Rome!

We're going to Rome!! We're going with Tyler's parents and a group from their Church in Montgomery, AL. There are two seminarians from the Archdiocese of Mobile being ordained to the deaconate in Rome on Thursday, Oct. 6 so the trip is based around that. We're leaving tomorrow and will be there for 8 days, starting in Rome, traveling to Assisi, Siena, and then back to Rome. We would appreciate all your prayers for us for a safe trip and a blessed time and can't wait to share pictures and stories with you! We'll be praying for all of you and your intentions at every place we go!

A Wild Week

What a week this has been! God is ever faithful and has blessed us so much! We are very excited about all God is doing! This was the fourth week of classes and we're starting to get into a routine. We love the weekends because they are usually relaxing and time to regroup and get ready for the week ahead. Tyler is enjoying football (yesterday he asked me how we managed without football, in the "dry season", and I didn't have an answer for him) and I thought this would be a good time to blog about our wild week.

Tyler is really enjoying reaching out to the athletes. He talks of being a "ministry of presence" while going to practices and games. Even if he doesn't talk to the players, he is there and every week he touches base with the coaches and asks if he can help with anything. He is splitting up his time between football, soccer, cross country, and tennis and so far the coaches have been very open to having him around.

Before now I have only seen Tyler on a soccer field so I am enjoying watching him at football practices and games. It's quite a different atmosphere.
He has had breakfast and lunch with a few athletes and is planning on starting a cross country bible study in a few weeks.

Loras campus has started to show signs of fall. We are used to the fall in Florida, which isn't really fall at all. Whenever we'd see red leaves at Ave Maria we'd get excited, but also sad because it wasn't a real fall leaf. Here, the leaves are changing everywhere and it is beautiful.

One of the traditions at Loras is to have Wednesday night Mass at 9pm at the grotto outside.
Two weeks ago Tyler wore his black pea coat because it was chilly and after Mass during the announcements Father Joensen said we would keep having Mass outside as long as the weather cooperated, but that Tyler Rosser might not like it since he is a southerner and is cold. Since then, people have been coming up to him and telling him to brace for the winter. The next week, Tyler was making an announcement about a party at our place and he started off pointing to the leaves behind the grotto that were showing fall colors. He said he was from Alabama and was really enjoying the foliage. At the end of the announcements, the assistant pastor Father Boone pointed to the building across the way and said, "Look at the bricks...I'm from Iowa." Everyone laughed...maybe you had to be there, but it was funny. People in Iowa aren't really used to southerners but they are now!

On Fridays the missionaries and some students go to the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic downtown to pray. This was our first time and we prayed a Rosary and a Divine Mercy Chaplet. It is a great way to come together and stand up for life, as well as being a witness community. There were a few adults praying when we got there and they were very excited to learn about FOCUS and see so many students willing to pray in front of the clinic.

We ended the week with a bang. We hosted the Rosser's Rooftop Rendezvous. We love entertaining and having people over and this topped our list of the biggest party (even if it was our first) we have thrown. It was a great night.

Everyone started in our apartment with hot chocolate and then went up to the terrace.

We had fun with the food (the Rosser's like their food) and made party mix, caramel apples, and cheese dip.
Tyler's teammate Kourtney (on the right) with some students.

Tyler and his team director Jason (in the middle) with friend Tim.

We had our wedding dance playlist playing on my iPod and people were dancing (brought back great memories!) Overall it was a success and hopefully we can do it again in the spring.

Saturday Tradition

A tradition at Loras that we are really excited about is going to 8am Mass on Saturday mornings and eating brunch afterwards. We go to St. Mary's church across the river in East Dubuque, IL. It's about five minutes from our apartment and a very beautiful small church.

This is our second Saturday in a row hosting the brunch and Tyler and I are so thankful we have a kitchen where we can cook and a home into which we can welcome students! (Two things that were difficult when we were living in Florida.)

This morning six students and some of our teammates joined us so we had a total of 11 people. Tyler cooked 16 eggs and I made a triple batch of cherry walnut pancakes. It was quite the production and are already planning next week's menu.

Our Home!

Tyler and I are thrilled to finally have all our stuff in one place and to have a home. This last year we have called three places home (Florida, Alabama, and Nebraska) and so we add Iowa to the list. Who would have thought we'd ever live in Iowa? The crazy thing is, we LOVE it here. Dubuque is called the "Masterpiece on the Mississippi" and we are realizing why people come here for vacation or move back after living somewhere else. It really is beautiful.

Our apartment is downtown and right by the Mississippi river. The building is an old factory building that in the last two years they have renovated into apartments on the second and third floor (and are currently remodeling the main floor to be used as office space and a possible coffee shop which we are excited about!)

