Back to School

If bringing a child into our family and dealing with the adjustment issues that go along with an international adoption from Korea were not enough, it’s time for both of us to resume our work on our dissertations on Tuesday (God willing!).

As some of you may recall, we had just submitted a rough draft of our final two chapters to our mentor the day before we received the call that Ethan was ready for pick-up in Korea. While we were in Korea, our mentor, Dr. Russell West, emailed us his feedback.

We will work on making the necessary improvements and revisions so that we can have complete mentor-approved dissertations to submit to the D.Min. office within the next 1 to 3 weeks so that our defenses can be scheduled in time for graduation in May (we hope this is do-able!).

We know we are really cutting it close, and that we really need God’s help with juggling our dissertation work with caring for, and spending time with, Ethan. One thing is for certain: these two journeys (adoption and dissertation) have tracked each other extremely closely over the last 13 months.

We trust that God will continue to work out all of the details, so that we can put our Doctor of Ministry chapter behind us!

4 thoughts on “Back to School”

  1. What a few weeks you all have had! I am anxiously awaiting new pictures :o) Never fear that God will pull you through these first few weeks (or should I say years and years) of parenting. He has big plans for you and will never let you down.
    Love to all!

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  2. Good luck in the next few weeks with your homework. Maybe you can schedule shifts… while one of you tends to Ethan, the other can focus on revisions. I’m sure with God’s guidance, everything will work out just fine. Just remember, whatever game plan you work out to get your task accomplished, Ethan will most likely revise! Always expect revisions from your child even on the best laid plans 🙂 Good night Ethan, sweet dreams.

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  3. Thanks for your prayers.

    We did not get much done on our dissertations last week (except for reading/deciphering our mentor’s feedback). In retrospect, it was probably too much to expect to hit the ground running our first week after returning from Korea with a baby boy, who must feel something like a “fish out of water.” 🙂

    But we’re hoping to dive in tomorrow (we’re scheduled to talked to our mentor by phone on Monday). After reviewing our mentor’s notes, we both have a pretty good bit of revising to do. It might be do-able, but the clock is ticking really fast.

    If we can’t get our drafts done in the next week and a half, we will have to delay graduation (till Dec 08 or May 09). That won’t be the end of the world (the main thing is to finish, even if it’s not in the next couple weeks), but we want to give it our best shot, anyway.

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