Hi Friends,
The end of January is near and I feel like this month encompassed multiple months! From experiencing my first water crisis (and unpacking all of the privilege that holds) to working at the hospital to continuing to love my internship to starting my last two classes of seminary to trying to apply for one job/call or do some sort of networking for future jobs/calls every day, January is busy! During January we worshiped at an Episcopal church, a PCUSA church, and I'll preach at my ecumenical job this Sunday. We road tripped to Charlottesville, VA and we head to the Washington DC area for a day trip this weekend.
UPSem Richmond's annual Calvin Ball, which is named after John Calvin, of course.
This is a photo of some of our Final Level Students, the Class of 2025, which includes students from 5 degree programs and a couple of certificate programs.
The water in our apartment complex shut off before the water on campus. So we walked to campus in the snow to fill up some tap water. Thanks, UPSem!
The Spring semester began with a water crisis in Richmond. We didn't have any water at our apartment for almost 72 hours and we were on a boil advisory for 48 hours once our water returned. The lack-of-water situation was mostly just a nuisance for us. We were lucky to find bottled water at Kroger on day two of the crisis and to have a seminary student's mom deliver water to us from Southern VA.
The water crisis reminded us of all those, in our country and our world, for whom safe water isn't a reality. Even just our short walk to the pool for water to flush our toilets made us think about all those who walk for miles each day to obtain water.
All those living in our apartment complex got creative with water-storage containers, which we used to collect pool water so that we could manually flush our toilets.
A student's mom drove 3+ hours from Southern Virginia to deliver drinkable water to UPSem folks.
What a generous woman who provided so much relief to so many of us!
Our friend, Annabelle, also delivered us some water from her bathtub, which she'd been able to fill up, for us to flush toilets.
On January 3rd, I worked my first overnight Chaplain shift at the hospital since the summer. You never know what to expect at the hospital and on this particular night, I had 14 calls from 10pm-8am. 'Twas a busy night!
A quick moment of respite to eat some bacon and tater tots on the 11th floor of the hospital at about 7am.
On New Years Eve we walked/hiked 4 miles to Monticello in VA.
These are the 33 books that I read in 2024. I'm proud of my bedtime routine, which includes reading for pleasure to help me relax, and for the ways I've found balance with school readings!
Peace and blessings to you and yours during this season. I look forward to being in Denton in March for a long weekend.
Warmly,
Caitlin
