St. Louis

We're in St. Louis right now visiting Covenant Seminary because Jimmy will likely be starting there in August. He's got an interview tomorrow (multiple interviews, actually) for a full tuition scholarship, for which he's one of 11 or 12 finalists for 6 or 7 scholarships. We think he's got a good chance of getting it (at least we hope he does!). We all really like it here, which is good. It snowed yesterday morning (Easter morning)--Nathan's first snow! (Pictures coming after we're back in Long Beach.) We visited New City Fellowship church on Sunday morning. Granted, we've only been there once, but that place seems unreal. When we asked where we should go to church Sunday morning, we expected Jimmy's admissions representative to say "Well, I go here, so just come with me." Instead he asked us what we were looking for. We told him we would like to go to a multicultural church that embraces diversity and then he suggested we go to New City. We didn't really expect to find one like that, especially in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) and in St. Louis. It was really cool. They had about 7 different people say "He is risen!" in their native tongues, a sizeable portion of the church was not white (with the majority of non-white people being African American), and the pastor worked racial reconcilliation into a sermon on the resurrection of Jesus. Amazing. We feel very strongly about racial reconcilliation within the body of Christ and also with ministry in the inner city and to the poor, and we are TOTALLY PSYCHED that there's a church, not far from the seminary, that is really focused on those two things (and is PCA!!!). The service was a little long (2 hours, 15 minutes), but I'm about ready to move to St. Louis just for the church. :)

Today we saw some housing, which was great. There is on-campus housing, off-campus housing owned by the seminary, and off-campus housing that is separate. We saw the on-campus apartments and the off-campus apartments owned by the seminary. We thought the off-campus ones would be our last choice but of course now we like them the best. We'd looked at the floor plans and the 2 bedroom apartments are only 880 square feet. A little small. Until you take into account the full basement which then makes the useable space in the apartment 1760 square feet! For less than $700/month. And all but two of the apartments are seminary students so the community there will be really good for us (and Nathan!). Unfortunately, the kitchens are small and no dishwasher, but there are hardwood floors and washer/dryer hookups which about make up for it.

Anyway, that's my St. Louis update. Nathan and I are going to the zoo (free! except for parking...) tomorrow while Jimmy is interviewing so hopefully I'll get some good pictures. He's really gotten into animals since our last zoo trip (especially ELEPHANTS) so I think he will really enjoy it!