sign on the dotted line

August 2008

Brad and I had just celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary in June and were about to find out in October that we were expecting our first child. I was sitting in a Starbucks (of course) writing in my journal and praying about whether or not I should apply to APU to get my teaching credential and master's degree. I original thought that it would be a good idea to get my teaching credential so that if we ever moved overseas that I could use it anywhere. I wanted to have a skill that would be useful here or there. 

I had been praying about this decision for a couple months and at that moment felt that God was telling me to apply. I was late in the game and had one week to submit everything that they needed in order to start classes in two weeks! I remember just trusting the Lord and say "ok...Ill do it"

In June 2010 I graduated with my Master in Education: Digital Teaching and Learning.

December 2011

Brad and I received word from his Dad who was in Thailand at the time, that there was a family who wanted to get in touch with us in regards to moving to Thailand. We had never met this family but Brad's dad had and Brad had a college roommate who worked at the church this family attended.

We emailed back and forth with this family until eventually they called to chat. After a 20 minute phone conversation the family informed us that they wanted to help us move overseas and they knew we had a significant amount of student loans from both our undergraduate studies at private schools and from my master's program. The husband of this family told Brad that they would pay off a portion of our loans when we decided to leave for Thailand. We were elated! We could not believe that God had brought this family into our lives. We were SO thankful for that!

**We stayed in contact with this family over the last two years and have given them updates on our process. We have had the chance to Skype with them, but still have never met them in person.

November 2012

Brad, the kids and I went to lunch with Mike and Becky, who were home (US) for a couple weeks. We had not seen them both in years. We ate at this fab Thai restaurant in Pomona called Mix Bowl. Mike and Becky expressed how they wanted us to move to Thailand and partner with ITDP. They have known our conviction and desire to do so for years and they felt that the time to do so was now.

Every year of our marriage, Thailand was always a talking point. We have been praying about it since we got married in 2007. November of 2012 we decided to charge full steam ahead with it.

We quickly had a meeting set up with a church in San Diego where we met with a mission's Pastor who is friends with Brad's dad. We asked him a ton of questions and we walked away with an organization that we were interested in...Crossworld.

** Side note: To this day, every church that we meet with in regards to Thailand always asks, "You have a large amount of debit. How do you plan to pay that off?" Most people who are moving overseas are expected to have little to no debit. That would have been a HUGE problem for us because we had at least 10 years of debit to pay back.

November 2013 

We attend candidate orientation where we are told that Thailand might not be a for sure place to go. Its a long story but the most important details are that we are pursuing moving to Thailand with Crossworld but there is an off chance that we could end up somewhere else. But, Hey Jack, our plans are not God's plans... we just buckle up and trust where He drives.

When we got home from our training we called the family to let them know how our training went and to share where our hearts were. We understood that they wanted to help facilitate us moving to Thailand but we also didn't want to hold on so tightly to what they were offering if God had something different for us. If it wasn't Thailand, then we wanted to be obedient and let go. Our obedience was more important then money. So we talked with them and expressed that Thailand was our target right now but there is a chance that God leads somewhere else. We don't believe that it is anywhere else but in the off chance that it was then we wanted to be as honest and transparent as we could.

They decided they still wanted to help us out. But.... not just to pay a portion of our loans but ALL of them. Yes you read that right...ALL of them! I know, I still can't believe it. I actually have to pinch myself at times!

Often I go back to that table at Starbucks where I was praying for direction and decide to just trust where God was leading me. I had no idea that my decision would lead to where we are now. More then 50% of our loans were from my graduate work.

God is so faithful! Truly. This story for me is a tangible faithfulness. There are some many pieces that God is arranging on a daily basis that will eventually unfold and it is my job to be obedient to Him now. Not to worry about 10 pieces down the road. I read the Jesus Calling devotion by Sarah Young and she had written one devotion about time. She mentions that God isn't bound by our time, dates, years. He knows what next year holds for each of us. Can you imagine if God gave us life months at a time? Years at a time? I picture sitting in a movie theater and watching 6 months of the future on the screen and absolutely freaking out! Even if there wasn't one event that was really overwhelming to handle on a daily basis, seeing all that 6 months entails would probably throw me over the edge. God gives us one day at a time. He knows that we can only handle that day. So that is all that we need to be concerned with. Living in this moment.

