Saturday, June 29, 2013

Support

Most of you know Mike and I so you know how self-sufficient we are, or at least try to be. We have three children (Carter, Regan and Monroe) and we have never lived near family. Carter is oldest and in those 13 years we have only had a babysitter a handful of times. We just never felt comfortable asking someone for help. It's probably a pride thing, but we just never wanted to put people out or make them feel uncomfortable or feel forced to help us out. Such as moving, we have always just done it ourselves, this is the first time that Mike is having some friends at Grace help him move some boxes and beds (Thanks Becky,Willie and everyone else who was willing!). To get to my point, when we were first making the decision to do a mission trip my biggest hurdle was asking people for financial support. What an uncomfortable situation for both parties. Mike and I have definitely had our share of highs and lows financially but to go from a good-paying job at Grace to a job that does not pay, I mean who does that? :-) Well, we do. When we first started telling people about our mission, we had a lot of people tell us they would support us, but it became scary when we weren't seeing any donations. Then about a month after beginning the fund-raising, we had our first donation. It was a one-time only, $25.00 donation. That donation meant the world to us! To realize that someone is supporting your mission was so moving. Since then we have had several more donations and each one is like a hug to us. We have now raised about 1/3 of the support we need. But, no one can ever say God doesn't know what he is doing. This has been such a humbling experience. God has shown us that we are not alone. This path that my family has chosen to take feels like we are being carried on each of your shoulders lifting us up to be able to help others. We appreciate each and everyone one of you, thank you for taking this journey with us! We still need more people to share in this journey. We know that God has a multitude of blessing to pour out on us and we want to share those blessings with you. If you can help with a one-time gift or, ideally, with monthly support for as little as $10 a month, please prayerfully consider doing so. The easiest way is to click on the link to the right (The one that says "Click here to donate!"). I am confident that God will bless you for being part of this amazing adventure to which he has called us. Thank you!

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Our Story (it's a long one!)

I realized the other day that I have not put down in words everything that has lead us this new adventure. Of course God had it all planned out, it just took me longer to figure it out.  To back track first when I was 14 my family spent a month traveling around Europe, we went all over France, Spain, Italy, Germany,Austria and down into Africa.  We went to Morocco,Fez and Casablanca.  When we were in Morocco we were having dinner at a restaurant when all of a sudden  2 women came and started to pull me with them, our tour guide told me to go with them, I did and I was brought up to the top floor and started having all this material wrapped on me, especially on my head. it was so heavy!  I had no idea what was going on but then they brought me back downstairs and put me up on their shoulders and started to dance around. Little did I know I was "portraying" a Moroccan princess and I was about to reenact a Moroccan wedding ceremony. In the picture you'll see the guy who played my intended and a woman who was supposed to be my mother. Lots of pictures were taken and we all had a great time with it. My mom has gone back since and she says my photo is still in the hallway of that restaurant.  My brothers and I had such a great time in Morocco and I always said I would love to show the kids my photo on the wall sometime, well, be careful what you wish for, it might come true!  Senegal is southwest of morocco and Mike and I plan to make a trip up to show the kids while we are there.


