A Day in the Life: Madison, WI

It's been a while since I (Meggan) have written, so I thought I'd take a few moments to catch people up on our lives here in Madison. We have been living on Whitney Way since July and really do feel settled in our apartment. It has been great to catch up with Madison friends from college and reconnect at Blackhawk Evangelical Free Church, where we were married over five years ago. That's a blast from the past, right? Of course, Blackhawk has since moved to a new location in Madison. My cousin Chris is now a freshman at UW-Madison, and we had fun running into him one Sunday.

Ben and I are both working as we raise support to return to Spain, hopefully by fall 2010. I work at a local dance retail store called Rosy Cheeks in Westgate Mall. Ben works at Victor Allen's Coffee at Odana and Whitney Way. We can both walk to our jobs and are grateful that we didn't have to buy a second car during our time here.

Support-raising is the adventure that it always is. We are finding again that our expectations are usually way off, which is a challenge at times. We keep reminding ourselves that this is God's mission that we are taking part in, not Ben and Meggan's mission that happens to be God-honoring. Thank you so much to those who have already joined our support team! If we haven't been in touch with you yet, don't worry - we will be soon!

The pregnancy is going very well. I didn't have a lick of morning sickness. My stomach is going through a sore stage again, but that just means baby Knox is growing and trying to stretch out in his limited space. I had a recent scare, thinking that I had developed gestational diabetes, but the second test came back with fantastic results, making the first test just an abnormality. Praise God for that since I don't have the greatest family health history.

This Christmas, we are participating in Advent Conspiracy. Check out this video to learn more! We are hand-making a lot of our Christmas gifts, and are deciding to give a lot less in order to give to people in NEED. Blackhawk will be donating 100% of the funds received in a special offering to build wells for communities without clean water in Honduras, Peru, and Kenya, as well as provide wheelchairs for people with limited mobility. Of course you don't have to participate in the literal Advent Conspiracy to follow the "spirit" of this project. I challenge and invite you to approach Christmas differently this year, not because of the economic state of the country, but because of the overabundance that we already enjoy.

Our other weekly activities include going to Childbirth/Parenting classes at Meriter Hospital on Monday nights. Tuesday nights, we attend our lifegroup through Blackhawk. We are so grateful for this group already and have really enjoyed getting to know everyone there. Sunday nights, Ben volunteers with Lief, our college and seminary friend who is the high school youth pastor at Blackhawk.

Ben and I miss our Denver artistic outlets like Ben singing with the Sliders and both of us dancing at Littleton Dance Academy quite a bit. But, this is a season for other foci. We know we'll have those types of opportunities again in the future. And frankly, it's my own fault for not dancing here in Madison while I still could have. Those days are no more until this baby is born! In the meantime, I still feel connected to the dance world by working at Rosy Cheeks.

And that, friends, is a day in the life in Madison, WI.