love, support, and prayers. We are so blessed to be in this place with so much support and we constantly feel God’s blessings being showered upon us.

In the name of Christ our Savior,

Nick and Mikaela Duerr

Busy Schedules and Cool Weather

Hello!

Stirring apple butter

Our last update left off with Karina's wedding, but honestly, that was only the start of a long few weeks. After returning from the wedding, I had one day in the office to take care of business before I left with Immanuel's 7th grade class for their annual retreat. It was a fun but exhausting couple of days playing games, being very active, and most importantly understanding what it means to be claimed by Christ. Before we returned Pastor Bangert had left on a much needed week-and-a-half long vacation with his family, leaving me in charge of many more things than I am used to, including a hospital visit, as well as running Sunday services solo... two weeks in a row. During that time adult bible classes started, which meant I had to begin planning my 9-10 week study of the book of Revelation. And add to that doing devotions at several special events, confirmation, and calls throughout the week, it was rather tiring. But as exhausting as it was, it was also very rewarding to spend time doing what I enjoy, and having many opportunities to lead people in worship. After that things began to quiet down a bit, until Apple Butter, a school fundraiser, began. Apple Butter is a four-day endeavor in which 110 bushels of apples were turned into 204 gallons of apple butter that were then sold. The church was bustling with activity during those four days, and smelled delicious for quite a while after.

Throughout this time, Mikaela patiently put up with me, and continued teaching her large class of kindergartners. She really began to feel comfortable with the two big adjustments of the year, first having fourteen students rather than six was extremely challenging just because it was quite the growth in class size for her. The second change was having an aide who could help out with the students. Mikaela figured out how to divide the labor between the two of them so that they were being most efficient with their time and therefore best able to help their students. Not to mention that having an aide has afforded her more breaks, and has allowed one-on-one time with students, for things like assessments, to be handled in a better way. Now with a couple months under her belt, Mikaela has seen a lot of improvement in her class, not just with her own adjustments, but also with the student's adjustments to being in class full time. Overall, September has been a much better month than August.

One other exciting event in September was my mom flying out to visit us. She arrived shortly before the second weekend of preaching I had, and so was able to hear me preach and attend my Bible study. While she was here we were also able to go wine tasting at one of the local wineries, she was able to go with Mikaela to school one day, and she came in to work with me on another and helped core apples for Apple Butter. And on the Friday before she left Mikaela had a professional development event in Saint Louis, so we went in with her and spent the day around the city, going to chapel at the seminary with Mark, visiting the zoo, and, after picking up Mikaela, visiting a little specialty shop called Hot Box Cookies. It was an extremely fun week, and great to spend time with family.

Sunday afternoon date at a local winery

Mikaela and I have really been having a great time in Washington, living in a house, and enjoying the small town atmosphere. All of the little shops and restaurants give it a fun feel, and the people are always very friendly. We have been fortunate to have time to socialize with new friends at the church as well as old friends from the seminary. We have also been spending our time running and preparing for a second half marathon. We are enjoying the coming of cooler weather which allows us to enjoy our time outside.
But mostly we are enjoying having each other, and getting to continue our adventure together. 

One practical note to conclude, if you are interested in listening to any of my sermons, they are all posted online on Immanuel's web site. If you go to imlutheran.org, on the left side of the page it says, "Sermons Online." That link will pull up a good number of sermons, and mine are all the ones labeled "Vicar Nick."

In the name of Christ our Savior,

Nicholas and Mikaela Duerr

New Year, New Adventures

Hello friends and family!

Another month is over and we finally seem to be settling into routines here in our new life in Washington. Of course, I am currently writing this post from South Carolina, where we have spent the weekend for my sister Karina’s wedding! It has been a wonderful weekend getting to spend some amazing time with family, all together for the first time since our wedding two years ago. We’ve enjoyed making new friends and making sure that Karina and Hunter had an amazing and happy wedding! We sent the newlyweds off last night and now we are relaxing with the rest of my family until our flight back to St. Louis this evening. We love seeing how our niece Teagann is growing and we are having so much fun with her! It’s been a busy weekend, constantly on the move between bachelor and bachelorette parties, rehearsal, and the wedding, all in various locations in South Carolina. We were fortunate that the hurricane didn’t cause any damage here aside from a few delayed flights, and that the rain was all on Friday and we had a beautiful wedding day yesterday! We are tired but so, so happy.

