To the States and back again

Sarah: About a week ago we returned to Costa Rica after yet another trip to the United States. We spent the majority of the month of September traveling to different parts of the U.S. doing some recruiting for our spring semester program.

We began our trip with about a week in Oklahoma at Southern Nazarene University, and our time was very full with lots of meetings, planning sessions, classroom speaking engagements, student meetings, and reuniting with our former students who are still on campus. The QERC program has developed enough and we've recruited enough over the past few years that this year (the 4th year for the program) we could really see a difference - instead of trying to encourage students to participate THIS year, we found ourselves encouraging the freshmen to plan the QERC semester program into their college schedule. There are already a handful of SNU students signed up and ready to participate this year, due to the reputation of the program and our recruiting efforts in past years. The meetings and planning sessions also went extremely well and the program continues to develop and become even more organized with each semester.

Being at SNU is always a fun time to reunite with our friends - both those on faculty and also those students who are still around. We enjoyed a barbecue and a number of lunches with the faculty and had a good time of sharing what progress is happening at QERC, and our evenings were filled with dinners out and hanging out with former students by playing Rock Band, Wii, Nuke 'Em, and Go-Karts.

Though this particular trip to the States was strictly business and no scheduled family visits, my parents made the long drive down from Iowa to meet up with us one weekend while we were in Oklahoma. Even though the time went fast with them, we were really appreciative of them making the effort to see us while in the States - it makes the stretch between summer and Christmas seem not quite as long! (I have a feeling they made the drive partly due to the fact that the next time we see them we will have their granddaughter in our hands and my belly is growing steadily at this point!)

From SNU we traveled out to Point Loma Nazarene University, in San Diego, California. This quick trip (2 1/2 days) was also very full - more meetings, more recruiting, and student gatherings. Point Loma's campus is beautiful and it's always fun to walk around and be able to see the ocean from campus! We had some great positive feedback from the faculty, and they are very excited to share the program with their students in the hopes of getting their school involved either this year or next year.

From Point Loma we headed up to Nampa, Idaho, where we spent the next few days at Northwest Nazarene University (David's alma mater). This visit included more classroom speaking engagements, and of course more meetings. Last year we had one NNU student involved with the program, and due to his excitement about the program upon his return to campus and also due to the faculty support, the student response was overwhelming. We should see at least a few students participating in the program this upcoming spring, and freshmen are already planning it into their schedules for future years.

Being up at NNU is always fun also because it gives us an excuse to meet up with some friends who live in the area. We had a great time reconnecting with old friends in the midst of our productive time on campus. And as we planned having a weekend at NNU, David's parents and his older sister and her 3 kids drove down to meet up with us. Like with my family, it was a short time, but well worth it. We were thankful to see them and be able to spend some good hours of quality time together.

From NNU, we traveled over to Chicago, Illinois, to Olivet Nazarene University. This was our first time recruiting on their campus and our first time of actually introducing the QERC semester program to their faculty and students. The faculty seemed to be very receptive, and right away the student interest was high. Though we were mainly looking to set the stage for involvement in the years to come, we are fairly hopeful that we may have student participation from Olivet as early as this spring.

From Olivet, David headed back to SNU for some wrap-up meetings and I headed to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to visit my sister and her 5-week old baby Asher. It was fun to meet my new cute nephew and also spend some good quality time with my sister and her husband. As my due date keeps getting closer and closer, it was a little reality check to see what life with a newborn is like. :) I was really thankful for the time I had to spend with them while Asher is still a young baby!

Finally, I flew from Chattanooga to Oklahoma and met up with David, and we had one last night in the States saying goodbye to students and packing up our things to head back to Costa Rica. While our time in the States was both very productive and also very enjoyable, it is nice to be back in our home for a much longer stretch of time as we have lots of work to be done in preparation for January...and that whole giving birth thing. This picture is of me at 32 weeks.