This week we have the joy of sharing another “new Attendee” within Savior’s community. If you haven’t already met the fun and creative Barringer Family, join me in getting to know them!
Who is in your family (children, pets, etc.)?
Blade and Alyssa, and Auden (age 5) and Hazel (age 2). We have no pets, though a particular neighborhood squirrel is unsettlingly brave around humans and is trying to get us to adopt it. We’re staying strong.
Where do you live? Where are you originally from?
We live in Carol Stream. Blade is originally from Southern California, and Alyssa is from North Texas.
How long have you been coming to Church of the Savior?
We started attending in February of this year.
In your time at Savior so far, what have you enjoyed most?
Everyone has been very welcoming. We felt included right away. There’s been no sense of having to “earn” our place in the congregation or volunteer for a dozen ministries in order to belong.
Are you by chance related to another family who attends Savior? If so, who?
Alyssa’s parents, Steve and Rhonda Keysor, started attending around the same time we did.
What are some fun and entertaining ways your children have participated in the church services?
When we were in person, Hazel mostly participated by hollering at babies she was excited to see. Now that we’re online, Hazel still participates by hollering at other people’s babies and pets, and by echoing “Jesus!” every time she hears someone say His name. Auden loves the coloring pages and any time one of the readings is a parable. He occasionally dresses up in a lot of blankets and scarves, carries a book around over his head, and says he’s the deacon.
What do you do when your family is not at church? (Job, hobbies, etc.)
Blade works as a software engineer at Braintree Payments. He plays Magic: The Gathering with his friends (using a webcam, during the pandemic). Alyssa is a Latin teacher at The Greenhouse Coschool. She also teaches and performs at Westside Improv in downtown Wheaton. The kids mostly run around outside, color, and request that we read whole piles of picture books.
What has been a surprising gift to your family during this time of COVID? And what don’t you want to return to “normal”?
Even in the winter, Auden had still not accepted Hazel’s presence in the family and would have liked us to return her to the hospital where she came from. Over quarantine, Auden and Hazel have become best buddies. Some of this is probably because Hazel learned to talk and play more in the past few months, but a lot of it is that they’ve spent so much time together while Auden has been home from school with no other kids around. We hope they keep this bond.