The Official Blog

Each of us fellows take a week to write a blog post about our classroom time, and I just posted for my week on Tuesday. Link below:

http://trinityfellowsacademy.org/2016/09/27/culture-is-ordinary-week-4/

If you are interested in our classroom lectures and discussion, give this blog a read. It will be almost purely academic, but some of my colleagues have incredible eloquence in talking about what we are learning, especially if it is an area they are passionate about.

The Fellows (Part 1)

Our bios are up online, so I'll direct you here ( http://trinityfellowsacademy.org/about-us/class-of-2017/ )  if you are looking for a sterile, professional description of all the blah blah things we have done for professional growth blah blah bidity blah. So after reviewing those, I'll give you a little more of a rundown here.

First off, everyone here is awesome. Don't let my sarcasm about bios confuse you: I just find bios funny and intimidating and often slightly overinflated, so it's been a blast to meet these friends in real life and get to see great personality on top of great bios.

Several weeks ago, a group of us was biking down a lane that looked an awful lot like Middle Earth, at which we declared ourselves the "Fellow"ship of the Ring and started to match each Fellow to a character from Lord of the Rings. Yes, it's incredibly nerdy. But shockingly, it worked! We had to add Gollum as an honorary member to round out the number to ten, but hey... So first:

Lauren (pronounced Lau-REn, like Ralph Lauren) starring as Pippin. Lauren is a great lover of life and all things Jesus. She has a super dynamic personality and endless energy, as well as an amazing array of meaningful tattoos all over her body. She basically can tell the Gospel story with her tattoos. We are on opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to planning and spontaneity, but she has been good for me in reminding me what it means to live in the moment. She is passionate about truth and has been a Fellow quick to point others back to Biblical truth and God's love.

Chris, playing Boromir. Chris is the oldest of the Fellows here (at 28, I think?) and has had incredible work experience building technical start-ups. He is very strategic and always thinking up new ideas and business plans. He loves tea, and is always willing to share his tea collection to anyone willing to try a new tea. Chris loves people and has had a lot of success as a manager, specifically in helping people find roles that they are really good at.

Jeff, aka Gandalf. Jeff is brilliant, and has a huge appetite for questions. Jeff, who has been dubbed the Group Dad, has a lot of wisdom and is probably one of the more well-read people that I know. He often is found saying things like "I wonder about" and "What could you do with" and "Have we considered the implications".  We analyze (*cough* overanalyze) life very similarly, so have found a lot of common ground in some of our questions and wonderings.

The introverts (plus Taf, who is NOT) trying to get in some good reading

Friday morning coffee tastings, which are becoming a tradition... it has been fun to introduce people to the idea of pairings

 Further descriptions to come...

The Facilities

So the living situation... Below is a picture of Windrush. Windrush contains all ten Fellows plus our host "parents", Steve and Susie, who decided that empty nesting wasn't for them when their boys went to college, so three days later moved in here. They have a little apartment with personal living space, but eat a lot of evening meals with us. 

And this is the local lodge, Osprey Point, where we do our service shifts. They have said that we will average about 15 hours a week in here, either in the kitchen, dining, or stripping and resetting rooms. The manager, Roger, is amazing and has promised some extra time of discussion and brainstorming around hospitality management and hopefully additional training. 

The lodge is home to the longest pier on the Chesapeake Bay, clocking in at just about 1/4 mile long. Legend has it that the first owner of the property (a slightly eccentric man who helped invite fake leather right before a world war) built it so that he could dock his yacht. 

Sunsets

The sunsets here are out of this world. I have seen some amazing ones before, but am consistently amazed because they are a little different every night, but still amazing. We have been forbidden to blog about them on the "official" blog, as (per our program director Syman), we must not allow the outside world to think that all we do is goof around and watch sunsets.

To this, he gets my best "unamused face", which I'm being told is apparently a Tianna special.

I didn't take any of these pictures, as I have become very fond of leaving my phone in my room, so photo cred goes to my fellow Fellows.

Take some time today to worship the One who gets to paint each one of these, every night.