Our apartment is on the left hand corner on the third floor. Notice Tyler by our truck in our "parking spot." Once the construction is done we'll be able to use the parking lot but for now we park by the curb and try to motivate ourselves to climb the stairs!

Here is the view from the top of the stairs looking out to downtown (on the left) and the river to the right. There are lots of casinos, restaurants, and a river boat museum in that area.

Welcome to our apartment!

The long hall way to the left of the table is the entry way which leads to the front door and to the den (which we are so thankful to have because otherwise we don't know where we would store all our stuff!) The door off the dining room is the bathroom.

We love our kitchen! There is a laundry room on the right hand side of the kitchen.

Everything we had in Florida (the rug, futon, and lots of the pictures) match really well with the dark wood floors and brick on the walls. The door on the left side of the picture leads to our bedroom.

Here is our bedroom. The second picture shows you the tall ceilings (which are throughout the apartment) and the beautiful windows with the brick wall.


Here's the den.


A really cool thing about our apartment is the terrace. There are amazing views of downtown, the bridge crossing into Illinois, and the river. It's a very relaxing place to sit and read and there is a grill that we're excited to try out in the future.


We are so thankful that God lead us to this apartment and it really is a blessing. We love being downtown and close to the river but it's only a seven minute drive to campus which is helpful since we drive there multiple times a day. We already feel like this is home and we love visitors so feel free to come anytime!!

FOCUS Visitors

One great thing about FOCUS is you get to know lots of awesome people. When I was a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I got to know Rebecca and Travis. They both were students at UNL who went on to become missionaries. (My sister Ashley was actually in Rebecca's bible study.) Currently Travis is the team director at the University of Illinois in Champaign (where we were for five weeks this summer for FOCUS training) and they have two adorable children, Joseph who is three and Hannah who is one.

We had the privilege of hosting them when they came to Dubuque last week. Travis was the speaker for the big event with students on Thursday night. He talked about answering God's call and getting out of the boat in our Christian lives. The students were very receptive and we feel like it's going to be a great year!


The next day Rebecca, Hannah and I joined Kjersti (our team director's wife) and her one year old girl Olivia for a play date.

Camping

The next adventure was a camping trip for the FOCUS student leaders. So far we feel like we've seen a lot of the Iowa country side and it is beautiful! This time we were about 30 miles south of Dubuque in Bellevue State Park, again on the Mississippi River.

Along with the missionaries, a few students spent the night and the rest joined us the following day. While people were setting up tents, Tyler and I made our bed. That's right, inside our truck. We have always wanted to sleep in it, because there is so much room when you put the seats up. Well, we fulfilled our dream and it's one of those, "Been there, done that." It was an adventure.



Kourtney loves the outdoors and she brought her own charcoal grill and cooked hamburgers and brats for dinner.


The guys were very inventive in collecting fire wood and starting the fire with the car lighter and paper.


As the sun was setting we went for a Rosary walk and a little hike through the woods. Then we came back and made s'mores.



The crew from left to right: back row Andrew, Tyler, Tony, Jason, front row Dene', Stacey, and Kourtney


In the morning the other student leaders joined us and the missionaries gave talks on the upcoming year.

Tyler gave the vision talk and challenged everyone to keep in mind the goal of helping each other get to heaven.


In FOCUS student leaders are grouped into 'discipleship chains' and under each missionary there are four to five students who lead a bible study and disciple one to two other students. (And it keeps going down the chain which is what we refer to as 'spiritual multiplication' which is what Jesus did. He poured into Peter, James and John who in turn went out and poured into others. We are striving to fulfill the scripture "Go out and make disciples of all the nations.") There are 21 student leaders at Loras and we have a goal to be at 40 at the end of the year.

Kourtney's chain:

Jason's chain:

Stacey's chain:


Since Tyler is working with the athletes, he doesn't have any disciples yet but will hopefully have athletes interested in bible studies and discipleship later in the year.

Team Off-Site

We arrived in Dubuque about two weeks ago and have been going fast since we got here. The first adventure we took was with our team to a cabin just outside of town by the Mississippi River. We all spent the night and had time to get to know each other as well as discuss the upcoming year.





Tyler and his team director Jason cookin' brats and drinking beer.

Teammates Stacey and Kourtney in the kitchen. Don't they look like they could be sisters?

Stacey eating her first brat. It was quite the ordeal.

Jason and Kjersti's little girl Olivia (who will have a baby sister towards the end of November!)


We love our team and all the personalities mix together to create a very fun atmosphere that will be great for this year!