Two Weddings and a Marriage Course

March 2023 Newsletter

Twelve and a half years ago, Leon and I were planning our wedding. We didn’t know when we chose our wedding date that our half anniversary would be Valentine’s Day. We don’t say we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day (a day that is over commercialised and seems to have forgotten about St. Valentine); it’s a half anniversary for us.

We started The Marriage Course at church on Valentine’s day and it will run for 7 weeks. We have a 13 couples attending with about 30 kids in childcare. The couples are giving each other a splendid gift. Each week we serve a meal followed by the course. Children are fed, and the couples have a date night. It is a big undertaking, but the testimonies are rewarding.

One couple said that it was the longest date they had ever had without their children. Another couple realised they need to align their day off each week. I think that all attending are finding it useful.

We also attended two weddings in person last month. It was the first weddings our children remember attending in person and were for people in our house group. They were also the couples who attend the Pre-Marriage Course we ran in the autumn.

A major project that the IT team I (Leon) lead has undertaken this year is to migrate all our servers to Microsoft Azure. We are about halfway through the migration. We have been rethinking much of our infrastructure setup and how we can provide the same services we had provided before, but using the toolset that Azure provides. Our Linux server migration was a lift and shift migration. The migration of our Windows servers is also being done with an upgrade from Windows Server 2016 to Windows Server 2022. We are working on a plan to migrate all the Windows servers.

If I didn't mention Working Genius when we were in the US last year, you would be lucky. As a family and on the IT Infrastructure team that I lead, we have been using this part personality + part productivity assessment to help us embrace our God-given gifts and not feel guilty for failing at those things we are poor at doing. It was good that I asked the IT director if we could use the tool for the entire IT department — and he agreed.

At the end of January, I therefore ran the entire IT department through The Working Genius. Everyone received it well. We ran through The Working Genius as part of a 2 day “offsite” planning meeting for the software developers. People are more excited about their work according to my perception. The results were so clear on a few points that 2 people immediately changed their jobs based upon the assessment!

The biggest realisation was that in our IT department we only have 1 person who is truly a genius at galvanising (exciting team members into action). We have wondered why our projects struggle to get implemented. We have people ready to do the work, but there is usually something somewhere which is blocking. None of us in the IT department gets great joy from galvanising people except this one person on our team. Making the realisation that we only have 1 person who likes to create the energy to spur and stir us forward was very much an eye opener for the team.

In January, I (Chrysti) had the privilege of attending a retreat in the Lake District with other home educating mothers inspired by Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. It was a special time because it was the first time we met since 2019, and because this year is the centenary of Charlotte Mason’s death. After a weekend of connecting with old friends and new, I left inspired in my approach to our homeschooling.