It's that time again!

COAT has begun again!

Three times a year, a group of new affiliates comes to us for 8 weeks of training and orientation called COAT (Community, Orientation, Assessment, Training). Joe and I look forward to these times as it brings several new faces to campus and new friends to get to know.

Joe enjoys being able to spend time with these new missionaries and their families and make new connections. Our group of friends who were once limited to the southern Iowa/northern Missouri area now spans the globe. We have friends in California, Texas, Ohio, Mexico, Asia, Costa Rica and several other locations.

For me, when a new COAT class comes it means I have more children coming to me wondering who I am and what we're going to do together all day. It's a new group testing the waters and trying to figure out if they can trust me. Another group of kids to let know they are loved and wanted here. That the NMSI community accepts them and loves them. It also means I get BUSY!!! Because I work two jobs; I'm trying to put time into the lives of these children who may be confused and scared about the changes occurring in their lives, and I'm already helping our next set of COAT participants get everything set and ready to begin their own adventures in ministry. I love my two jobs!

Between COATs the office can be a little quiet. Especially this year with all the Regional Conferences carrying a large portion of our office staff all over the world. There were several weeks when there were barely 10 people staffing the office. During this time we got very settled into our jobs but at the same time wondered if the office would ever be full again. :) We tried to make the best of this time by connecting more with our local church and our co-workers who were in the office. We left here in the office made a couple of lunch runs (mainly to the local mall food court) to have lunch together. At one of these lunch get togethers, we dreamed up several ways the 10 or so of us could have a fun office day. Several things were thought up such as trips to Disney World, camping, boating and a beach day. In the end we decided an afternoon ice cream party break was much more appropriate for a professional work place. :)

We certainly enjoy our jobs year round, but those 3 eight week COAT classes are definitely highlights of our year.