Home in America

We have been home now for just over a week. It was such a bittersweet experience to end our travels and head back to our "real lives." (and it was quite the trip home with too many layovers, delays, and 50 hours with only a few cat naps for sleep. Honestly, it was rather miserable and exhausting but we are now looking at is as one more adventure and memory from our trip...;-)

We have caught up on sleep and are settling into our new normal, which we're hoping will only be our normal for a few months, but more on that another time. (-: Right now, we are continuing to process our experience and praying for guidance from the Lord on our next step. He is teaching us patience, faithfulness, and trust, trust, TRUST.

Next post will be a more thorough follow-up to our trip, but for now I will leave you with a little gem from our time at the Bible School. This was my joy everyday after an exhausting day of being stretched. It brings tears to my eyes as I watch. Aren't they amazing???
-Naomi

9 days and counting!

Holy smokes it's coming up so soon! If you haven't noticed from our Afric-ometer, all of our support is in - thank you all, so much! It's amazing to see the Body of Christ come together to support it's members, and we've been so blessed by all of you. Thank you for the prayers, encouraging conversations, financial support, and for walking with us as we seek God's plan for our lives.

Sharing our story at Mission Connexion Northwest

This past weekend was one of many blessings, encouragements and challenges. We were able to attend Mission Connexion NW up in Vancouver, WA, which was an awesome time of hearing from seasoned missionaries and gaining wisdom and insight from their stories. Naomi and I were invited to share our story up on stage during one of the the plenary sessions, and we were so honored to have that opportunity. Mission Connexion NW has been a key part of our journey, from fueling the fire in our hearts for overseas ministry to actually connecting us (go figure) to the missions agency we're going to Africa with for this trip. We're thankful for Missions Connexion, and we hope we were able to be an encouragement to those listening.

During the conference, Naomi and I sat in on some really encouraging teaching, and also some that was difficult for me, personally, to hear, particularly about the realities of raising a family overseas. As we consider the possibility that God may be calling us to Africa, please pray that God would speak clearly to us about where he's asking us to trust him in things that might sound crazy, and where he's asking us to be responsible stewards of the life and family that he's given us. We are so thankful for your prayers, and we look forward to more conversations with you, hopefully before, during, and after our trip.

-Andrew

Just a quick update...

It has been a CRAZY last two months! We packed up and moved out of our apartment, started a new job (naomi), painted, cleaned out and decorated my parents loft as our temporary residence until we get back from Uganda. Then we re-totaled our one and only already totaled car (thankfully no one was hurt and it was not our fault), bought a replacement car, traveled to Everett twice to visit Andy's family, was interviewed and accepted to Multnomah Seminary (Andy), and spend many evenings connecting with out of town friends. It has been a packed holiday season for us, though it seems to be that Nov and Dec always bring such a flurry of family, friends, and activities!

Despite the crazy schedule, we have been able to carve out some good couple time to plan and set goals for next year as well as be working and praying through and preparing for our upcoming trip. Only 29 days! More info soon to follow...

Going on our annual Christmas date! 

Joy

Joy in the journey…

I keep forgetting that this is something God has impressed upon my heart. I get so busy and swept up in running here and there that it is so easy to become focused on everything but what God is teaching me. Perhaps we should re-name this blog so I don’t forget… (on second thought, I think I will just leave the name as is. It’s hard to get two people with strong opinions to agree on something. There are many crumpled papers with dozens of blog name ideas in the recesses of some recycling facility. Perhaps the title of this blog really should be “Compromising in Marriage”! ;-)

(This pic is from our summer road trip and doesn't
have a lot to do with this post except that I think that
blog posts are rather boring without pictures and this
one represents our outward joy on a physical journey.)

But back to joy… it is a lesson I know God is teaching me and I daily need a reminder to seek to find the joy in each day even when it look and feels like a confusing mess. This stage Andrew and I find ourselves in is uncertain and seems rather crazy. We don’t know what our next steps will be after we come back from Uganda in March. We don’t know where we will live, where Andrew will work, when we will have kids, and whether we will be heading to Seminary or doing something else entirely.  We are willing to walk in whatever path God desires but don’t know what direction he wants us to go. It is easy to get caught up in the confusion and feel overwhelmed. I’ve been struggling with feeling anxious and stressed often. Which is a reminder of my lack of faith. Who am I to worry about what we are going to do with our lives when God totally has this? I am being convicted more and more that it doesn't even matter where we end up or what our next chapter of life will look like. The most important thing is that we are pursuing our relationship with God and growing in our knowledge and love of Him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3

Today I am going to be praying that God helps my knowledge of truth to be owned by the feelings of my heart.

And tomorrow I promise I will post an update on where we are at with Uganda! We’re getting pretty excited!