August has been a pretty intense month for the both of us. The start of school and start of vicarage, along with moving and wedding preparations, have kept us both busy.

August 1^st brought the start of faculty meetings and home visits for me. I spent mornings in meetings, afternoons working in my classroom, and evenings driving around to the homes of my 14 students to visit them. It made for some very long days, but we were able to get some packing done in the midst of all that.

The next weekend was a frenzy of packing and moving preparations in our apartment. We carefully planned meals (as we were still on our Whole 30 diet) for moving days and worked to cook our food ahead so we could finish packing up the kitchen and everything else. Sunday and Monday, we packed and cleaned and prepped from morning til night. On Monday afternoon, we picked up the truck and began loading up our things with some help from some wonderful friends. Our biggest stress was the lack of space in the truck – we should have gotten a bigger truck – but knowing we would have to come back anyway to pick up the second car, we knew we could leave some things in the apartment. As a sort of Type A person, it was frustrating to me to not have everything done and neatly wrapped up when we left on Tuesday morning, but it all worked out just fine.

Moving day - in front of our new house!

 Tuesday morning, I was up at about 4:00 (there may have been some paranoia about our moving truck being stolen tied into that). Thankfully our moving truck was still there and so we hurried to eat, pack up my car, and clean, and then we were off to Washington! Some wonderful members of the church showed up to help us unload when we arrived in Washington, and with the help of 5 or 6 men, our moving truck was unloaded in a matter of 30 minutes. They even stayed around to help us get furniture assembled and placed correctly in the house, which was an enormous blessing. They also brought an entire pick up truck full of food for our pantry! So we spent a lot of time that day getting our basics unpacked – sheets on the bed, some dishes in the kitchen, and the tv hooked up, as well as unloading bags and bags of food into our pantry.

It was back to work for me the next day, and Nick began to go into the office as well to get acquainted with the space, unpack some books, and start some basic work. We slowly unpacked throughout the next few weeks, making our home more and more functional each day – getting the kitchen fully unpacked, getting clothes hung in the closet, and thanks to Nick, getting decorations on the walls. We are finally feeling mostly settled into our new house and we are loving it! Pictures will come soon. We are thoroughly enjoying the amount of space we have – there is so much space to spread out and it is so much less cramped than our apartment. (It also means that even if we make a mess, it’s not as big of a deal as it was in our apartment!) We are loving having the dishwasher to help with the work of washing dishes rather than doing them all by hand, and washing clothes in our washer and dryer without having to put quarters in (and we can also just put a load in in the morning and take it out in the afternoon when we come back from work which is a huge blessing!). We are absolutely enjoying the fact that we have a back patio to set up our grill and sit out and enjoy the occasional cool evening (we are hoping that we get more of those soon!). We also love the fact that everything is just 5 minutes away in Washington. There are some fantastic restaurants we are excited to try and we have been enjoying running around the city in the mornings.

We're enjoying using our grill on our back patio!

I have been adjusting to the long commute to and from Fenton each day, which has been just about a 40 minute drive each way. I found some podcasts to listen to in order to help pass the time. The long commutes make for some late evenings for me, especially with the extra work that the beginning of the school year brings. Nick has been an amazing life saver because once he gets home from work, he gets dinner started, so that it’s ready when I get home. That saves me a lot of time in the evenings when I get home. My school year has started out like most school years start – with a lot of work and a lot of exhaustion. I am finally adjusting to my class and I feel like my class is beginning to settle in and learn routines, which really makes the days easier. This year I have 14 students, which is over double my class size of 6 last year. It has been quite the adjustment to remember how long it takes to get things done with a large class, and I’ve been slowly remembering to pare down the amount of things I have planned and increase the amount of time to transition between activities throughout the day. That, along with the students’ increased abilities to listen and learn, has made things start to slowly get better and a bit less exhausting. I’m excited to get even more settled into routines so I can be a little less overwhelmed and get home a bit earlier.

