Have you ever had an experience in your life that you can look back on and laugh, but at the time it wasn’t that funny?  If not, then I guess we have something uncommon between us.  It seems like I find myself in situations like this everywhere I turn.  Here are a couple…

When Paige I got married we decided to fly down to Cancun, Mexico for our honeymoon.  We talked about this trip for months and planned for everything (so we thought).  Upon arriving at Sky Harbor Airport we quickly found out at around 4 am in the morning that a passport was actually needed to fly down to Cancun.  Paige came prepared and brought her passport just in case, but I left mine in Illinois because I heard from my friends that I shouldn’t need it to travel to Mexico.  Well, it turns out that after 911 some things changed and I was about to find that out the hard way.  As my new bride stood next to me crying I begin to try and figure out how to fix the situation so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch for the first two years of our marriage.  Luckily, I was able to find someone up early, willing to break into our house and fax us a copy of my passport.  Sadly, we still had to find a notary that was willing to get to the Phoenix airport at 4:30 in the morning.  Not sure how, but someone raced through Arizona highways avoiding cops from the far east valley to notarize my copied passport.  We eventually made it to the gate with just a few minutes to spare. Funny now, but not then.

Fortunately, I have never forgotten my passport on any trip since the story above and I’m not sure I ever will.  BUT that doesn’t mean that another passport situation didn’t happen less than 5 years later.  Upon our recent trip to Puebla, Mexico Paige and I both had to renew our passports (Paige because of her name change and mine because it expired.  Before we left to the airport we made sure we both had our passports, I even took mine out and wrote down the passport number on a paper to leave at home in case we lost them during our trip and Paige followed my example.  After getting to the airport we quickly realized that Paige had left hers on the table at home (after writing down the passport number).  Once again we were lucky enough to have adequate time before our flight and Paige’s mom brought it to the airport. Funny now, but not then.

So needless to say if you ever travel with me out of the country I might ask you 12 times if you brought your passport.  I might even ask you to show it to me.

If you are wondering what this has to do with missions or what point I’m trying to make through this post… Ummm… hmmm…  I’m not really sure.  I guess I would say try to not be SO serious all the time and be willing to look back at your life and laugh.  Be flexible, laugh lots, and trust God through it all.  Oh and don’t forget your passport when traveling outside the country.

Have you ever had a moment that is funny now, but not then?  If so I would love to hear about it.

1. I heard the French teacher was really hard
2. Everyone and their mom was taking Spanish
3. Some girl I liked at the time was taking German

So obviously at the time learning German sounded like the best selection.  Now almost 15 years later I wish I would have been forced to take Spanish or at least wise enough to realize that I would probably never talk to a German outside of my class.

So now it is time to bite the bullet and for me to learn a new language (not sure I really ever learned German).  I have asked my Spanish speaking hero (Paige) to help me learn as much as possible before we go down to Mexico.  I know I can’t learn everything before we actually move down to Mexico, but I really want to at least be able to understand some of the basics.  Since Paige is pretty fluent in Spanish she has offered to help me learn through Spanish 3 and then I will get a tutor to help with the rest once we are down in Mexico.  I wasn’t sure how or when Paige would start to teach me, but that question has now been answered.  A couple of days ago I came home from work to a house filled with everything important labeled in Spanish.  So needless to say the Spanish lessons have begun and I now know the word for mirror and am working on many others.  Here is a glance at a few of the things labeled in our house…

What are some of your favorite Spanish words?

One of the most exciting things about the whole trip was meeting the rest of the ILAM team. Our director, Hector, described the ILAM team as a family and I cannot think of a better word to describe it than that. They welcomed us right in and we felt instantly that we had made new friends. Here is a picture of some of the team members:

The large building behind us is the Training Center which houses meeting rooms, a chapel and dormitories for housing up to 50 people.
It’s the perfect place for a church team to stay when they come down for a missions trip.

dormitories

We were also able to tour the new offices that ILAM will be moving into within the next month. They got a great building that just needs a little TLC to fix up the cosmetic issues. Tyler and I will both have work spaces somewhere in this building.

the future ILAM offices

We did a lot of work-related stuff, but we also got to do some fun, tourist-type stuff too. We went to the Puebla square or “El Zocalo” and got to see the Cathedral. That was quite an experience in and of itself. We’ll be posting more about all that we learned about the religious spirit of Puebla later, but here I wanted to show this amazing cathedral built in the 1600s.

We got to visit a market to pick up a few souvenirs and Tyler was introduced to a new snack sensation – roasted crickets with chili powder.

No, he did not try them this time, but he did promise that he would eat one when we move there. Thankfully, I did not make the same promise.

Tyler’s Job – Once again, God has provided for us in way that is more than we could have expected. Tyler went into the meeting with HR expecting to be let go and was instead offered another job with a 6 month contract. It is the perfect position for us to raise our mission support and then move to Mexico! I always wonder why we ever worry about things, when God’s solution is always better than ours.

Mexico – We leave tomorrow night for our 5 day trip to Puebla! I can’t describe how excited we are to get down there and get to see the place where we will be living. We accepted these positions based on faith, but it is going to be nice to see everything first hand. We also get to attend a support raising workshop to help us raise our funds, so hopefully that will be educational. So much excitement and yet, I’m nervous too. We are leaving Zander here in Arizona with my parents while we go. We didn’t have the money to get his passport yet, so we decided to take this trip without him. I’m going to miss him so much…never thought I’d be so attached to that little guy, but the thought of being in another country away from him for 5 days makes me so anxious.

