New Year Blessing and The Year Of Prayer

I am very grateful for the abundance of good friends that God has sent my way. In the various places I have lived I've always found good friends and have been able to keep in touch with many of them even after I moved on to new jobs in new states. One of those friends, the focus of my blog post today, is my friend Rachel. Rachel and her husband Jason grew up in Hillsboro, Kansas, but we actually met when we both lived in Naperville, Illinois.

I had been working as a Director of Children's Ministries at a church in Naperville for a couple of years when I found out we would be getting a new Worship Pastor, a young couple who were coming from Phoenix. Not only did I enjoy working at the church with Jason as our new Worship guy, but I found out that his wife was quite witty and fun also. And it was a bonus when I found out that they grew up in Hillsboro! (Side note: one day when talking about high school shootings with Rachel, we discovered that Rachel's college roommate in Phoenix married a friend of mine from my high school youth group.....we seem to have lots of those "it's a small world" stories!)

Eventually I moved back to Kansas, while Jason and Rachel and their kids stayed in Naperville for a few more years. I still saw them occasionally when I went to IL for visits, or they were home in KS for visits, but I was really excited when they finally decided to move back to Kansas. After a few years in Hillsboro, Jason recently took a job with a church in Salina where they now live. I haven't been to visit them in Salina, but I hope to soon! It's been too long....

Last week I received a really cool card from Rachel. It was a New Years Blessing card and on the inside of the card (next a photo of their adorable kids) they had written this:

"We have designated 2008 as a year of prayer for our family...practicing it, studying it, and prioritizing it. As we received Christmas cards this holiday season, we began filling in a calendar with names. Yes we added in some extras - you know who you are! We would love to hear any specific ways in which we can uplift your family this year, so please feel free to email us. We are committing to pray for you on the 21st of each month, as well as any other time we know of your needs. May God abundantly bless you, and others through you!"

What a cool idea! And how blessed do I feel for being fortunate enough to make it on their list of people they are committing to pray for this year (even after I didn't send out any Christmas cards this year). Thanks Rachel! This gift means more than you know!

New Job

I have a new job. Same company, but new responsibilities and new title. I am now the Training Director. I'm excited, and more than a little overwhelmed at what I need to get done asap. Here are some of the things that are occupying me this month:

1. We are considering a move to a new LMS (Learning Management System) for our online learning program. There is a problem though. I need Consumer Reports to do some comparison shopping for me and lay out all the pros and cons for the top LMS systems out there. There is no time to search the internet to find out about all the different systems, test them out, talk to other users, figure out if it meets our needs etc. And now to complicate things, there are all these open source programs to consider too. I've been meaning to check out Moodle for a couple of months now, but everytime I go to their website, I get overwhelmed trying to figure out what I am looking for. Anyone have a good, affordable, LMS to reccommend?

2. We are going through our accreditation visit this summer. We go through this every three years or so, and I've been through it twice before, so I know what's coming and it's going to require a lot of work, though in the end it's always a good experience. As the new Training Director I need to make sure we are meeting all of the standards for training that are required. I have six months to accomplish this. In some cases, this is probably going to require developing some trainings, getting our 200+ staff across the state trained in them, and pulling reports showing that everyone has received the training. Sounds fun, right! I love a good challenge, especially when it involves systems building. And if it involves a database, then it's even more fun. Seriously- I'm really looking forward to figuring this challenge out!

3. And in between figuring that stuff out I'll keep my other job duties which includes teaching online courses until I can hire someone to take over that part of my job, managing a collaborative grant with several local partners, providing oversight to our trainings for foster parents across the state, and attending a lot of meetings.

I think I'm going to have a panic attack.