It was recently recommended to us by our home church pastor that it might be a good thing to share with those that care, what exactly we do with our time…

It got me thinking, maybe he was on to something…

So many people partner with us and see a few updates here and there from us about some of the things that we are up to, but most people have no idea what we are actually doing with all of our time.

I know the majority of people just want the short little updates focusing on a person we are working with, little success stories if you will. But, there are always people who want to know more, so this post is for you. We will not be emailing it out to everyone, but if you cared enough to find this post, then you may just be interested in what’s written in it.

So, I am going to do my best to chronicle what a typical day/week looks like for us.

First, a few disclaimers:

1. This “typical” day/week only applies about half the year, when we do not have groups here. When we do have groups here, I (Andrew) spend 10-14 hours a day with the groups and Anna joins in when she can with the boys, typically about 2 days per week for 4-6 hours. However, everything else that I list in our “typical non group weeks still has to get done, just typically late at night or early in the morning, or on my one day off form the groups per week.

2. Every week is different and very few things are ever cemented in place, such is the nature of this life and work. (Read this as, take this schedule with a grain of salt)

Here we go.

A Typical Weekday

Every weekday morning, our days start between 6 and 6:30 when Andrew gets up with Kai to get him ready for school. Anna takes care of the baby at night (multiple times per night) so she gets the morning to sleep in a bit, but is usually up in time to say goodbye to Kai on our way out the door to take him to school around 7:30.

Often times, Andrew will have meetings after dropping Kai off at school with our various part time staff, full time staff, volunteers and coordinators or with our site director, Erick. As Andrew has assumed all of the cash and some accounting responsibilities, he meets with every volunteer, part time staff, full time staff and coordinator that needs money for anything for any of our ministry partners. This often means 5-10 meetings per week with various people doing cash sign ins and cash sign outs and going over receipts.

When Andrew doesn’t have meetings, he returns home to try to work at home on the various things he is in charge of. Receipts and Cash, Marketing & Communications for Mexico (although I am only supposed to be putting 5 hours a week in to this, it is often much more and needs to be even more than I can afford to give it)

Monday mornings are designated as personal office days for staff generally. This is the time when we have designated to correspond with our ministry partners back in the states, work on blog posts and emails, write thank you notes for donations, work on getting new partners, etc. However, these items usually end up getting bumped back as we have meetings with volunteers, coordinators, part time staff, and stuff like that.

Monday evenings we visit San Jose and pay the tutor as well as visit with the kids and caretakers and get our weekly download of everything that is going on at the home and how our part time staff person that we hired to help us with San Jose is doing.

Tuesday mornings we have staff meeting. These typically take 2-4 hours depending on what is on the schedule. We typically have some kind of devotional, go over future groups, planning, sometimes some training, sometimes strategic planning for the future of the site, brainstorming sessions, etc.

The rest of our week is a mixed hodgepodge of various meetings with staff and volunteers, visiting San Jose as well as Dalila’s family, and typically one ore two other meetings with staff. Also, there is typically one or two online meetings that happen via FaceTime or Google Hangouts with staff in our home office or other sites. Sometimes these are social things like doing dinner together or watching a movie together.

Weekends often also consist of activities with San Jose or Dalila’s family. Sometimes, we also have other things going on.

That is a quick look at a typical week for us. Obviously, these are only about half the weeks throughout the year. The rest of the weeks, we have groups and the schedule for groups is obviously a lot more intense.