Hello, friends!
My apologies for not posting anything last week. I was actually out of town. Ironically enough, WHY I was out of town is the exact reason for this post!
Where was I? I was in beautiful Salt Lake City for staff meetings. At the behest of my wife, I actually took photos this time, so I thought it would be fun for me to tell you about my trip in photo instead of just word. Here we go!
This is the Regional Leadership Team. The first part of my trip was meeting with these fine folk to set the direction for our Region (IV work in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska) for this next season. Many of these folk have been mentors to me during various parts of my staff career and all of them are great friends. It was a pleasure to study the word with them, to pray with them, to connect with them, and to have fun with them as we visioned for how to best lead our staff and our students toward Jesus
The other reason I was there was to celebrate with our entire staff team, including a few students, the completion of our Regional 2020 vision and to begin the process of discerning our 2025 vision. In 2008, we launched our 2020 vision, hoping to see 500 missional small groups, 50 chapters, and 1 overseas student movement established. By God's grace, we finished 3 years early! During this time, we celebrated our outgoing Regional Director (standing), welcomed in our new Regional Director, celebrated what God has done, and started looking at what God may be calling us into for this next season. It was a beautiful time of seeing staff, students, volunteers, and faculty in our Region come together with a single purpose.
Of course, there was also great fun to be had. Did you know there are In-N-Out's in Salt Lake City?!?! It blew... my... mind... There were 40 or so of us together so we were actually staying in a mansion on a hill just outside of Salt Lake City. Behind our hill were two more hills. The taller of the two had a flag (really a rugby jersey attached to a PVC pipe) on top of it. One morning, I trekked up the hill with our Associate Regional Director (and supervisor many times over) to the flag. It was a great hike and even better conversation as we talked about ministry and life in the midst of transition. There were other great conversations had throughout the week too. It is always a joy to connect with fellow staff. We've been in the trenches together. We get it. I'm now one of the "old staff" but so long as there are fellow old staff with me, we'll be OK.
This is one of the flowers I saw on my hike up to the flag. I took the photo because the flower was a really great shade of purple (although you can't really see it in the photo) and that reminded me of Meg, who was not in Salt Lake City. Meg is still on maternity leave so she was given a choice as to whether or not to attend. With Thaliea being only a month old and Ezra having swim lessons and such, as well as being a little boy who never stops, we thought it would be better for all parties concerned for me to go solo. Meg was a total trooper and handled being a single parent with great skill. It was hard missing my family for that many days. Staying fully present and in the moment was easy enough when we were doing business but during the down times, I definitely missed them. I'm glad to be back.
Finally, if you squint really hard, you can see a Bison. That's not just any bison. That's a Wyoming bison! One of my life long goals is to drive in all 50 states. When I heard we were going to Salt Lake City, I got really excited, not only because of the Summit but because I could potentially knock 3 more states off my list! Wyoming and Idaho are both roughly 90 miles from Salt Lake City. The plan was to use the free time on one of the days to do a loop and hopefully knock some more states off my list. We were actually too far south to get both Idaho and Wyoming so I decided to Wyoming would be it. 2 other staff joined me and we made the trip to Bear River State Park in Evanston, WY, just across the border. There, we saw a bison, took a selfie, and made the trip back, just in time for the next session to start.
All said and done, it was a great trip. I loved the visioning. I loved the community. I loved the adventures. I'm not sure what the next vision will hold for the Central Region. Only God knows where we'll be or what we'll be doing in 2025. What I can say is that this Summit was a great reminder of why I love my job so much.
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
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