Photos – Wanted to share some pics of a hike we went on a week or so ago…

We decided that we need to take advantage of living in such a beautiful place before we move away, so we’re trying to do some locals hikes. It’s amazing that there are such great places to hike within 20 minutes of our house. It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time. It was definitely a long hike and we were all very tired afterward, but it was a great experience and we already planning our next one.

I sit here writing this blog post 8 days after receiving word that the department I have worked under for the past 3 years is being cut.  I am also 5 hours away from a meeting that will tell me if I still have a job within a different department or whether I will be joining the 9% of people in Arizona without jobs.  Several months back I worried about losing my job and pictured what I would do if such a thing would happen.  The funny thing is what I thought back then is not how I feel now.  Let me explain…

While it would be easy to begin freaking out and to start worrying I take a second and look back at the path behind me.  It is easy to see that the God I serve has continuously guided, protected, and walked with me through it all.  Here is a breakdown of the past 10 years…

• Both Paige and I went to college at SAGU, met each other, received church ministry degrees (mine with a focus in youth ministries), and got married!!!
• We both went to Illinois to work with the AG District office where I worked with the youth department and Paige began doing graphic design based on a need there.
• God called us to become a CARES team and to serve an apartment complex, do events and meet people (so we moved from IL to AZ)
• After moving to AZ we both needed jobs and God provided those.
• Paige started her own graphic design business.
• After three years of being a CARES team we felt God moving us to something new, but had no idea what that looked like or where we would end up.
• A week after turning in our notice to CARES we sat down for a meal with a missionary couple only to find out that they were in need of a graphic designer and a person to lead the youth portion of their program down in Mexico.
• My mother and father-in-law offered us a place to stay while we figured things out and we moved in with them.
• We accepted the two positions and have begun support raising.
• Just found out my current work is cutting my department.

So based on the above list why should I worry about losing my job.  If I keep my job GREAT!  If I lose my job GREAT!  Why worry about stuff like this when you know that God is the one in control of every part of our life.  I love seeing God’s hand throughout our path as well as seeing how He has molded us into the people He desires.  I guess we just have to realize that sometimes God’s perfect plan feels a little messy, but it will all work out in the end.

One thing that we worked on before Christmas was getting our support packets together. I thought I’d share what they look like, because, well, I love them! I had so much fun designing these and am so pleased with how they turned out. I can’t wait to start sending them out to churches, family and friends. Let’s hope that they inspire people to join with us in our vision!

We’ll be sending them out in the next few weeks, but if you would like to ensure that you receive one, send us an email with your address and we’ll drop one in the mail for you.

what you see when you open the envelope

the "About Mexico" card

the "Financial Needs" card

the total package

If you would like our new address please let us know via email, facebook, or twitter and we will make sure to get it to you.

Clothing Size: 12 mo // Shoe Size: 4

Fisher Price Animals

wooden blocks

any toy with a hammer...

vehicles

musical instruments

kid-sized chair

board books

bath toys

balls

We had a fabulous time and I think Zander enjoyed it too. This farm is great and very reasonable ($7 for kids includes a pumpkin & $3 for adults). They have pumpkins (of course), pumpkin decorating for the kiddos, a bouncer, a straw maze, animals & a hay(tractor) ride.

We went at night and brought a picnic dinner (they allow outside food & drink – one BIG bonus). We let Zander climb all over the pumpkins and explore the bails of hay. He was mostly just interested in pulling the hay out of the bails.

The only negative about Mother Nature’s Farm is that they don’t light their areas very well at night and we were unable to see any animals, do the maze or ride the hay ride. They were really nice, however and allowed us to come back the next day for free so that we could enjoy all of the activities.

So we went back and took Zander through the Hay Maze, rode on the they hay ride and Zander’s favorite thing: saw the animals (goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys & a cow).  He just stood and watched them. For some reason, he found watching a cow pee and goats poop incredibly interesting. And when we left, he was completely wiped out. It was the perfect way to celebrate Fall!

Let’s just say that I do not consider myself a public speaker and I was so nervous about getting up in front of all of those people (there were over 600 women at the retreat). However, I managed to make it through two 45-minute sessions without passing out. And honestly, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the excitement of sharing something I love with a group of women who were genuinely interested. The average age of those in my session was probably 45-60 years old and they ate up the resources I gave them. They left excited to go home and visit the websites and see how they could benefit their lives. It was an awesome experience and I’m really glad that they asked me to do it.

(In case you’re interested, I’ve included the basics of the presentation below:)

The Tech Savvy Woman

1. Knows how to do Everything // www.Howcast.com

2. Has something to say // www.WordPress.com

3. Networks Effectively // www.Facebook.com & www.Twitter.com

4. Protects her family // www.Kidzui.com

5. Keeps in touch with loved ones // www.skype.com

6. Makes everything more beautiful // www.dafont.com (free fonts), www.sxc.hu (free stock photos), www.clker.com (free clipart)

7. Can start an online business without breaking a sweat // www.etsy.com

8. Always has a great music collection // www.Pandora.com

9. Effectively manages her finances/investments // www.mint.com

10. Can do everything and still prepare a fantastic dinner // www.SuperCook.com