Separation

I have thought about how to describe this last week away from Jamie and Natalie, but I can't figure out how to put it into words. During the last week, Natalie has been sick and that just makes the whole experience harder. She has developed another ear infection, had a fever as high as 103.5, and has not been sleeping very good at all. All that adds up to very little sleep for Jamie, who is already tired from being pregnant. the best way I can describe my experience of all this is that it makes me feel so helpless and powerless. I know that the people I love the most in all the world are suffering physically and emotionally and I can't do anything.

I suppose there could be some great lesson in all of this, but right now it is just hard. I just love these two so much!

New Job - Old Car

So I started my new job this week and it has been an adventure to say the least! the best way I can describe it is to say that it is like being overseas. I arrived in Spokane last Thursday, signed a bit of paperwork for the job on Friday, had about two hours of training Monday morning, and then was thrown in to the wolves in the afternoon! There isn't really a "job description" for my position and I kind of just have to figure it out as I go. I still have not signed an official contract, but apparently that is normal. honestly though, the only thing that seems normal around here is that every day is different.
My first full day in the computer lab where I am teaching, I had about 8 students wander in at all different skill levels. One student had never been on a computer and it was starting from scratch completely. Others were pretty good at typing and were just working on Microsoft Office programs. For the most part, they work individually and I help them as they need it. Some obviously need more help than others. I also had an ESL class consisting mostly of Russian speaking eastern Europeans come in during the last half of the lab and that raised the class numbers up to about 35 people. Even the cross cultural element reminds me of being overseas and is exciting to me.
so for that most part, the job is going well so far and I am enjoying connecting with the students and encouraging them as they try to gain skills that will benefit their lives and hopefully their family situations. I have already had several students open up and share pretty personal things with me and it is great to be in an environment where I can encourage them and try to be a voice of love and life to them.

Now to the old car. the second day on the job, I ended up leaving my lights on when I got to work. My car does not have any indicator to remind me that they are on, so I just forgot about it. Needless to say, I had to push start it in a slushy parking lot in my nice dress clothes.
The following day, I managed to lock my keys in the car, so I had to track down a coat hanger in the building, and pull my already bent door out enough to slip the hanger inside. Then it was a matter of trying to position it just right to flip the lock. Finally I was able to get it just right (with the help of a student on the other side of the car guiding my efforts) and I flipped the lock open.
today, I awoke to about 4 inches of snow and figured I would go and get some pictures of it at one of my favorite parks in Spokane. So I opened my car and started the engine to let it warm up. While it was warming up, I stepped outside to scrape the snow and ice off my windows. After I had cleared the windows, I grabbed the door handle to hop in and I pulled on it. To my surprise, the door did not open! I pulled the rubber seal off the bottom of the window (it hardly stays on anyway) and looked down into the door to discover that the handle mechanism had snapped! I guess the combination of age and the cold ended up taking its toll on the plastic piece that opened the door. So my car was running with the keys in it and I could not open the door. I again grabbed a coat hanger, and after about 20 minutes, I managed to unlock the passenger door.
So the car made the trip up here, but now it has only one functional door (the passenger side door) and it sounds like it is going to fall apart every time I hit a pothole. I guess it keeps my life interesting. I will be sure to write about its gradual death as it progresses.

Spring in Spokane

Yes, it really is spring here, but winter just does not want to let go this year! I left Redding

a little over a week ago and it has snowed most days since I have arrived in Spokane. It usually melts off in the afternoon, but it has snowed enough to accumulate 3-5 inches several times. I have to admit, I have been enjoying it since I have not had a "real" winter almost a decade, but I am hoping it starts to warm up before Jamie arrives next weekend. Either way, it will be a bit of a temperature shock for her. Good times.

A fitting welcome

Yesterday I drove from Redding, CA to Spokane, WA in about 12 and 1/2 hours. for those of you doing the calculations, yes, I did speed a little bit, but only in the high desert of northern Oregon where there are no cars for miles around. the trip went really well other than the brief blizzard I ran into that caused me to miss a turn and get about 45 minutes off track. Otherwise though, it was great.
Today I signed some paperwork for my new job, met a few of the people I will work with, and tried to reacquaint myself with Spokane a bit while looking for a place for us to live. The best part of the day though was the wonderful surprise when I woke up. It was snowing hard here and there was probably 4 inches of snow already collected from the night. My car barely made it down the street this morning in all that, but thankfully it was being driven by an expert!
Right now I have an incredibly intense headache and I am exhausted. hopefully I will be able to sleep with all this pain. Tomorrow the search for housing resumes.
I miss my wife. I miss my daughter. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder...my opinion is that absence just makes the heart ache.

Last night at the Stirring...

