October already

How did this happen?  It's October already!  Sure many of you are well aware of that because of the cooler weather, the falling leaves, the coffee flavors all around you are pumpkin spice.  But here none of that happens.  It's still pretty rainy, but we're nearing the end of the rainy season.  It's still hot.  Nothing new there.  The stores are getting more and more Christmas stuff out for display.  This we don't mind as much.

Leah wanted to chase the iguana but he had other ideas

Noah on campus

But where has the time gone?  The team hasn't even been here for 2 full weeks, but it feels like it's been a really long time.  This weekend will be a busy one with our annual leadership retreat starting tomorrow (Friday) night and ending on Sunday morning.  We're hopeful that this time will be rejuvenating for students and allow them to have a clear vision for why they're with us and doing what they're doing.

Leah watching Papa through the window as he gives the talk

We still haven't fallen into much of a routine.  Thus far life has just been incredibly busy and almost overwhelming.  After this weekend though, things should even out a bit and slow down, and with that we're hoping comes more routine.  I think the team is looking forward to having some normalcy instead of the chaos of the beginning of the year.

We're utilizing the new projector for worship

We had our first weekly meeting today with 37 students!  This is a pretty good number considering one of the faculties (the engineering campus) isn't even having classes yet and we didn't have all of our regulars.  It was pretty fun to get to see everyone gathered again in one place and excited to start the new year.  We even went down to the lagoon with the kids and fed the turtles and alligators.  We did end up leaving prematurely when one alligator got out of the water and seemed pretty interested in Leah!

Sneaky alligator - those are probably our kids shadows,
he was that close