Saturday, November 24, 2007

Update on the apartment hunt

Several weeks ago I went around and picked up pamphlets and information on about half a dozen apartments. We sat at Qdoba after one of my shifts and filtered through all the information. We picked through which places were in our price range, had the specifics that we needed (first floor, appliances), and just plain looked nice. That left us with only two real options and I hadn't had the chance to walk through either.

So, last Monday, Andy and I made plans to walk through the first option. It is a little place in Fairborn. Come to find out, it is also real close to the Campus.

When I had been there a few weeks earlier they were offering 2 bedroom 2 baths for $599. We went and walked through the model and they told us that until the end of the month they were running a special - 2 bedroom 2 bath for $499 a month. That's $1200 over a year!

We went home...made some phone calls...sent some emails...and prayed. Two days later Andy text messaged me from work saying he wanted to go fill out the application that afternoon. For $499 a month, on the ground level, with appliances and two full baths - it was hard to pass up.

So now, we are waiting for the paper work to go through. In reality, if this is going to happen, we could be moving boxes again within a week. The idea of having our own place is so thrilling. We had both of our parents in for Thanksgiving this week (pictures on that are coming!), but it wasn't technically "our house". We have been laughing and talking a lot lately about what having our own home would be like. We even bought a Christmas tree and picked up decorations from my mom in anticipation of the holidays.

Stayed tuned for the latest developments! We could know as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday!!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Looking for a new home...

(This is Andy)
So i have two exams left, and i don't feel like studying for either of them. So instead of procrastinating, i decided to create a long-awaited post. : )

We will be out of the house we are currently in, around mid-December. So we have been shopping around for places a little closer to campus to rent.

It's a bit a pickle because we don't have tons of money, now but in 6 months, i should have an engineering job and be sitting, well, much better off than we are now. Thank you college!

So right now we are looking for an either small rentable house or 2 bedroom apartment. If you guys know of any, lead would be greatly appreciated.

We know God is involved, but we are just not sure how he wants us to go about this. Is it too spiritual to ask for an amazing deal? or are we just suppose to smoothly transistion into a normal apt. near campus like most people. Well we haven't figured that out yet.

Thoughts, prayers or wisdom are always appreciated.

We love you guys!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Chi Alpha Fall Ball


And there you have it. Pocahontas and John Smith...if they went to college.
The Fall Ball was a blast! More pics to come :)

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Wright State Chi Alpha

If you haven't heard:
God has blessed us with an amazing ministry at Wright State and it is so much fun!

The opportunity to be a part of what God is doing at such a small school in Dayton, Ohio has been one of the greatest blessings in our lives. The Lord is interested in each individuals life - no matter where they are.

This whole quarter our campus pastors have been serving in Guadalajara, Mexico...so it's been different around here! But it definitely hasn't been bad. We are seeing our students really come into an understanding of God's love and what it means to be part of a family. They love this community and they are growing in their trust and respect of other people - and themselves.

This past week at our weekly meeting, Ignite, we had a missionary from North Africa come and share her heart for missions with us. Our students were challenged. We asked them that if they felt God could be calling them into missions work in any form, to come forward and write their name and where they are called on a piece of paper. Thirty students wrote down their names! And the places where they wanted to serve covered more than 15 countries. I was so proud of them. We are praying now for God to carry out those desires He has placed within their hearts. Please join with us in asking for the kingdom of God to be forwarded through our students!

We've done awesome things all quarter and I am so proud of every single students. Here is a glimpse at how cool Wright State is!!




















They always know how to have a good time. Even when we are fighting with the laptop there, Michelle and Kyle keep it light and make us smile!

















Fall Breakaway this year was such a success! We had the largest amount of students from any Ohio college at a big 47! There was much laughing, some crying, but in the end - everyone was challenged and touched by the Lord.















These are shots of the hangout time at Fall Breakaway. Above, Andy organized a dodgeball tourney and had a blast pelting people with foam balls. The winners? A team called "Smooth Jazz" :) Below, a group of my beautiful girls kicking back and loving on each other.





























This is Jessica. She is one of the new girls in my dGroup this Fall. She is a senior dance major and in love with the Lord. I could tell you books about her!
















Here are the lovely ladies from my Thursday night dGroup. We are making musical instruments out of beans, pipe cleaner, paper plates, and plastic cups. We were studying "bold worship to a powerful God".















