Pawelkop Family Reunion

Last weekend we made a quick trip to Port St. Joe for the annual Paweklop Reunion, which is my mom’s cousin’s family, but they graciously have let us tag along for several years. It is always such a special time to enjoy and catch up with family. We had a great time and are already looking forward to next year!!

St. Augustine Weekend

We celebrated our very FIRST anniversary in St. Augustine on Friday and Saturday. It was so nice to have a much needed getaway. Roy picked out a delicious New Orleans style restaurant for us to eat at on Friday night and then we spent Saturday in the historic district of St. Augustine. We were able to visit the Castillo de San Marcos, eat at a yummy bakery, window shop at a number of great shops, and sit by the water and enjoy the view. It was an overall great weekend. We are incredibly grateful for our first year of marriage. The Lord has done oh so much in our lives and in our hearts. We are eager to see what year 2 has in store!!

CITY KIDS BASH!

The children's ministry at City Church is phenomenal and they have a wonderful program once a month called CITY KIDS BASH. Our City Group had the opportunity to serve at the Orlando Rescue Mission with the City Kids Bash. It was a great time! The kids played games, sang worship music, watched a video about The Creation Story, and made crafts :) Please join us in praying for these children. Pray that the Lord would really and truly open up the eyes of their hearts.

Happy Anniversary to us!

On Sunday, October 11th, we will celebrate our 1 year anniversary! I cannot believe how quickly time has passed. :) We are incredibly blessed and have had such a wonderful first year of marriage. We have faced a number of trials and challenges, but the Lord has been incredibly faithful. Here are a few highlights from our first year. We pray we will be blessed with many more years of marriage!

Getting into the swing of things...

We are officially on a schedule. We have a routine and I am so thankful! I am working full-time and Roy is a full-time student and puts in several hours of work on campus as an Admissions Counselor. Apart from work, we have a busy schedule. Roy just started playing slow pitch softball on Monday nights, Tuesday nights we go to some friends house for dinner and community ( a huge blessing and something we look forward to!), Thursday nights is our City Group night, and then we hang out with people here and there as well. We just love it here in Orlando!

I absolutely love my job at Partin Elementary School in Oviedo. I am an aide for a precious girl who is in a wheelchair in Kindergarten. I spend all day with kindergartners. They are teaching me so much. I never would have thought they would, but I am grateful for this opportunity. I come home with a smile on my face everyday. It is such a blessing to be a part of such a wonderful staff at Partin. I cannot thank the Lord enough for teaching me so much throughout the job hunting process. He really does know what is best. Roy is loving seminary! He is such a great student and honestly wants to process the things that he is learning. He has such a genuine desire to walk with the Lord and serve him in vocational ministry in the future. I come home and talk to him about what the kindergartners I work with said throughout my day and he talks to me about theology :) It's a great combination.

We have been able to get involved in the church we are going to. We volunteer in the nursery and are involved in a City Group, which has been huge in connecting us to the church. We are grateful for community, friendships, and fellowship. We meet on a weekly basis and study scripture and pray together. It is an intimate time. We have also had the chance to volunteer at the Orlando Union Rescue Mission. We will be doing that once a month and working with the children who actually live at the Mission. We are excited to share the love of Christ with them!

Roy has been playing basketball alot lately in an attempt to meet some guys. He goes to Baldwin Park with a few guys from our church and has gotten to know a few of them pretty well. Please continue to pray for these new relationships and pray that they will lead to Gospel conversation. I am also trying to think of ways to meet people. I thought about joining the YMCA, which I thought would be an incredible way to meet people, but we are on a tight "seminary budget" so I am trying to brainstorm other ways. I long for relationships with people who don't know the Lord and hope to love on women and share the GOOD NEWS with them. Please join us in praying for friendships with those who don't have a relationship with Jesus!

Also, to be bold, funds are tight. We are on two small incomes and trying to make our money go as far as we can :) We trust the Lord to provide and are praying for Him to lead us to some more income. Please pray that He will show us what to do in order to obtain some needed income per month. He has never failed us and we have never been without all that we need. We trust, again, that He will provide.

Next month we will celebrate our ONE YEAR anniversary! I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by. We hope to celebrate our anniversary weekend in St. Augustine.

If you are ever in the ORLANDO area please give us a call! :)

We are thankful for your encouragement and prayers. Here are a few prayer requests we have...

* Income. Trusting God to provide for our needs!
* Relationships with the LOST. We long for people to know and love Jesus. That is what life is all about and we truly believe that.
* Intimacy with the Lord. Through some trials we have faced and what we are learning, the Lord is truly working in our hearts both together as a married couple and individually. Please pray that we will spend as much time with Jesus as we can over the next three years in seminary.

I GOT A JOB!

It's official! I got a job. :) I will be working at Partin Elementary School in Oviedo. I will be an aide for a kindergarten student. This job is a huge blessing for us. Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement. We have felt so loved during this time, thanks to you all :) The Lord has taught us so much through this process. It has been a tough road, but a huge blessing. God has provided!

Grateful for Encouragement!

I had a job interview Friday! :) After 5 weeks of being in Orlando, submitting countless applications and resumes, networking with friends of friends, I had my very first interview at a high school here in Seminole County. I feel like the interview went pretty well, all things considering. I keep replaying it in my head though, wishing I would have said this, wondering if I should have said that :) I guess I am just second guessing myself. Needless to say, I couldn't sleep last night. I was told that I should hear something today, but I didn't. The assistant principal I interviewed with said I might hear something tomorrow. We'll see! I know we have such a huge support system who have all been praying for and encouraging us. We are incredibly grateful! Please keep those prayers coming.

The Lord has been so sweet to us and has been confirmed our moving here in a number of ways. For one, we have made AMAZING friendships! There are 3 young married couples (2 from the church and one from RTS) that we have had the opportunity to get to know in the past few weeks. They are remarkable people and we have had more community in the lat month than we have had since graduating college. It has been amazing and we are so thankful for these new friendships.

Roy begins his Fall Semester at RTS on Wednesday. Please continue to lift him up in prayer during this time. Thankfully he'll begin working on campus very soon so we'll have a little bit of income. Digging into our savings is not something we enjoy, but we are grateful that the Lord has provided that for us and realize that we really and truly have never gone without what we need.

Please pray that this job will work out! It has been a tough process of having to wait... anxiously... and trust that the Lord knows what is best for me. Many wives of students at RTS are currently looking for jobs, so many of us are walking through this current trial together. It's great to know I'm not alone and really pushes me to pray for them along with myself. God is good!!! He is faithful and we know He will provide.