Sadie at our new casa

My audiometer FINALLY came!!

YAY

June: transitions

This month I have officially begun my transition into adulthood (despite living in a college house on Baylor's campus). This month I traded in my EMT license for an Audiologist license, started my job at Waco ENT, got business cards, got my own audiometer, applied for my C's and got my first real pay check. I think I am still in denial about being 26. I don't feel quite that old and often wonder why I haven't settled down and started a family. Then I remember that I spent 8 years in college. Yikes. At least I am finally finished and beginning the next part of the journey. I am in Waco indefinitely, not knowing what all the future holds. For now it's just life 1 day at a time.

nancy

Many of you know about my hiking experiences last year. Some of my teammates have kept on hiking & kept on fundraising during the past year. If you can help at all, please go to Nancy's page and donate to the cause! Thank you.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/ntx/BigBhke09/nkohlman

Word of the day: portmanteau

Seeing as tomorrow is Juneteenth, I have stumbled upon a strange and new (to me) word. The term "portmanteau word" is used to describe a linguistic blend, namely "a word formed by blending sounds from two or more distinct words and combining their meanings" (source: wikipedia). Here are some examples:

Motown

brunch

Tanzania

spork

permaculture

wikipedia!

gerrymandering

chocoholic

Spanglish

Billary... and of course, Speidi.

PF sucks...

...but God is good. I stumbled upon a passage in Job tonight that caught me. After Job has lost his entire family, all of his belongings, his health and wellbeing, he is still clinging to God and even arguing with his friends about God's goodness and sovereignty. Even though he hates his life and curses the day he was born, he continues to proclaim God as king. Even as he wonders why God has allowed all of this pain, he tells his friends:

"I know that my Redeemer lives,

and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has een destroyed,

yet in my flesh I will see God;

I myself will see him with my own eyes -

I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!"

Probably everyone who reads my blog knows about the recent death of my uncle Dan, which came all too quickly after Aunt Peggy's last March. These two have been added to a long list of people in our extended family who have died as a result of pulmonary fibrosis - a progressive, fatal lung disease with no known treatment at this time.

Over these past couple years I have felt that my family has been stricken... with a terrible disease, as well as with pain and suffering and loss. And through all of it I have struggled to cling to God. My faith has been shaken; I have doubted God and questioned Him... His authority, His perfect love, His very being. And here is Job, having lost everything, holding fast to his belief -- claiming it as undeniable truth -- that God reigns, that He is alive, and that He is coming back to rule the earth. And he knows that he will be alive to see it. Everlasting life... that is the promise we have in Jesus Christ. Praise him!

Waco

I have really enjoyed my 1st week in Waco. I really do like the small town feel. I just can't get over how nice everybody is here. I have lived in a small town before, and in Texas my whole life, but the people here are so friendly. Rich people, poor people, old people, young people, white people, brown people... everyone is so kind and always speaks to one another. It is so different from the fast pace of being in Dallas where everyone is in a hurry and in pursuit of their own interests. I think I might stay awhile....

time flies

Where'd my "little" brother go? Apparently he's starting high school next year...