Do you ever feel like you have one foot on the dock and the other foot in a boat\u2026as it slowly drifts away?<\/p>\n
I suspect this is a sentiment many can relate to these days. The dock is dry, stable, safe, secure, known. The boat (hopefully) promises a great day on the lake, with sunshine, warmth, and joy. Then there is the in-between\u2026when you have one foot on the dock and the other on the boat as it drifts away. In many ways, this represents pretty much every aspect of my life right now.<\/p>\n
Remember this thing called \u201cnormal school?\u201d We could all meet together in chapels, we could play sports and host tournaments, we could enjoy band and choir performances, our drama productions were done before a live audience, and the list goes on. Our front field was filled with our community and the BBQ aroma lingered in the air. It\u2019s interesting how something so \u201cnormal\u201d is now yearned for so longingly.<\/p>\n
Now we are \u201cmid step\u201d when we are physically together. Students and staff are doing much better compared to last spring. There is a \u201cnew normal.\u201d But through it all, the fog and worry of COVID clouds our view.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not all bad.<\/p>\n
We anticipate what our next school year might bring. Will we be able to engage as a community again in September? What true blessings during these forced changes do we want to keep and integrate into our community moving forward?<\/strong><\/span> This is a place I find myself living in more and more. This truly hasn\u2019t been all bad.<\/p>\n What we wouldn\u2019t give for a small, cramped lobby filled with students, for hallways that didn\u2019t end in dead ends, for an office with just one window to\u2026well\u2026anywhere frankly. We’d love to walk the halls with our friends and find a place to hang out and eat together.<\/p>\n One of the most unnerving things is a school building without students. We certainly don\u2019t have that issue anymore! The in-between we find ourselves in, physically, has shown us that space is important, but it doesn\u2019t define our community.<\/strong> <\/span>The inconvenience, noise, and dead ends are a constant reminder of what is to come.<\/p>\n Almost weekly I walk through parts of our new building. The possibilities the new spaces provide to engage our students in learning that engages their minds, nurtures their hearts, and allows students to shape God\u2019s world is really exciting. I\u2019m reminded of God\u2019s hand in this building project, through the support and sacrifice of our community. It\u2019s a physical reminder of one simple word for me: faithfulness.<\/p>\n My family and I moved to Abbotsford from Langley last May. We left a home we had known for 10 years: a church family, grandparents, and a school community my wife and daughters loved dearly. A place with established friendships, routines, and strong community.<\/p>\n The move went well; the renovations are done. Suzanne is settling into her new role at the elementary campus. My daughters have made friends and enjoy school. Suzanne says almost every day, \u201cWhat!? You\u2019re home already?\u201d I sure don\u2019t miss that commute<\/strong>!<\/span> But as much as we\u2019ve been blessed by this move, we still feel like we have one foot in Langley and one in Abbotsford. The COVID induced in-between.<\/p>\n We look ahead to finding a new church family here in Abbotsford. Our daughters look forward to having friends over from school. Suzanne and I look forward to hosting members of this great Abbotsford community. We have seen glimpses of this community and are eagerly looking forward to being able to more fully be a part of it.<\/p>\n Some days I feel like I\u2019m going to fall into the water. You know\u2026the awkward splits and then splash! (Take a moment and visualize the principal doing the awkward splits and splashing into the water\u2026go on do it\u2026it will make you smile<\/em>). But I am continually reminded in many small ways that our God is indeed in control of all things. Christmas and the gift of Jesus, still came, and the forced slow down this season made it real in a new way. God continues to work through our community in countless ways to support and encourage us.<\/p>\n The days are getting longer, and there seems to be a cautious hope. During the in-between, God continues to teach me in real ways to, as our theme verse says, \u201cFix your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith<\/em>\u201d(Hebrews 12:2). We won\u2019t fall into the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you ever feel like you have one foot on the dock and the other foot in a boat\u2026as it slowly drifts away? I suspect this is a sentiment many can relate to these days. The dock is dry, stable, safe, secure, known. The boat (hopefully) promises a great day on the lake, with sunshine, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":5100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,35],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-5097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-school-vision","category-secondary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5097"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=5097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}In Walking the Halls<\/h2>\n
In Building Relationships<\/h2>\n