March Update 2024

Kim Dvorak
Apr 4, 2024
7 min read

Formation Journey - Upcoming - Prayer Requests - Photo Dump

Well, as you may have guessed, our last eight months have been very full. After our last post, we did indeed go on a family camping trip to the Great Sand Dunes (It was hard but fun!), and afterward I started both my counseling practicum (I started seeing clients for therapy) and took on extra responsibilities at work in a temporary accounting role, which turned out to be much less temporary than we all initially expected. As of about three months ago, I no longer have these extra accounting responsibilities (yay!). As of a few weeks ago, I finally caught up on my other responsibilities and had a tiny bit of extra bandwidth, with which I wrote this update!

How are we settling in?

I am happy to report that we have settled into a church community! They incorporate liturgy, Biblical teaching, and grace-filled community into the experience of the church and we have felt welcomed and encouraged to grow in the few months we have been involved. Rett and I also have had the opportunity to be involved in the prayer ministry at church, which though new for us, has been a wonderful ministry to be a part of.

We are mostly unpacked and were even able to hang curtains and pictures last month! Our space is just what we needed for our family to feel comfortable, but not so big that it is hard to heat or take care of. We truly feel that all of our prayers for our living space have been answered in a way that is better than what we anticipated. After the leaves fell, we even discovered that we have a view of the mountains when sitting at our kitchen table, a space in which I am increasingly enjoying taking advantage of in the mornings.

In other family news, the larger building in which Rett's work was located caught fire in December and is now closed for renovations. The event even made the news! Before the fire, Rett had been promoted to store manager, navigated the death of an employee, and had his first experience hiring new employees. After the fire, he had extra work preparing to close down the store while navigating the Christmas shipping season. Now, he's back to being Assistant Manager at another store location nearby, which still involves a lot of responsibilities, but is significantly calmer than the past few months! In the future, he is looking forward to serving as a guinea pig for a new application process at BEE World. Please be praying for this process, both for me and other administrative staff as we work through all the bugs, and for Rett as he works through the application and support-raising process.

The kids report they love their new school, which is always encouraging to hear as a parent. Some of the academic expectations are higher than what the kids are used to, but the school has been helpful and patient in getting them up to speed. Ryan is also back to taking drum lessons, and we have even gotten the opportunity to jam together a bit as a family which is fun, with the most recent song of choice being Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. Cecilia has been enjoying tumbling and learning to help out more around the house (yes, she is actually enjoying it a bit). And finally, River (our cat) has unfortunately had some opportunities to explore the outside world but is generally content hanging out inside and enjoying the giant beanbag in the living room.

God has continued to provide graciously for us throughout the summer and fall. Our other car with a bullet hole in it, the minivan, finally died after multiple repairs and ongoing issues with the brakes and other systems. Fortunately, our growing awareness of the need for repairs for this vehicle coincided with Rett's promotion at his job, giving us the extra income we needed to afford a new-to-us car just in time! We were blessed to be able to buy another minivan, without the rust, bullet hole, or mechanical issues. We are now free of bullet-hole cars and feel blessed to look like a totally normal family who has never had any frightening adventures!

Another special blessing we experienced recently was the opportunity to take the kids skiing for the first time ever! First, we were blessed to find some very inexpensive equipment through Facebook Marketplace. Second, we found a ski hill (four hours away) that occasionally offers free skiing! Cecilia picked up the basics like a natural and Ryan is mostly getting the hang of it. I decided to start learning to snowboard too, so Ryan and I got to hang out on the little hill and practice some more together. Opportunities to do something like this as a family are particularly special after years of study and living in a very expensive area where low-cost activities weren't really available, or at least we didn't know about them. Skiing especially is something that I didn't ever think we would be able to do, so this feels like a particularly extravagant moment of grace from God.

Overall, lots of praise reports in this update, including all requests related to this move and some requests that we have been praying about for over a year, so thank you for your endurance and long-suffering in lifting us up in prayer!

Formation Journey

As you may have guessed, this current season of life is just too full to add a separate blog post about spiritual disciplines, but I would like to at least include some notes about my journey exploring spiritual disciplines with the rest of our updates. So, for this month, this is that section!

This really has been a journey of mine that I started in childhood. I grew up in a tradition that placed a high value on daily morning Bible reading and study as the primary spiritual discipline practiced and I internalized that value. Unfortunately, I've never been able to live out this value in the way that I thought I should. If I try to study anything at 5 am, I fall asleep, and this has not changed as I have gotten older.

At some point, my frustration turned into a drive for exploration. What does the Bible really say about our Bible study habits? Are 5 am study sessions the only way to honor Jesus? Is there another way to cultivate a habit of reflecting on scripture? If I could break down the formation of this habit into smaller steps, what would they be? I'm still working on answering some of those questions.

To address the first and second questions, in brief, God has always given his people freedom in what the study of scripture looks like. Historically, many people could not read for themselves and would rely on public reading of scripture (and news, royal decrees, etc.) to learn. The King of Israel would have been a notable exception to this and was expected to transcribe his own copy of "the law" and read it daily. However, even in this case, no guidelines are provided about what time of day he was supposed to do this. Knowing scripture is helpful, but we have flexibility in how this is implemented in our lives.

In my research, I also learned that Bible study (reading with cross-references or commentary) or Bible devotionals (a short passage with a lesson given by a Bible teacher) are not the only ways in which God's people have personally engaged with scripture throughout history. Instead, historical interaction with scripture emphasized public reading/listening/singing, memorization, and contemplation. These methods also included a lot more repetition than I was used to in Baptist, non-denominational, and charismatic circles.

For the moment, I am working on listening to the Bible and memorization as my primary mode of interacting with scripture. Some days, all I am able to do is practice a memory verse or recite a passage from memory, which is much less interaction than an hour-long 5 am study session. However, experiencing the Bible in these different ways has come with its own blessings and has made room for more contemplation and application of the passage being memorized (or listened to). In this intense season, I appreciate knowing different methods of engaging with scripture, and I hope this short reflection will be an encouragement to you if you ever find yourself (or your time) stretched a bit thin.

Upcoming

As you may have seen from an earlier post, accounts are live! Our Instagram Feed (for those of you who don't have an Instagram account) and work-related updates require a login so that we can be freer to share more details of our lives and work. I have it set up so that I must approve your account before it will work (for extra security). Thank you for your patience and please send me a message if you have difficulty in the process!

I am also working with the women's ministry at BEE World to help facilitate a course overseas in November. The details and budget have not yet been finalized, so please look forward to more details coming in the next few months.

Prayer Requests

Thank you so much for your prayers for provision for our family! While things are tight, we have been immensely blessed to be able to make steady progress in our financial obligations, while meeting all needs, and some wants of our family. It truly feels like we have a bit of breathing room in our budget for which we are very grateful!

For an actual prayer request: Ryan broke his wrist at the beginning of the month and just got his cast of last week. We are thankful that the injury was relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but would appreciate prayer for healing and for no more injuries in the near future!

As always, thank you so much for your prayers for our family and your encouragement. We wouldn’t have made it this far without you and we want you to know that we truly feel blessed by your continued involvement with our family through the transitions, seminary, and now the first post-seminary steps. We are praying for you too, so if you have any specific requests, let us know!