Lord willing, I will actually get better at updating this thing. Original plans were to update once a week but the whole not having internet in our apartment put a damper on that one. But since I take a handful of teenagers once a week to a place called Hopeworks that teaches young people proficiency on the computer, I have a computer more readily available to me. Yay!

I am finally getting settled here in Camden and into a routine. Monday through Thursday I work at Christus with 14 ninth and tenth graders. Mostly I am enjoying all of them a lot and am starting to build some good relationships with them. I work as a teaching assistant in math, Spanish, English, and computers (at Hopeworks) which is definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone. I'm supposed to start their after-school program in November too so that should be fun. Weekends are left for our Sabbath, time spent in our neighborhood, chores, curriculum reading, and Church. We are all falling into our own schedules while also making time for each other and I'm relieved to finally start feeling like I'm living life here.

Jesus has been teaching me so much in just the 6 weeks that I've been here. Tonight and tomorrow we all go on our Solitude Retreat and get time to reflect over all we've learned, all we were, and all we are becoming. Most of us are really looking forward to it and some are dreading the silence. I think that it will be far different from what any of us expect, in keeping with Mission Year tradition. Nothing I've experienced so far has been anything like what I expected it to be. But each day I need Jesus more and I desire to know Him better, so I know that I am exactly where I need to be in spite of the pain and hardship.

I'm trying to keep up with 2 blogs right now so I'm not going to write much more here. If you want to see more you can check out my blog through Mission Year too at:

www.missionyear.org/blog/stevieneale

Thanks for your prayers and support!