Get thee to a nunnery?

It's the last week for me as a live-in assistant at the l'Arche community but I am going out with a bang. Tomorrow we leave for Spokane, a seven hour journey, with all the core members and three assistants in the van. We're going to Regional Gathering, where l'Arche communities come from Tacoma, Seattle, Orange County and Portland meet to pray and party with the Spokanites. I am excited but also wary of the exhaustion that comes from these types of events. I start full time at University of Portland on Monday and go right into a retreat with student staff that weekend. Staff training start the day after we get back which leads into the Service Plunge for incoming freshman then orientation that weekend. All of this was unforseeable when we invited both the Bixler and Florer families to visit right smack in the middle.

The other news is that there is a great chance we have found a new asssitant to take my place in the house. That's great for the house, but it does mean I need to find another place to live. We didn't want to start renting an apartment we would both live in because we would be paying two rents for four months.

The solutions presented itself with Sister Susan, the nun who has been my housemate for the past year. Her convent has several guests rooms which they rent for cheap to people like me who are in transition. So, it may turn out that I will live with three ninety year old nuns for the next few months. Since Jake would be over there a lot, we both went to a meeting with the community the other night. One of the sisters said, "we can tell everyone that we nurtured a romance in our convent!" Hilarious.