(more pics) We had a lot of fun today, watching a bunch of people, students and friends from church acting silly, doing crazy games… together. It’ hard to believe it but the end of the school year has come and this year at UTA we celebrated with a Picnic/Party at Bowman Springs Park in Arlington with the AM101 class of Fielder Road Baptist Church as our host. It was fun watching people do silly things, eating, connecting. I think in many ways this was one of our better end of the year parties yet. All the student there were friends from throughout the year. It was great.

We were worried that there would not be enough students, not enough people from church, not enough food and to top it off, there was a Tornado watch announced for the evening at 6 PM. (A watch as opposed to a warning is generally no big deal… but rain was a definite possibility). As always, it all worked out as there was plenty of food, just the right amount of people and beautiful weather for the evening.

One of the sad things though is we found out that Miguel & Charles, two key leaders and cornerstones of our ministry were leaving the area. Miguel, a recent MA graduate of UTA, has been looking for work as an architect and is likely moving to San Antonio soon. Charles, a recent TESOL masters graduate, will be going to Korea to teach english at a CRAM type school. We will sorely miss these guys. They have been very special to us.

Today was also special because I got to spend more time with my Persian friends, Ali & Bahareh. I really appreciate the friendship Lisa and I are developing with this wonderful couple. It has really been fun. I just feel we connect with them at so many levels. I thank God for them.

Tomorrow, another dear friend Darren will graduate from TCU to move on to Rice University to get his PhD. I have met with him for the last three years every week and have really enjoyed the discussion so very much. Perhaps I will share more later…