April update

I can't believe April is already over! One more week and the semester is over and Julio and I have a break from studying. I can't wait!

Here are some highlights from the last couple weeks.

First of all, our good friend Julie had a baby girl! Her name is Tessa and she's so cute! I was able to go and see both of them in the hospital...brought back lots of memories.

Visiting Julie (on the right) and Tessa

Tessa (weighed over 9 lbs. at birth...she beat Sam!)

Second, our friend Kellyn celebrated her first birthday! We went to her party that was held at a little cafe "Let them eat cake." There were delicious cupcakes and even a person who made balloon animals and cool tattoos for kids. Sam got a dolphin tattoo and a curious george balloon. Kellyn was so adorable eating her cake. Sam kept saying that he wanted to sing happy birthday for her, but then when he actually got up to her he froze. Too much pressure :)




Julio has an internship this semester, working in collaboration with the Central Conference of the Covenant Church, in a leadership discipleship ministry geared towards hispanic young adults. He is part of a small team that is working with a larger group of youth/young adults from the various hispanic churches around Chicago. This is a perfect fit for him. We had our first gathering and there were 12 people who came to our house for a bbq. It was a great time of food and getting to know one another.



Lastly, I'm now at 30+ weeks. Two months to go in the pregnancy. While I feel huge and stretched out, my doctor keeps assuring me I'm right on track. Baby is very active and even Sam is able to feel him kick. The reality of the fact that soon we will have two children is slowly setting in. We are both excited and nervous.

A new blog

That's right, we have a new blog! We'll still be keeping this one and updating it, but we wanted to create a blog that particularly highlights our preparation for returning to Colombia as project missionaries with the Covenant Church in 2011.

This blog is a great place to go to find out more info. about how we will be serving, the steps we're taking to prepare for the future ministry, and the ways you can partner with us in the ministry.

So, please check out The Isaza Family blog.

Nashville, Tennessee

April has been a busy month for us. We were invited to attend the Covenant Church´s ¨Church Planter Assessment Center¨ in Nashville, Tennessee as part of our preparation for returning to Colombia to work in the area of church planting and leadership development.

Let me back up! Julio and I have known that our time in the USA would be temporary as we both feel called to live and serve in Latin America. We´ve been in the process of applying to be project missionaries with the Covenant in Colombia, and in March we were officially approved! It´s still a little ways off as Julio will finish school before we leave, but we have a goal of heading back to Colombia in the early fall of 2011. We have made a 5 year commitment to work in the areas of leadership development and church planting. We have developed a project alongside the Colombian Covenant Church that we will be implementing in Colombia.

So, again, as part of our preparation for that we attended this assessment center. It´s a 3-day intense experience of evaluation, interviews, group activities, etc. For people considering planting a new church with the Covenant, they must be recommended by this assessment center. We were there with about 20 other people who were being assessed. While the days and nights were long, and even the preparation leading up to the three days was grueling (different personality tests/inventories, papers describing our call to ministry, preparing a sermon, etc), we really appreciated our time there. We loved meeting the other people and sharing stories and experiences. We loved sharing about Colombia and what great things are happening there. We were actually able to spend some time with friends who were there from Colombia. The times with the counselor and being interviewed by the assessors were insightful and Julio and I feel like we know ourselves better after all the testing we've done in the past couple months, then we ever have before.

It was a really affirming experience for us and we were able to connect with some great people. It renewed our passion and vision for seeing new churches planted and new leaders trained. We'd love to talk more about it with anyone who wants to know more.

With friends from Colombia who were at the assessment center

Julio enjoying some of the sights of Nashville

Katie enjoying the ice cream :)

More friends from the assessment center

While we were in Tennessee, Sam was back in Chicago with Grandma and they had a great three days. We were so grateful to know he was in good hands and enjoy the time we had just as a couple. We were very excited to get back to our little boy after the three days.

Sam in his sailboat - thanks to a creative grandma

Enjoying his icecream - just like his mom

Easter

What a wonderful Easter we had! It was truly a time of celebration! We were lucky enough to have my parents and brother (we missed you, Ingris!) come for the weekend and had a great time together.

On Friday we spent the day downtown and it was a perfect day...not too cold, not too hot. We took the train downtown, since Sam has been begging to go on the train for awhile. Then walked around Millennium Park, down Michigan Ave. and along the river. We ended our time with Chicago-style pizza at Giordano's (heavenly!)



Saturday was rainy in the morning so we just laid low. Dad was busy working on a few projects to help get our storage room organized. Julio and Jason took a trip to the Colombian grocery store, we had a yummy Easter dinner, and later in the afternoon our neighbors hosted an Easter egg hunt.

Sunday, Dad and Jason left early and the rest of us headed to church. It was an awesome time of worship and celebration. We're so blessed to be a part of New Community Covenant Church, a community that truly lives out the Gospel message.

Spring is here!

It seems the snow and cold are a thing of the past and we're finally moving into spring. We have all been able to breathe easier knowing we can spend lots of time outside in the fresh air! Sam is happy that he can go to the park, throw the baseball, and play in the dirt.

Last night, as part of our traditional Weds. night potluck, we spent some time decorating Easter eggs. Sam wasn't quite sure what to make of it and to top it off he has a cold, so he wasn't in the best spirits, but he was very proud of his egg.