Day 102: Setting A New Pace

Hello!

This has been a very good week here at Old Faithful. The ministry team and I completed our final Sunday in the park, and I am overflowing with gratitude at what the team has overcome this summer while also being such wonderful examples of Christ here to both visitors and employees. Each one of them has been a tremendous blessing! The team is dispersing this week--one teammate has already left, and another will be leaving tomorrow. The rest of the team will be taking off soon, except for myself (Sept. 10) and Tim (mid-September). Wow! It's hard to believe how the summer passed so quickly, yet I am elated in astonishment at how well the summer has gone.

My days off were spent taking some coworkers--Svietlana and Roman from Belarus--down to the Grand Tetons. This was a great time to spend with them, but unfortunately with all of the wildfires of Idaho and the vicinity, the mountain peaks were difficult to see. I was grateful for a good wind to drive the smoke away, but even this was short-lived.

The rest of my time was spent running errands and relaxing for a change of pace. School books have been arriving in the mail and I have been preparing for another semester of classes to commence. Eight more credit hours of classes split amongst four classes. I am excited to start again. The timing is great as work around the store has been slowing now that many of the local children are beginning school this week (they begin early to accommodate all of the snow days that frequent the area). Along with the slower pace, several of my coworkers at the store have also begun to depart back to school and their homes. It is a bittersweet loss reminiscing in all the time we've enjoyed together while also sharing their excitement to take their stories and pictures home to share with their families about their summer here at Yellowstone.

It's a lot of changes within a short space of time, but watching God walk me through this week has been tremendous. Soon I too will be heading home. It's now been over one hundred days since I began this adventure of heading out to Yellowstone. The 100-day milestone is always a big one for me in recognizing all that has happened within these past thirteen weeks while also considering what final escapades I want to make before I head home. I have a few more adventures in mind.

Blessings to you for this week!