I'm not very big on making New Years resolutions, as mentioned in a recent post– More Than Promises. I'm also not a formal goal-setter, though maybe I should be ;-)
But I do have some new plans for the coming year. Some of it is carry-over from 2015, but it's still new or yet to be done. I'll share some of it in this post, which is more personal than my usual posts.
Happy New Year!
Here's the closest we get to a Christmas card photo this year! Susan and I stopped doing Christmas cards many, many years ago for a few reasons. One is expense, but a bigger one is the time involved doing it, especially in this digital age.
While on the mission field, we started doing newsletters to stay in touch. But we enjoy getting cards from others, so thanks to all that sent them to us!
Nowadays, we keep somewhat current via Facebook and email, text, and some calls. How different things are today when it comes to communication!
Some family news
Christmas was a little more quiet this year with our family a bit more spread out than last year. Our youngest daughter and her family are in Germany, where her husband serves in the military.
Our older daughter lives more than an hour south of us with a new job, and she was able to visit her sister in Germany before Christmas.
Our younger son and his wife live in San Antonio, TX, where they both work as PA's in urgent care centers. We visited them between Christmas and New Years and had a great time.
Our oldest son and his family are still local and work with two local ministries, so we get to see our other three grandchildren pretty often. We had fun with all of them during Christmas and New Year's weekend.
Our next travel will be to Germany for the birth of our fifth grandchild, yay!
What's happening now
My wife is working full-time as the assistant director in a Christian preschool near us. She's also taking an online course related to her job, so she stays busy!
I continue blogging 3 times a week and leading 3 Bible studies through the week. I continue to work with Poimen Ministries and will be representing this ministry at an upcoming pastors conference in FL this month.
I'm also working with the church we've been involved with for the past 3 years (RCC) in an advisory/coach role. I did a ministry evaluation for them last summer and have been working with them over the past few months. This is a temporary role in preparation for the addition of an executive pastor to come on staff this year.
What's ahead
As mentioned in a fall update post, my heart for teaching and training overseas, especially in the Philippines, was stirred in a fresh way last summer.
I plan to go over to the Philippines this year (summertime?) to work with the Bible college and a church in Manila. I've wanted to help set up more extension campuses connected to the school in Dumaguete, where the Bible college just celebrated its 20-year anniversary.
For a long time, I've wanted to develop some online courses. I've developed a couple, but they haven't launched well. Recently, I met a Christian brother who developed a platform for online courses that is user-friendly and affordable.
I've developed some preliminary course outlines, so now I need to do the work of recording videos and setting up the courses. I'm excited and challenged about this opportunity!
Feedback Please
Would you please give me some feedback on the following questions?
- What type of online courses would you be interested in?
- Of the 3 posts I do each week, which is your favorite or most beneficial?
- If I started a podcast, what topics or focus would interest you?
You can respond via this link– contact or by email– trip(at)word-strong(dot)com
I look forward to your input... Thanks!