Last night was my final night to attend the Stirring as a "regular". I hope to visit in the future, as we will be coming back to the area occasionally, but it was my last night as a part of that community. Let me just say, "wow"! God knew what we needed and met us in a way that I have not experienced in a long time.
Nate and Dan did a bit of a tag team approach to the teaching last night. Nate began the night "dancing" around in his usual excited way and conveying a deep passion for the message that God had laid on his heart. He shared about Jesus walking with the men on the Road to Emmaus after his death and resurrection. I will not try to recreate the message here, but highly recommend listening to it for those who did not hear it last night. To continue with the tag team analogy, Nate presented the message, had everyone attentively listening, and then tagged Dan to come in and finish us off with a delayed vertical suplex (hope you liked the British Bulldogs reference Dan). Seriously though, Dan shared a bit of his and Alyssa's story and touched us all with his honesty, openness, and the story of God's often confusing ways. While it may not have been the delayed vertical suplex, the story of God's faithfulness and guidance in their lives had a similar effect by bringing many to tears, myself included.
The message last night spoke to us powerfully because we relate to is so closely right now. We moved back from the Philippines a little over a year ago with a plan. We spent several months living in Seattle and seeing door after door slammed in our faces. After these months of discouragement, we moved back to Redding with plans of following God and living out our dreams in this area that we love so much. We connected with a great group of people doing their best to follow Jesus (the Stirring), we enjoyed the area for all the beauty and nature it offers, and yet every opportunity we pursued to use our gifts, experiences, and education seemed to come to a dead end. For whatever reason, things did not turn out how we had planned or hoped. At my point of greatest discouragement, God opened a door. It was not a door we were looking for, one we expected, or one we would have thought of by ourselves, but it has clearly been God's handiwork. He has opened an opportunity for me to teach in a public community college, specifically in a program designed for people who often need a second chance to help them get on their feet and take care of their families. It is a chance to use the gifts and passions that God has placed within my heart, yet it requires us to move to Spokane, Washington.
Last night was a good reminder for me that God truly is aware of our desires and the talents he has given us, but often we have to surrender our own idea of how we want to use these things. If we had our choice, we would have had a similar opportunity open up in Redding, but God has different plans for us. While it is hard to say goodbye, and hard to let go of our hopes and ideas of how things would turn out, we are excited to see how God chooses to fulfill these dreams and hopes within our lives.
This will be the third time in the past 14 months that we have transported our lives between Washington and California in a moving van. I don't recommend that to anyone. yet, in the midst of it, God is beginning to give us new hope and new confidence in his plan for our lives. We may not know the specifics of that plan, but we are reminded that he does have a plan, and that even though his plan may often differ from our own, his plans are best. I guess now we just have to wait and see where the road leads...

Politics

So I have to be honest, I am kind of fed up with politics. I have paid more attention to the presidential primaries this year than ever before, and I am probably more passionate about certain issues that I ever have been, but the back and forth, nit picking of politics just gets old real fast. Analyzing everything a person says and looking for the crack in their impenetrable ideological armor seems to have very little to do with actually leading the people.
It's not that I don't care about our country, or what direction it goes - I really do. The discouraging thing is that all the press coverage and news seems to focus more on the "controversies" and the attacks that somehow are supposed to show us how unfit a person is for the position they are running for. Right now I am at the point of almost wanting to just ignore it all. How is a follower of Christ supposed to respond to all of this and engage in the political process? How would Jesus do it? Would he even get involved? Our version of political leadership seems to have developed into a fierce competition about who is the best - a stark contrast to the leadership of Jesus.
I don't have any profound conclusions at this point. Just questions. How am I to follow Jesus in this type of situation?

Two weeks and counting...

Two weeks from today I will be driving up to Spokane. It will be a long, quiet drive since my car does not have a radio of any sort and it is about 850 miles. I guess it will give me some good time to think and pray about things. The drive is not the part that I dread though. I have made the drive several times and I do enjoy the different landscapes between Redding and Spokane. The part that I am not looking forward to is saying goodbye to my wife and daughter.
Jamie joked the other day that I would actually get two weeks of good sleep while I was up in Spokane without them. That may be true, but I think I would rather have them around, even if Natalie wakes up several times a night and Jamie has a hard time sleeping because she is pregnant. It will be a challenging transition, and actually the longest amount of time I have been apart from Jamie since we have been married. Needless to say, it will be tough.
It is all kind of surreal at this point in time, but we have seen God open so many doors for us so far that I am excited to see what he continues to do. God has called us to an adventure, and he rarely lets us know how things will work out in the course of that adventure, but it always seems to be just right. So while I am a bit overwhelmed with only two weeks left, I am also excited to see what is next...

Doing What's Best...I Hope

Nothing too profound right now. There has been a lot of sickness going around the area, the school, and even my family. Given that it has been pretty severe this year, I have been happy to not be affected by it much. I have had a slight cold, but that is all. For some reason, it hit me this afternoon. Achy joints, headache, exhaustion. So instead of going to the Stirring tonight, I am staying home to rest. 

Maybe that seems like no big deal, but it was a hard decision for me. Since I will be moving to Spokane in a few weeks, I have few opportunities left to go and appreciate the one church that I have been excited about in the past few years. I am just hoping and praying that if I get some good rest tonight, I can get over this quick and head it off before it gets bad. Just trying to do what's best, but what's "best" isn't what I want right now.

Since I hinted at the topic, let me just say a few words about the Stirring right now. The Stirring has been a breath of fresh air for us the past 8 months. Sure, it is an in perfect group of people imperfectly following Jesus, but they know that. It is a place where it is okay to be imperfect, the goal is simply to follow Jesus, not to be "good" or do all the right things. It has been a blessing to us as we have been able to connect to others in our life group as well. While the Stirring is not a mega church, it is big enough to kind of get lost in at times. Life groups though, have been a great way to keep people connected. I would guess that the Stirring has a higher percentage of participation in life groups / small groups than any other church I have ever been a part of in my life. It is so refreshing to see small groups emphasized and promoted so strongly. I don't know, there is so much more I could say, but maybe I will dedicate an entry to my appreciation of the Stirring when I feel a bit better. I think it is just more clear to me now since I will soon have to say goodbye to that group of people and begin the process again of trying to connect with a group of believers who so strongly emphasize trying to follow Jesus with our lives and with the way we connect to others.