Hello all.

I write from a Holiday Inn Express breakfast dining room in Indiana. I’m here with the Greenville University women’s basketball team, for whom I am currently assistant coaching. We will play our second of two games against DePauw University this afternoon before driving home. I’m currently enjoying one of my favorite things – a morning routine at a new hotel. I wake up early (happens by default these days), work out in their own unique take on a fitness room, shower, and then take my computer/books/journal down to the hotel dining room and hang for hours, watching people, enjoying the random assortment of breakfast foods on tap, and drinking wholesale coffee. Today’s cast included a mousy hotel server, probably in her fifties, melancholy but unassumingly motherly; and a loud-mouthed but harmless big construction worker, boots and overalls and reflectors, stories and complaints about cold oatmeal.

This update will be quick because I’m currently sitting with my head coach and a few of my girls as we eat breakfast, chatting about the previous night’s sleep and our preferences on sleeping room temperature. Our coaching team will soon get into more serious business, planning for today’s game. But while I have a few minutes, I can update you guys on life.

As is apparent, I’m still in Greenville. Over Christmas break, I was asked to stay on for the remainder of the season. I still have a visa to return to the UK and, pending travel restrictions that could flare up again of course, I could return there at any time. But Belfast’s current lockdown conditions are about as strong as they’ve been yet and allow for almost no movement or communal interaction, and it looks like that will still be the case until at least the spring. Meanwhile, God has opened the door to stay here in Greenville and made it clear that this is where I’m supposed to be for the moment. So here I stay.

Life at the moment: I am living with a great friend of mine. I spend my mornings working on my business and my afternoons/evenings at the gym or with my players, building relationship and enjoying the unexpected blessing of being steeped again in the rhythms of college basketball.

This season has involved a lot of existential wrestling; more big questions for God; more discoveries and struggles and fears. Happy to talk more about that stuff with anyone that’s interested. But this morning, I sit in a lot of peace and thankfulness and, dare I say it, hope for whatever comes next.

What that looks like, I have no idea. I know (as much as I can ever know anything) that I will be here until April when our season ends. After that, I’m not sure what happens. I know God will open the next door when He wants to. Stay tuned.

-LS