Okay, now back to the more recent future. We built our dream house in Ft. Calhoun, Mike and I both enjoying our jobs , the kids were doing excellent in school, made great friends and love our church. And then Carter started doing lacrosse, Mike coached it and it meant a lot of evenings and weekends driving back and forth to Omaha for them and the girls and I would be busy with our own things near Blair. Many families go through this and I'm sure they all have a very strong marriage, but Mike and I were starting to be frustrated by never seeing each other and having so many outside commitments. It came down to suck it up or sell the house and move closer to Omaha for work and lacrosse. We put the house up for sale July 2012, thinking it would take years to sell because of the price range and the size of the house and acreage, it sold in 5 days! They wanted to move in at the end of August so we went full steam ahead looking for a house, we toured over 60+homes, put a bid on 3 different homes and nothing took. We wanted a semi-fixer upper in the Papillion area. We didn't think it would be that hard, when we moved to Omaha we looked at 3 homes and choose from 1 of them. That was our first sign that GOD had something planned for us and wanted to keep us mobile. This went on the rest of July through August. School was to start on a Wednesday and we decided to just get an apt. that Tuesday. On to the second sign, when the new owners first came to look at the house I accidentally ran into them when they were driving up our driveway, they stopped and asked if I was the owner and I said yes, they asked a few questions about the house and they asked what plans we had after leaving the house. I answered them that we had always wished to live out of the country so that could be an option. I remember thinking why did I say that? I mean we had plans of buying in Omaha, God knew and it just amazes me how he works. Now that was in July/Aug 2012. I remember before moving out of the house that there was great plans for us but I had no idea how great! Sign 3 Before we finally moved out of the house we went and looked at this house on a golf course, upon entering Mike and I immediately loved the floor plan, it was an older house and needed a lot of repair, plus you just have to get a country club membership :-) and not to mention the monthly neighborhood fees. Anyway, Mike was about to put a bid on it and I just remember a huge internal push inside me to drive down and stop Mike from putting a bid on it, I know that was the Holy Spirit, I got the same feeling when a month later i had a feeling that Mike's time at Grace U. was getting done. I stayed quiet because he loves working at Grace, but that November Mike came home one day and said all the things he came to Grace for, restoring the budget, selling south campus and other things were all completed that month and now he felt God was sending us somewhere else. Okay, so now there were several job interviews, but nothing felt right. Then one day (March 17th) Mike received an email from someone he works with at Grace saying she knew of an international school needing a Business manager. I'll be truthful, when he told me it was Africa I thought no, that's not what God wants us to do, I'm sure he wants me to live in a nice white picket fence house in a nice safe American town. I thought Africa = living in a hut. I told Mike I would have to pray on it. I should have known it's what God wanted because the kids immediately were up for the move. Mike and I made a pro-con list and the only cons were safety and health. Well now I realize that you can't be guaranteed safety or health here in America but I was still the stubborn hold out. The next day I went to Costco and came back and made a trip up to drop off groceries and came back down and loaded up again. I was making my way back to the apt and a car came driving by and a middle aged man yelled out of his car at me he yelled "your a Bi**h!" I was shocked I said what did you say? and he responded "You heard me!" and then drove off. Now I have never seen this man before or after, he was older so it wasn't like some kid thing to do, I was already at the apt for a good 5 min so it wasn't my driving, I had no idea why he did this. I know some people think that is no big deal but to me it was huge, I was crying all the time, couldn't sleep, stopped going to the apt gym because I was scared to be trapped if he came in, I felt accosted. Now just one day after that Mike gets a junk email of the top places in the world of friendliest people according to CNN. Friendliest 1. Iceland 6.8 2. New Zealand 6.8 3. Morocco 6.7 4. Macedonia, FYR 6.7 5. Austria 6.7 6. Senegal 6.7 7. Portugal 6.6 8. Bosnia and Herzegovina 6.6 9. Ireland 6.6 10. Burkina Faso 6.6 It's actually tied for 3rd place. So now i cant say that we would be so much safer/happier here in the US. Then came my obsession, cookbooks and magazines that month all of my magazine subscriptions had African food as the main subject. Now for the final straw. We were watching youtube videos of Dakar Academy and happened upon this one. It has teen boys running around and playing a form of tag with water guns. At first when I watched it I was so bothered to see these boys hunting each other down with (Water) guns because my mind went to all the school shootings, I was appalled. And then I realized, wait a minute, this is how kids use to play here a long time ago (although this video was just done this year) before all of the school violence. This is such innocence that we don't have here anymore. Mikes favorite movie is Blast From The Past about a family living underground in a bunker and above them all the drugs and violence is taking place but the family is down below still in the 1960's. Well going to Dakar will be our way of going back to the past and letting the kids have somewhat of an innocent youth. If nothing else it will make for some great stories to tell and let the kids know there is so much more out there then their little bubble. God is sending us to Senegal and we are so excited to go and do his work! http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uALv_NF23DI&feature=relmfu

road trip

It took 3 days but we finally got to Redding, California.




Thursday, June 6, 2013

Saying Goodbye :-(

Saying Goodbye is very, very hard for us. I would rather sneak out in the middle of the night then have to acknowledge that it is going to be a very long time until we see our family and friends again. We will miss all of you that we have come to know and we count each of you as our family. Thank you for everything, we love you! We are excited that we have several people wanting to come over to Senegal and I look forward to what God has planned for each one of us and the positive changes we can make in Africa as well as in ourselves. Love you!! And now we get to spend the summer in California before flying to Africa on August 8th.

Cat's are going to Ohio!!!

Our hearts are hurting now because we had to take our 2 cats, Butter and Peanut to my brother's in Ohio. We know the cats are happier to roam around in a beautiful setting outside then they were in a small apartment being kept indoors but it's still hard to let them go. They have been part of our family for over 9 years. Now as we go to Africa and dealing with their wildlife our cats are getting to play with 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 goats and 4 horses. Peanut adjusted right away but it took Butter longer but by the time we left they were already running the ranch! Regan took it the hardest but we know that their new babysitters Wyatt and Samantha will pet them and love them until we come back to the states and bring them back home. Butter Peanut And Just to show how much the cats did not appreciate the 15 hour car drive, here is Butter yelling at us.

Estate Garage Sale!!

Well we did it. We had our movers take all of our items from the storage units (2) and it took 2 moving trucks to haul all of our stuff up to Abiding Faith Baptist Church in Ft. Calhoun. We filled it to extreme! Two rooms to the side had the clothes (kids and adults), shoes and toys. I said goodbye to my large collection of cookbooks and it felt so good! We had a lot of large items and we were so nervous about everything going because we only had 2 days to sell it all. It all had to be gone by Friday evening so we could leave Saturday for Ohio to bring the cats to my brothers, I was so nervous I actually was throwing up Wednesday morning worrying about how we were going to do it all, God is Good!!! I hate to admit it but there is so much more that is not photographed. Washer and Dryer, 2 large freezers, exercise equip, whole 5 piece living room set, all of Mikes office furniture,5 bedroom sets and so so much more. We only had about 15 boxes left to donate, it was almost all clothing, and it was a miracle. Look at all of our stuff?? I didn't know I was a hoarder :-) I want to say a special Thanks to my wonderful in-laws Fred and Margaret as well as Grace and Shelby Gerken and Chris and Becky Eastman. We could not have done the garage sale without each and everyone of you. It takes a truly great friend to sort through all of the junk we had and not just walk out. Thank you and we love you!!