-Naomi 

~October~

Wow, a month has gone by and you haven’t heard much from us! That is because we are in a CRAZY month of life right now! We have been working on many details for our upcoming trip, packing up our little apartment, training my replacement at work (Naomi), taking a few weekends to visit friends and family and going to a few conferences, all while we both continue to work full time. I have decided that working really takes up a lot of time and energy…it can be exhausting squeezing extra activities into our regular schedule.

But besides the busyness, October was a lovely month! I, like many Oregonians, love the fall and celebrate it as if it were its very own holiday. Pumpkin lattes, apples & pears, crunchy leaves on the ground, crisp cool air, pumpkin desserts, beautiful trees changing into a rainbow of colors, every kind of squash imaginable from local farms, down blankets and candles, and, of course, more PUMPKIN!!! What’s not to love about fall? Even the rain is welcomed and accepted since we haven’t seen it in three months ;-)

We have a list of fall activities that we want to do this fall hanging up in our apartment and so far we haven’t done a single one of them yet! (well, ok, we did go to the apples festival but, confession, we wrote that on the board after we went just so we could cross one off! And I have had a few pumpkin lattes but not with Andy, so they don’t count…:-) 

We have definitely done some other memorable things this month, though! A few of our highlights were going to two festivals with our awesome friends the Tegtmeiers! We have dubbed each other our “festival buddies.” The first was to the Portland Polish Festival (we actually went to this at the end of Sept) which was fun and entertaining (though a lady did come up to me while I was holding Jadon and the conversation went exactly like this: “Awww, so cute, is he Polish?” Me: No “Half Polish?” No “Quarter Polish?” No “Are YOU Polish?” Nope “Then what are you DOING here?!” Oh my. haha.

Polish man and us!

We also went to the Apple Tasting Festival in SE Portland. Now that was a fun one! We got to try 50 different kinds of apples and pears and then pick out our favorites to buy for only 99 cents/lb.  The mandatory ‘head in a cut out’ pictures:

Andy makes the cutest sunflower, doesn't he?

Our beautiful friends, Sarah, Jadon & Mark

Can you resist that sweet little bear?!?! I can't!!!

We finished the month by getting to spend the weekend visiting our dear friends Cass and Calvin and seeing their new life in Bend! They recently moved from PDX and we miss them terribly (Andy and Calvin used to carpool to work every day, we were in the same small group,  and we only lived 2 mins apart…and Cass and I have been super close friends since we were little girls! We definitely feel a huge hole in our lives without having them here!)  But they have started an amazing new chapter in Bend and graciously hosted us in their cute new home! It was the perfect time of rest from our crazy lives that Andy and I desperately needed. And, of course, as God works things out, we were able to coordinate our trip with a get together with part of our Uganda team! Also, a lovely and very encouraging time! We headed back to Portland feeling very much at peace. 

~September~

September was a busy month for us as we spent the first part of it preparing for and marrying off my beloved younger brother AJ to my amazing new sister Sabrina!  Here are the love birds on their big day~

Photo Credit 

Andy and I both got to share in the special day by being in the bridal party. It was a wonderful time to love and support our brother and new sister and personally, it was a great reminder of our wedding vows to each other that we made just a year ago. 

Photo Credit

Oh how I love this boy turned man! SO proud to be his sis!!! 

photo credit

And my BEAUTIFUL (and studly) family! We are blessed!

photo credit

If you are anything like me and eat up wedding pictures like the yummiest chocolate, you can see more here. (you're welcome!!! ;-)

We also celebrated my 24th Birthday on Friday. Andy took me on a surprise hike to Latourell falls in the Gorge (with a lovely stop at the Vista House).

I just LOVE hiking, but especially in the Gorge!!! Can't beat the natural beauty!

 We then got cleaned up and went to the Melting Pot for happy hour dinner.  I'd never been before...Yum!!!(and a very decent happy hour. we would recommend!)

One of the other highlights of this month was when I was offered the job of Directors Assistant at Pregnancy Resource Center. I have been working for the past year at PRC as an admin assistant at the headquarters. It has been a great year of learning more how non-profits run and working with some truly amazing people but I never felt like all my gifts and passions were being utilized (if you know me, you can imagine how hard it was for me to sit in front of a computer all day! ;-) When I started occasionally doing counseling in the centers, I knew that transferring to a center would be my dream job, though I never thought it would happen. Than, last week, God gave me the huge gift of opening up the position as a directors assistant and the job being offered to me. I know it will be so challenging, emotionally draining, and a huge learning experience, but I am SO excited and so ready for my faith to be stretched. I start in 5 weeks! 

We're Live!

Can we all say a big Yay for the first blog post?!? I haven't kept a blog since my time in Isreal and it can be rather intimidating to be open with ones thoughts and heart. But it is good. It is good to be open with where we are headed and what we are doing. We want to invite you to be a part of our journey and to join us in prayer, encouragement, holding us accountable, and speaking wisdom into our lives. Will you join us as we seek God and share where he is taking us and his faithfulness to us?

Also, we are not sold on our blog name and if anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to contribute! We like the feeling and the meaning but not sure if it has the ring we are going for...