Vicar Nick on his installation day

Nick has been thoroughly enjoying and thriving as Vicar Nick. He started out slowly, getting settled into his office and writing a sermon that he preached on August 20-21. Once school started, he began working with the 7^th grade religion class, getting to know them, because he is teaching them confirmation each week. He began teaching confirmation – to the 7^th graders during the day and to a group of public school church members during the evening. He has begun his nursing home calls and home visits to shut in members of the congregation, visiting with them. He assists with church services when he is not preaching, and he will be beginning to lead a weekly Sunday Bible study as well. He is gearing up for a busy month, with 2 preaching weekends in a row, the 7^th grade confirmation retreat this week, and the beginning of the Sunday morning Bible studies. He is enjoying the supervision of the pastor and the company of the other staff there at the church. He is so good at developing relationships with the church members and has already learned more names than I could even hope to do. We have made some friends in the church through staff socials and Sunday lunches and we are excited to spend more time getting to know the wonderful people at this church.

We are looking forward to this year because we see so many opportunities for growth and relationships. We are excited for what vicarage year will bring, but we also know that it may be difficult to find a good balance of work time and resting time with each other as we work with commitments at two churches, new schedules (Nick has a lot of evening commitments now), and my long commute. We ask that you pray that we can find joy in our work so we don’t feel overwhelmed by the commitments, and also can be intentional in preserving time we need to rest and be together to grow our relationship. We ask that you pray for safety for Mikaela as she makes a long drive each day, especially in storms and into the winter. We ask that you pray for health so that we can continue to serve as needed. We also ask that you pray for strong bodies as we begin training for another half marathon coming up in October, and that we can avoid injury.

Thank you again for all your love, support, and prayers. We appreciate knowing that we have so many wonderful people walking alongside us in this journey.

In the name of Christ our Savior,

Nick and Mikaela Duerr

A Month of Preparation

July has really flown by! Of course, since we published out last blog post in the middle of the month, it would seem like there's not a lot to talk about. But it has been a busy couple of weeks. First of all, we started a diet program called Whole 30. The first disclaimer is that while it is a diet program, it is not a weight loss program. The objective is not to keep the calorie count low, but to keep the inflammatory substances low. That means we are not allowed to eat any grains, dairy, added sugar, legumes, or alcohol. Essentially all that is left for us to eat is fruit, vegetables, and meat. This means we have had to become a lot more creative with our meal planning, but it has been an interesting adventure for us. Some of our better meals have been things like pork carnitas with a side of sautéed vegetables and home made hamburgers with sweet potato buns.

The time we aren't spending cooking the significantly more elaborate meals has been dedicated to preparing for August. Mikaela has spent weeks in her classroom getting it prepared for the upcoming school year. This means a lot of cutting, pasting, laminating, more cutting, and taping everything down. She got everything finished up just in time for the kindergarten play date, an opportunity for the students and parents to come in and see the classroom and meet each other. While it has been a lot of work, it is rewarding knowing that the classroom is ready for the first day of school. 

On top of that, we have been packing in preparation for our move out to Washington. This has been a laborious process of going through all of our stuff and seeing what we need, and what we haven't used in the two years we've been married. Our first order of business was rearranging the basement so that all of the empty boxes we saved for just this occasion are readily accessible while the things packed and ready to go are stored away until moving day. Our second order of business was the office, where we are staging things upstairs for our move. With both of those rooms packed up, it is a lot easier for us to pack up other things since now once things are packed up, we have somewhere to store them. And while packing things like our winter clothes was relatively easy (everything gets packed, since I obviously don't need my heavy coat for the next two weeks), packing up the kitchen is proving more difficult due to being on Whole 30 (who knew that on a diet where you can't eat bread, you would need your muffin tin?).

In any case, as we begin August, we have a lot to look forward to. Mikaela will be beginning her third year of teaching, which is really cool for many different reasons. First, she gets to be in the same classroom as the last two years, which we didn't think would happen because of vicarage. Second it is cool because she has now had two years of experience teaching kindergarten, and has a much firmer grasp on what she is doing. This means she has been able to expand her curriculum and begin to really engage teaching kindergarten on a whole new level. For me, August begins an entirely new adventure in my life, vicarage. While technically I am still a student (which is kinda cool cause I don't have to start paying student loans yet), for the first time since I started attending preschool, I will not be in classes. There are so many new things that I will begin to experience, that sometimes when I try to comprehend how much things will be different, I get a little overwhelmed. But at the same time, I am really excited to begin this adventure and see what God has in store for me. 

Finally, we want to thank you for all of your prayers and support. The last two years have been an amazing time, and we thank God for all that He has done for us. We are excited for this upcoming change in our life, and you can expect to see quite a difference in the stories we will be sharing over the next year. 

In the name of Christ our Savior,

Nicholas and Mikaela Duerr