This is football jersey night at Ignite! From left to right: Nathan (freshmen), Jason (staff), Dan (senior).















Chi Alpha is a blast, hands down.

And we want everyone on campus to come into the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Praise the Lord!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Update on our every day...

Andy and I could not have predicted how the first couple of months of marriage would go. Between Andy going to school, me working my new job, discovering how to be on staff with Chi Alpha, pouring into our students, and being in love - we have to stop and laugh to keep ourselves grounded.

Chi Alpha is a blast. We are learning so much through trial and error. Andy's dGroup has had a rough start, but he and PJ have been praying and coming up with ideas on how to get guys to commit. My dGroup is amazing. The girls are insightful and very loving. If you can, pray that the intimacy just increases as the learn to trust each other!

Being on staff isn't always sunshine, but I love it anyway! Jason and Sarah make me laugh and are such a huge support. I look forward to our staff meetings and realize more everyday how much goes into this ministry. I've never had the privilege of doing something this rewarding. This ministry changed my life, and now I get to help change the lives of others. Thank you Jesus.

Qdoba is one big blessing from the Lord. My position as "Marketing Specialist" is flexible, interesting, self directed, and fun. Right now, I will admit it is a bit intimidating as I am going around to local non-profit organizations (i.e. schools and churches) and pitching a fund-raising program. But, the way I see it - this will hopefully increase my boldness and self confidence. My favorite part is developing strategies. I wrote a report last month on how to execute catering with excellence. I'm so into my job : )

We have Chi Alpha pictures we are itching to post. I'm not in a place I can upload them right now, but soon! I promise!!

If you haven't heard yet, Andy got hit in the face playing flag football on Monday (October 1st). I got a phone call while I was at the XA office telling me that Dan was taking him to the hospital and that I should meet them there. Turns out he accidentally got hit as the center stood up after hiking the ball. Six hours and nine stitches later, we were home again. I was surprised at how much it bled, but he was a trooper. We took pictures, but only to lighten the mood. My guess is that they would not be appropriate for a blog post. I might take a picture of him post stitches after he's taken a shower and then show everyone!

Good news! We now have both car and health insurance! Please pray that the Lord continues the bless our finances : )

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Honeymooning in Lake Tahoe - Cali


Parasailing wasn't as scary as we thought it would be!
















This is how it looked all the time...



In front of our cute little cabin!
















An artistic rendition of Andy.

What you don't know is that there is a sign on the dock that says "No diving".

















After a picnic lunch right next to a water fall, Andy and I are taking in the view...



*sigh*
















For ten days, life was slow :) We enjoyed every minute of it.

Friday, September 21, 2007

More Wedding Pictures!!













The excitement of our reception :-)


It was worth the wait.

All of the grandchildren!!

Always laughing...

There was so much to praise the Lord for that day - especially our friends. Thank you to everyone that helped make that day so memorable!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

As promised!

The wedding was more beautiful than I could have hoped. Every little girl thinks about this day and imagines how it might be. Andy was more than perfect and we had so much fun dancing till we couldn't dance any more. Here's a glimpse at the pictures:

This me getting ready in the bridal room.

Me and my Daddy. One of the best moments together.


Four of the best friends a girl could have!


Everyone had fun that day :)


Andy always makes me smile, even when he's saying his vows!

Here we are taking communion for the first time as husband and wife.


Praying.

We have some catching up to do!

Well, Andy and I are settled into our temporary new house. There are still more boxes than we know what to do with - but at least we don't have anything more to move in! We keep the mess contained though, because we like to entertain. We've had the opportunity to have friends over for dinner and pictures. So it's definitley been fun!

School has started up again. Andy has his last full time quarter this fall and in the winter he will finish up his undergrad with a part time quarter. Praise the Lord for Andy's job! This winter quarter Andy will be going for 8 credit hours. And, if he works full time for the physical plant, they will give tuition reimbursment for up to 8 credit hours. Perfect! The less we owe the bank the better.

Being married is wonderful. I don't think either of us have ever laughed so much. We enjoy taking care of each other, cooking, and spending nights watching the Back to the Future Triology. We're making a point to make time for "us". It's paying off :)

Chi Alpha started off with a bang! Lot's of new people, lots of fun, and a little bit of running around. It's fall quater, what did you expect? We've had a tailgate party, awesome dGroup hang outs, meaningful prayer times, and so far two sweet Ignites! We're having fun getting back into everything, connecting with the students, and loving the Lord.

