Our Room

This is a picture standing right inside our bedroom door. We have 2 dressers for all of our clothes and one small closet. To the left is a desk with our computer and a bunch of other junk. To the right is our queen bed. The blue tub in front of the bed is Shane's dresser. LOL.

In the corner of our room is this sink. We do not have a sink in our bathroom since we share it with another family.

Ayla is standing inside our door. Our bed is on the left side of the photo and our computer desk is on the right.

Another view of our "side" of the room

This is our shared toilet and bathtub. It has a constant "musty" smell to it. BUT - at least we get warm water.  :-)

The Flying Squirrel

This was a team building exercise that we did today. The children ages 6 and up were able to participate with us. Elijah was the very first person to go. He loved it! Shane had to be different and he wore a full body harness where the rope was attached in the back. Unfortunately, I do not have a video clip of myself to show, but I thought you'd enjoy seeing the boys.

Our first week

I have to start out by apologizing for not updating our blog sooner. Our only excuse is that we have been EXHAUSTED since our classes started. Our schedule is much more intense than I was prepared for and I'm finding it difficult to fit everything in. This update is probably very random and all over the place, but I'm tired. :-) We are truly happy that we are here and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is where the Lord wants us.

It is so exciting to be among like-minded people. They get it. They have either been in missions or are looking to go into missions. Our class is very multi-cultural and is a good size after you add up the adults and the children. Our children are LOVING their C.O.D. (Child Of Destiny) program and have made a ton of friends this past week. They love having so many kids around all the time (back home we didn't have many neighborhood kids to play with). Just today, Ayla thanked me for bringing her to Oregon. All I could do was smile. I am so thankful that our children are adjusting and are happy to be here.

This week we are doing a lot of team building exercises to help us get to know each other and to help us begin to think as "we" and not "I". It has been a lot of fun and has really helped break the ice with everyone. We were given the book, "Is that really You, God?" by Loren Cunningham (the man to started YWAM) and have to have it read by tomorrow. Shane was a little nervous about the reading requirements, but so far he's done great. We also were assigned to a small group (Shane is with a few other men and I am with a few other women) with other classmates and one staff member. We will meet with our small group once a week to share what's on our mind, or digest some of what we've been learning or we can talk about where God is working in our lives. We also have 1:1 time with a staff member once a week. This one on one time is meant for discipleship (mentoring), friendship, etc. They made it very clear to us that they, as a staff are here for us. They have been praying for us, by name, since we applied to the Salem YWAM. That is so exciting to us.

Our class time, which is from 9:30-1pm every day, we have lunch at 1pm and then we have work duties (Shane is on transportation and I have Dinner Prep) from 3-5pm. I'm trying to get my time switched as it is very difficult to spend any time with the children when we are both gone. Our small group time is scheduled from 1:45pm - 2:45pm once a week. It makes for a hectic day.

We seem to have some pretty cool staff members. Howard is the class leader. He's an older man (I'd put him in his mid to late 60's) who's a little quirky and beats to his own drummer. He loves to go off on rabbit trails and he claims to "do as the Spirit directs him". He opened class today asking all of us to raise our hands as he was about to pray for the Holy Spirit to dwell in the classroom and to bless our time together. While he was praying he randomly started praying for Shane. It was the coolest, unexpected prayer. I wished I remembered specifically what he said, but it moved Shane and I both to tears. He asked the Lord to use Shane in a mighty way and to bless him for his obedience. He said a few "prophetic" things (that I can't remember anymore) in his prayer and then prayed for 2 other people. It was really cool.

Next week officially begins the lecture portion of our training. They are bringing a new speaker every week to cover various topics. I'm excited to see how the lectures go. I've been hearing that we have some of the best speakers out there!  :-)

I have some journaling (homework) to do and would like to get to bed at a decent time so it's time for me to sign off. I will try to update again as soon as I can. Updating will most likely occur on weekends.

Thank you all for the prayers and emails of encouragement you have sent us. While I may not have responded to them yet, we have read them and are so encouraged by them. Please keep our family in your prayers. We are out of our comfort zone (which we believe is right where God wants us) and we are ready to learn!

Catch Up

I'm trying to play catch up today... but it's going to be a little difficult because my darling hubby forgot our camera cord at home. He thought he had packed it, but I'm pretty sure I saw it sitting on the desk in the office at my parent's house. Therefore - this will be an update with NO pictures.  :(

On Sunday, June 13th we had a "Goodbye Open House" at my parent's house. It was a great way for us to see a lot of our friends and family in one place before we left. Unfortunately we felt that we did not get to chat very long with most people, and for that, we felt bad. There were SO many people... it was just hard to talk with anyone for too long. It meant a lot to us to see so many people come and encourage us with kind words and prayer. Thank you to everyone for coming and a special thank you to those of you who left us a card. Some cards were filled with encouragement and some were filled with gift cards and money to help with expenses. We were VERY touched by every card. I also want to thank all of my friends who so graciously brought food to the Open House. You are all so sweet. Thank You again to everyone for making our Open House so wonderful.

We got up early on Monday morning (3am to be exact) and were on the road by 4am. We traveled to Lincoln, NE to stay with our friends, Brian and Christi Berrier. We arrived at their home around 4pm on Monday and stayed with them till 4pm on Tuesday. We drove until 11pm on Tuesday night and stayed at a Motel 6 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Today we went to a park to let the kids play, drove around downtown Cheyenne and then drove until 4pm. We are currently at the border of Wyoming and Utah. We decided end our driving early today as we wanted to get a hotel with an indoor pool and have some fun with the kids. We ordered some pizza, swam in the pool, let the kids drink some Sprite (for those who know me well - this was a big treat for my kiddos) and now both kids are sound asleep.

A & E have done extremely well with all the riding in the car. We have TONS of stuff for them to do (color, video games, DVD's, toys, etc) and we've tried to stop often to stretch and go potty. Tomorrow our goal is to get through Utah and most if not all of Idaho before getting a hotel tomorrow evening. Our plan is to arrive sometime on Friday... preferably early afternoon, but we'll just see how tomorrow goes.

I'm going to try to have my Mom send me my computer cord, so hopefully I can upload photos soon!

Prayer Request

Just a quick note to ask for your prayer for my (Jen) Dad. He has had a really bad headache since Sunday evening and was admitted to the hospital yesterday afternoon. His blood pressure was dangerously high and they were having a hard time getting it to come down. When the medication would start to work and bring his bp down, it would not stay down. They have given him morphine to help with the headache, but after some temporary relief it seems to come back with a vengeance. They have performed a cat scan to rule out bleeding in the brain and everything came back looking normal. They have performed some blood work to check for mini strokes and that too came back looking normal. A neurologist was supposed to come see him sometime this afternoon and they are planning to keep him overnight again as they cannot get his bp regulated (it's lower but still too high) or get his pain at a manageable level (on a scale of 1-10 he was a 20 this morning). Please keep my Dad (and Mom) in your prayers. This is not how any of us want to spend our last few days together before we leave. THANK YOU.

Welcome

Welcome to our NEW blog. As many of you know, I use to have a blog that I was horrible at updating, but now that we are leaving for 5 months, I thought this would be a great way to keep our friends and family up-to-date with our family adventures. We will still be sending out our monthly newsletters via email, but this blog will be an easier way to post pictures and videos and is a little more interactive.

In case you haven't noticed, we have a tab up above titled "Newsletters" that has all of our past newsletters so you can go back and catch up if needed. We will also be adding any new newsletters in the future.

Please feel free to share this link with anyone who might be interested in our journey!