What's Zup?

Sunday, February 5, 2012

January 4, 2012

I spoke with Matt's dean today at North High School and he said Matt would learn far more traveling to Togo than he would the last two weeks of school. He approved our pulling him - and he would do everything he could to make it work. But I wasn't satisfied with just his approval. No, I asked permission to e-mail his teachers and see what they thought.

January 3, 2012

Sam received a lot of e-mails from me today! First of all, Brian did not say "no"! He forwarded my questions to Emily, Mercy Ships Staff and Recruitment Manager. Right after I opened his e-mail, I got this from Emily: "I re-activated your applications before I left for the holidays and yours was on my chair when I arrived back this morning. Because I hadn’t heard back, I sent another e-mail earlier this morning to our Operations Director requesting that Matt and you be able to serve this summer, as this is a unique situation. As soon as I hear from him, I will let you know.” Four hours later, Emily wrote again - "Good news! I’ve heard back from our Operations Director and Nikki Aldum (the Academy principal) with her input. We would like to go ahead and recommend we move forward with your re-application and Matt's. Because this situation is a unique one, we want to stress that Matt’s role is to be a helper with the Summer Program and under the supervision of you and the other Summer Program team. We believe this will be a great summer – but we just want him to be aware of his position and responsibilities with the team! I will re-activate his application and give your paperwork to the General Placement Facilitator to follow-up with the remaining pieces. I’ve copied her to this e-mail to answer any other questions you may have as we continue working through the application process. She’ll confirm and send a final acceptance letter once we get final approval from housing." Things were moving a bit too fast for me and not necessarily in the direction I was sure I wanted, but I knew we had an even bigger hurdle to cross - could we pull Matt from the last two weeks of school?

January 2, 2012

After two plus months of hearing Matt ask, "Mom, why couldn't just you and I go to the ship this summer?", I caved in and on January 2, I asked Brian if just Matt and I could come. Sam and I had gone out for lunch that day, and we both agreed. Brian was going to say "no" because either Matt was too young or he already had staff lined up. I assured Sam we had nothing to worry about. Our summer would be spent in Minnesota.

Monday, October 3, 2011

That was the day we received this e-mail from the Mercy Ships Academy Chief Administrator, Brian Blackburn, "It looks like the Summer Program for next year will be the month of June only. Starting in Togo and ending after a sail to Tenerife! Interested?" Our thought was, "Oh, man! Yes!" Both Matt and I have wanted to sail on the ship forever - no way did getting gas in Benin count as a sail - but no matter how excited we were, it was not going to work. Sam and Micah did not want to go - Sam has a fence to re-build and Micah wanted to stay home. And no matter how much Matt wanted to go, he would miss two weeks of school - we couldn't do it. So on October 17, we sent our official regrets. And the whine began . . .