Jesus is taking care of us. From everything from finances to time. He's keeping us close to Him and helping us learn to balance this new life of ours.

On more of a bummer note, I was slightly ill this week. Put me a bit behind in my Chi Alpha work, but I'm back in the office today taking another swing at things.

There are BEAUTIFUL pictures...but I don't have the cd with me right now. Hopefully we'll have XA pics, wedding pics, and Tahoe pics real soon.

Thank you to everyone who blessed us at our wedding. We sat in our cabin in California and cried as we opened our cards. We appreciate your kindness and your generocity. We also laughed and smiled as we opened all of our wonderful presents. We could never have expeced so much love. Thank you.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

We're Back! (married Version)

We are Back!
We are Married!
Jesus is So Good!

Friday, June 29, 2007

So we made it! Back home that is. It was a crazy trip, but before I go into it I want to sincerely thank all of you that supported us to go to the trip. We were pretty concerned there for a while and God really came through, with you guys, Thank you Thank you Thank you!
We couldn't have made it without you. I hope you all can feel a part of what we are doing because you really are.

Thank you.

So to start off, I guess ill start out with something funny. So being a son-of-a-pilot, I never really got sick on airplane, except maybe on little Cessna's or piper cubs. But it seemed though as soon as we crossed the boarder flying into Mexico, it hit me, like a sack of Mexican jumping beans. I was light headed and couldn't hold it back.

It wasn't the best start to the trip, but it wasn't the work either.

The main goal while we were down there was to help facilitate a brand new Chi Alpha at the University of Guadalajara. There are a total of 11 separate campuses to the U of G, most of which are hours apart. Our main focus was as the Marketing and Finance campus called C.U.C.E.A. We spend the majority of our campus time at CUCEA.

Each Campus had its own crest, all significant in themselves. To the right is CUCEA's. The majority of the city is Catholic so there were many crosses around town and on businesses and signs but for the most part it was a formality rather than something meaningful.

The image at the bottom with the two lions and the tree is the symbol of the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. It was actually a full statue in the downtown.

The main ministry that we partnered with down in Guad, Mexico was one called "Engage Ministries". It is a ministry through the AG church that allows students that are still in college to experience full time mission work, while still gaining college credit. It was really a great thing because most people that go into missions need to be ordained and so forth so by that time they have a wife and 2 kids, and the passion for mission work might be gone or at least diminished.

From the students that we talked to, they loved being apart of ENGAGE because they learned that mission work (full-time) was nothing like they expected. Some students actually decide to not continue in the world mission field because of what they found while in the "trial-period". It was not a bad thing but rather a great way to experience and be shown what they are really working for, not necessarily the easiest life.

Well after moaping around for the first day, and having Heather ask me if there was anything she could do to help, I finally felt began to feel better and regained my strength.

We spend the majority of the first week in a daily routine. We would arrive at the Engage house by their bus, eat breakfast and then head out to campus. We spend the morning either praying or talking to the students about their lives, building friendships and hopefully entering into a conversationn about their faith or at least why we were in Mexico. While hanging out with some students that loved to jam, I learned about a sweet instrument called a melodica, I think its my next online purchase. We ate lunch on the CUCEA campus each day that we were there, lets just say there were a lot of deli sandwiches. And then we would round up the students that we knew and go over to the soccer fields (also cement basketball courts) and played soccer from about 2pm - 4pm. We played a lot of soccer in the sun, but it was so much fun! And then we would hang out and finish up before the van came to pick us up at 5pm.

It was a stretch for me because I don't speak any Spanish but Heather speaks it very well. For the first few days it was difficult to connect with any students that didn't speak English well. I played soccer with them and talked music but it wouldn't really get 'real'. Before I knew it we were done with our part of the campus ministry and we were off to other stages.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Mexico: Round Two

On Saturday we went to the market, and huge indoor/outdoor plaza that spanned blocks and was stuffed full of fake Nike's, Levi's, mysterious drinks, and soccer jerseys. Me and Heather ran around the whole place, I picked up some sweet soccer jerseys and she picked up some well needed hand-made blouses and skirts. It was great! And they even had cheap fresh mango's!

Shown to the right is the typical traffic in Guadalajara.








This was two girls on in the market begging for change. It was very sad to see this next to so many wealthy vendors.






