Wow, a lot has been going on with us over the past few months. Here are a few of the highlights.
Baby Wallen:
We are proud to announce that Baby Wallen is a boy!!! He is growing like crazy and is now about 6 inches long. Jackie is at the half-way mark of the pregnancy and doing great. She’s growing a cute little belly, has tons more energy, and is going to the gym a few times a week. As her belly begins to pop, the reality of this baby has been settling in more and more for both us of. I (Joel) have recently been reading through the book “What to Expect When You Are Expecting” and I’ve occasionally had my “Wow, this is really going to happen to us” moments. All around though, we’ve been extremely excited. So many of you have offered encouraging words that we deeply appreciate.
Joel’s Work:
Things have been crazy busy of the past two months. I’ve hired two new staff and had five college interns start. We’ve also started our four day a week after-school program again in which we have an average of 60 kids attending daily. This leads to a lot of crazy, but fun, days. We’ve also started a new internship for the Youth Leadership Program. We have a great bunch of kids this round and it’s been real exciting to work with them.
Jackie’s Work:
Work has been really hectic for Jackie these days. As many of you know, she’s on call 24-7 for crisis situations in which youth are at the police station and have either run away or are involved in a lock-out situation. God gave her a respite of during her first trimester and kept the phone-line was pretty quiet. Since then though, the calls have come back with a vengeance and she’s spent a lot of time at police stations, counseling families and dealing with governmental agencies. On top of this, she’s recently begun providing school-based counseling to freshmen here in Cicero. Needless to say, she’s been busy, so please keep praying for her as she juggles it all.
Joel’s School:
I’m practically done with the fall quarter. Ten weeks really does go by fast. I took a class in Human Resource Management which was extremely helpful with the hiring and training new employees and interns. I’m enjoying how my school and life compliment each other. For this upcoming quarter I’m planning on taking two classes, one in class and one online. I’d definitely appreciate your prayers for my studies and time management. Good thing my classes will be wrapping up about two weeks before Baby Wallen’s (expected) grand entrance.
Saturday Nights:
We’re continuing to open our home to guys from the community each Saturday night. Normally they hang out over here for around four hours, shoot some hoops, eat pizza, and play the Wii. We also have a short Bible Study. We’re currently going through the book of John and are about to start chapter 6. Honestly, since we’ve gotten back from camp, things have been up and down on Saturday nights. A few guys that started coming over the summer haven’t been back lately and we have missed them. Also, a few weeks ago one youth (we’re not sure which one) went into Kiev’s (our roommate) bedroom and stole a significant amount money. This led to good conversations with some of the parents and the youth about trust and forgiveness but nonetheless, we all felt hurt by it. We’ve also set new house rules which will hopefully help prevent this in the future. Please continue to pray for us and these guys.
Finally, we’ve added a few pictures at the bottom of the prayer letter. First, there’s Jackie’s prego picture from month four. Doesn’t she look amazing? The other two pictures are from what’s been happening around our house. The first one is from our Tuesday evening “community nights” where all of us living in the house share a meal together, talk about life, and pray together. The second picture is from when we recently did a “community construction project” (as we’re calling it) and sanded and painted our back stairs. And the last one is of “Baby (boy) Wallen.” We’ve added a bunch more pictures on our website so please check them out at www.thewallens.com
Thank you for your love and support in so many areas of our lives!