From the Elusivse

Greetings All,

I hope and trust that this message finds you all well. What a gift it is to read all of your postings, hear about where you all are, what you are all doing, discovering, learning, and how everyone is growing through their experiences.

Well for those who don't know, I am still in Tampa, FL, and am starting to find more peace with being here. It's hard to believe that I have now been here for more than a year (man...how time flies.) But things are going well, and progressively getting better. My search for fellowship and community continues, but I am blessed with good friends. And in all honesty, if Melissa Marley was not here I would not have made it this long down here. You may or may not remember her but she and I have been friends since I was a freshmen at Gordon. Melissa led Chapel Band when you guys were freshmen. She now works down here at my dad's church as the Youth Director. We get together once a week for breakfast as well as often through out the weeks just to hang out. It's great to have one of my closest friends here and she definitely keeps my sanity in check with things start to get overwhelming or I just need help focusing.

I'm still working at Starbucks, which is great. I've moved to a new store. The manager is great and the team of people I work with are wonderful. Classes also started last week and they are going well. I feel a bit over my head and know that this semester is going to be a lot of studying, but i've handled having a full-time job and going to classes before, so I'm not too worried. I'm just praying for a little time to at least breath, sleep, and see my friends and family. I'm also helping out at the hospital a couple times a month. A couple of full time positions have opened up at Tampa General and I've applied for those, so I'm just waiting to hear back.

And if my plate wasn't full enough already I'm continuing to help with and lead a service at my dad's church on Friday nights. It's a wonderful service where we do a bible study for the first 40 minutes and then have a time of worship and prayer. The people who come are mostly recovering addicts, those who've never gone to church before, or people who are living life styles that the 'typical' church going person in the south might not agree with. It's an awesome service and it's been wonderful watching it grow and draw in more people. This is actually what I consider to be my church and where I am more involved with worship.

Finally, as some people already know, I started seeing someone. Not to lead you all on, so I'm sorry for that, but I'm not going to get into that right now...maybe on another message. But if you'd like to hear more about that feel free to call me (978-473-6419) or e-mail me and I'd love to tell you all about it.

Again, hope this finds you all well and I will make sure that pictures come soon.

Blessings, Samwise