Church on Sunday was definitely and experience. Well in the morning it was 3 hours of straig
ht Spanish, no projector with words, no translator, just passionate Mexicans praising Jesus. It was great to see, but a little hard to participate.

Sunday night was similar, a little more upbeat and American (meaning American songs translated to Spanish) so it was better, but most of all it was great to see them loving it all.

On Monday we painted the ENGAGE office which took longer than expected because apparently we had the wrong paint (oops).


The next day we went to the village (the outskirts of Guadalajara) and did ministry with the kids. This was my favorite day up until that point.





We got to play a ton with the kids, teach them some songs, have a Bible memory verse (all in Spanish, again I don't really understand it).





Afterward we gave them coloring books and candy and toys, they were so thankful!






One little six-year-old girl said that it was the first
coloring book she had ever had. It was very hard to leave them.


The last ministry day (Wednesday) we prayer walked around 4 different campuses, none of which had we previously visited save CUCEA. This day started our harder than expected. I was feeling pretty sick at the point again so it was hard to gain the energy to walk and pray on the little food that I could hold.

We saw a lot of interesting things on the campuses including a mountain view in the Art and Arch.'s backyard, and some weird paintings on another campus. We finally came to the Law campus. At the end of the walk we came to this tree we saw something really cool about it.



As you can see the tree is busting through the cement barriers as it grow, the blocks continue to fall apart. The understanding that we felt was that our prayers and time there, along with the other teams, ministries, kids outreaches, church services and the like, were all feeding into the grow that God is doing in that part of Mexico (dubbed the 'black hole of Mexico' as far a Christianity). Even though at times it felt like only 10 days, or small prayers on campuses we knew nothing about or didn't speak the language, God was moving.



Jesus' love is growing in Mexico.



He kind of brought it all together in one short moment. It was just like Him.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Guadalajara, Mexico

We are officially leaving for Guadalajara next Tuesday the 12th at 7:25 a.m. We will be arriving in Dallas Ft. Worth around 8:55 a.m. and then Guadalajara at approximately 1:10 p.m.




From there we go directly to the university we are ministering at. We won't see the hotel till later that night. We will be on campus for a week, and the last 3 or so days will be spent 2 1/2 hours outside of Guadalajara ministering to the underprivileged community.



A building on the campus of UG

Our main objective is to be a blessing to the missionaries that are dedicating their lives to bringing the gospel to the students of Guadalajara. We will be praying, playing soccer, worshiping, and connecting as much as we can with the students on that campus. Essentially, we will be doing what we do best - but in Spanish!!

Please pray for us. This is an extension of the ministry that Andy and I have been pouring into for four years. This will be the second team of students our Chi Alpha has sent down this year. In July we will also be sending our campus pastors down for 6 months! We are investing in this project to pioneer a Chi Alpha Campus Ministry at the University of Guadalajara because we know this is the Lord's will. He didn't just call the American students to salvation - but all mankind.

So you know, we will be flying out of Guadalajara on June 21st at 2:05 p.m. and into Dallas Ft. Worth at 4:40 p.m. Then it is home sweet home and on to wedding planning at by 9:35 that night.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

A Change in Season

There is only a little over a week before the end of my undergraduate career. There are only two weeks until we leave for Mexico. When I take time to stop and breathe, my first thought is always "Where did May go?"

Andy and I are back into the swing of things after an amazing weekend up in Michigan. Andy's family threw us a wedding shower at his Uncle Allie's house - which sits right on the lake. We sat in the hot tub, we went tubing, we caught some fish and were seriously blessed by the generosity of his family. Even though some of the items that we put on our Khol's gift registry were seasonal, his relatives still managed to buy us dishes, bathroom decorations, and some of the kitchen supplies we asked for.

It was very relaxing and so much fun. In the 10 months we've been engaged, we've never had that much time just to focus on ourselves and enjoy one another. We are amazingly blessed and extremely grateful to everyone who helped put this weekend together. Thank you!



















Here we are with brand new Serta pillows from Aunt Dorie!!




















Opening up our massive grilling utensils...
























My handsome fiance, waiting patiently for a bite...



















Slow and peaceful all weekend, just enjoying family and each other...
























The lake was amazing as the sun was setting. We watched this from the dock off the back of Uncle Allie's house...

























I caught my first fish early in the day on Monday. It was a little baby blue gill!!