December 2013

Last Wednesday we paid off all of our student loans!

Praise the Lord

Officially Appointees

Although I am long overdue with writing this post, I wanted to give a recap of our two week training in Kansas City, MO. At the end of the two weeks we were officially accepted to partner with Crossworld! We were and still are stoked. We were so impressed with Crossworld and are so thankful to have the opportunity to work alongside such a great organization.

We came home the week prior to Thanksgiving and had to jump right back into real life...ho hum. I left the day after Thanksgiving for a 9 day trip to Orlando, FL for soccer and Brad was on daddy duty. We are now 3 weeks out from returning home from Crossworld and are still trying to process all that we were exposed to while there. Sawyer is constantly asking when we are going to be going back because she had a wonderful time! We look forward to attending Pre-Field Orientation in 2014 and reconnected with those we developed relationships with.

Prayer request: We have a list of things "to do" in regards to continual personal development. Pray that we will make the time to continue to grow and be receptive to whatever God is teaching us through this moment in life

"You don't love God's word"

Today was our 4th day here in Kansas City, MO at Crossworld's Candidate orientation. We have had a great time meeting the staff and other candidates. Going into these two weeks we really didn't know what to expect. We were given some instructions but basically didn't know what we were getting ourselves into! haha

We have been learning some really great stuff! What I want to share in particular was a story from today. Dale is the President of Crossworld and he plays a large role in the C.O process. His session today was all about making disciples. Dale has written a book titled A Better Way, which speaks on what is means to make disciples. The book is a direct reflection of what Crossworld values most. The concept is so simple. Make disciples. These instructions come start out of Jesus' mouth right before he ascends to heaven. Make disciples. So today we looked at Biblical examples of what that looked like. It was so interested to dig into. You cannot have discipleship, if you don't have relationship. A true, genuine, caring, relationship where you sacrifice time, resources, your self in order to share the truth about Jesus Christ and facilitate the process of being refined. That is something that a lot of us miss. The American church misses it. 

I can go deeper into making disciples but that is not the purpose of this post. This post is about five words. Five words that have sorta rocked me a bit. The story goes something like this...

Dale's wife, then girlfriend, came from a family where her father was a well known youth pastor. Everyone in the San Diego area at that time knew who Pastor Jerry was. Dale describes him as being a very serious man who only every talks about two things. God and his word. Not sports. Not the weather. God and his word. Pastor Jerry was very intentional with how he spent his time it seems. When Dale wanted to spend some time with Pastor Jerry before he was going to propose to his then girlfriend, he thought is a good idea come up with some questions to ask Pastor Jerry. This is what he came up with: "Is there anything in my life that you see needs improvement?" Wait..what? Insert shoes into mouth. Dale explained to us that he had no idea why he thought that would be a good question to ask. Not even 2 seconds after the question was asked did Dale receive his answer. Pastor Jerry said, "You don't love God's word". 

crickets....

Could you imagine being told that. But wait, I do my devotions everyday. I have some scripture memorized. I am involved in a small group weekly. I also want to get into ministry. How can you say that I don't love God's word?! 

A lot of what we have been learning these last two days is all about the heart. What is your heart full of? Anger, jealousy, bitterness, selfishness, greed and the list can go on. We know that we are all sinners and are in a constant battle with our flesh. Since we are followers of Christ, we have his Spirit living in our sin infected bodies. The Spirit is at war with our flesh. The things that are in our heart are the things that eventually come out of our mouths. When we face trials our heart is exposed and whatever we are feeding ourselves, what we have given into apart from God, is going to seep out. If we are feeding ourselves God's word, then we are able to saturate our hearts with it and when we are bummed in life, our hearts pour out God's truth. 

But...in order to do that, we need to LOVE God's word. Not just revere it. Not just use it to defend our actions. Not just to slap down rules. We need to swallow it. We need to envelop ourselves in what it says. 

I don't LOVE God's word. I love it. I think it is a priority. I know its essential to my faith. But I don't LOVE God's word. I am still chewing on why that is what it is. I think that I could tell you all the surface reasons I don't read scripture like I should but I don't think that would solve the real issue. Deep down there is something that I hold onto that inhabits me from swallowing the word. 

You don't love God's word... something to wrestle with