Transitions...

I have to be honest and tell you that the past several days have been difficult for me. We have made it to Richmond, and we are here at “Field Personnel Training” (FPO). It feels like we have done SO much to get here. We had assignments to complete before we got here (reading, writing papers) not to mention crating and packing… it felt like a mad dash to the finish line… except that we had to keep running once we got here.

It has been wonderful to actually get settled in one place for 8 wks straight. We are living in “Quads” so there are four different apartments on each corner of the building. We each have our own little kitchen… well, really “kitchenette”, bathroom and washer and dryer, but we share a “great room” in the middle. The quads are designed to be able close or open different doors in order to accommodate different size families. We have the largest family at FPO… the only ones with 4 children… and we have three bedrooms. We almost take up one whole side of the quad! There is a married couple who have one bedroom on our side of the quad. I feel bad for them, having to “quad” with us. We try hard to keep the boys quiet, but there’s only so much you can do with 3 boys 4,5,&6. Our children are the only ones in our Quad… I guess God was being gracious to the rest of our Quad mates. The White kids are enough for anyone to have to handle. Most of the quads have several families with small children. It’s been fun, in that aspect. We have two girls in our Quad who are going to be “journeymen”… or, rather, “journeygirls” is what we call them. They are precious, and have been a big help to our family.

We eat every meal at the cafeteria, which was wonderful fun in college… but a total different story with 4 young children. Those of you who are parents will fully understand this… I feel like we are eating “out” at every meal. We haven’t quite figured out the routine we need to have in order to have a peaceful meal for all of us. I think I am a person who likes to be in control, and that situation does NOT lend to parental control. LOL. It IS wonderful food, and they supply baby food and soy milk for my dairy allergy children. It really is such a blessing, but it can be stressful for both Wes and I.

I think life has just been so crazy, and I’ve been “hanging on” so long that my nerves are having trouble handling anything extra. Don’t get me wrong. I’m doing ok, but the reality is the last couple days have been a little rough.

I think the hardest thing for me (and many of the stay at home moms who are here) is that we have to leave our children every morning while we go to class. The first day was a struggle... the second day was even harder. Carolina and Jonathan have never really been apart from me. They paged me 2x for Carolina that day, but once we got her “doggie” and “blankie”, she was fine. What I didn’t realize was that Jonathan was not doing well.

When I went to pick him up, he was sobbing. His eyes were purple from having cried so much all day. I also found out that the hadn’t eaten anything all day. I was so sad for him. Once we got home, all he wanted to do was hold me. The next morning, he cried all morning saying he didn’t want to go to school. Dropping him off was a heartbreaking time for me, although, we did finally get him to stay in the classroom. I think I cried all morning, my heart breaking for my sad little boy.

Many of the moms could relate, and I had lots of people offering hugs and praying for us. The teachers had promised to page me this time, if he was having another hard day. I resisted the temptation to go and check on him, but every time a mom I knew was paged to go check her child, she would give me a report on Jonathan. He did much better the second day. We even had pictures of him in a Batman costume when we picked him up! Our third day dropping him off was much better. He clung to Daddy a little bit, but he was much more at home this time.

As hard as it is, I’m grateful for this transition. When we go to Spain all the boys will go into a national school. They begin school at the age of 3 over there, so this is a very good transition for Jonathan (and Momma). At least here he understands the language!

The older boys are LOVING school. Weston and Nathan look forward to it everyday, and can hardly wait to get there. We had a parent teacher meeting with Weston’s teacher, and she shared several of the things they will be covering. She was a missionary, so she knows the difficulties the kids will face as they start in a national school. She actually teaches a whole session in Taiwanese, so the children get used to hearing a different language. She teaches them to learn with their eyes first… she tells them to find a child in the class that the teacher is please with and who is making “good choices”, and you follow what they do. It was so neat to hear the strategy!... and it so put my heart at ease to realize that we are not the only ones who will go through this… or who have gone through this. She tells them that their ears will eventually learn, but their eyes learn more quickly at first. Miss Becky has such a kind and loving heart, and I’m so grateful she is helping to prepare Weston for this new journey!

Everything that is done here is done with a purpose, and that is encouraging. You know how you used to have to do “busy work” in school?... we don’t have that here. So, even through it’s busy… crazy busy, actually… I can find rest in the fact that it is necessary.

We do not have internet in our ‘quads’, so it’s a bit harder for us to get on here and give updates. Wes or I have to stay home while the other goes to one of the buildings that has wi-fi. Despite all the transition, we really are excited about what we are learning here! I can’t wait to be able to update you on all of that. Please do continue to pray for our family as we go through yet another transition… and certainly not our last!

Crating... the story :)

We finished crating!! We were supposed to be able to all of our crating in one day (FRIDAY, the 9^th), but that didn’t happen. I guess that’s part of life, and we’d best get used to it. The key word in our lives is “FLEXIBILIBY.” J We are all learning to go with the flow. J

We had a wonderful company help us with crating. Heflebower packing and moving. They are a family owned business that’s been in business for 3 generations. They were SO great. Not too many people can say that about the company they crated with. We know one family whose story is just a nightmare, so I’m grateful that ours was fairly simple.

We had the majority of our stuff in storage, but we did have several big items in the house where we have been living. We were going to rent a U-haul to get our big couches over to storage so that everything was in one place, but Hefelbower graciously told us they would take care of that for us, with no extra charge. It was SUCH a blessing to us! God has placed so many people around us who have blessed us like this over these past several months, and we are so grateful for His provision.

So, the morning of packing, we had everything ready to go. We thought that they would pick up the stuff that we had at the house and just go over to storage and crate everything there. That’s not what happened. They decided to crate everything that we had at the house (which included 5 bikes, a bike trailer, and a “tag-a-long” bike). It just took much longer than we had anticipated. They actually wrapped EVERYTHING. I was so impressed with how careful they were. I had sever big plastic tubs, and they actually wrapped those! Raymond was our “master packer” and he was so good. He was careful with the things that were important to me, and was excellent at fitting all the pieces together so that we used as little space as possible. We were so impressed with them.

We were given the dimensions of what the crates were, and when we measured our couch, it wouldn’t fit. So, we requested a special crate to be made to fit our couch. Hefelbower was aware of it, but did not send that special crate. I’m not sure if they wanted to see the couch first, or what, but they ended up packing two of our crates and then taking the rest of our stuff with them to put in with our couch. Somehow, in the commotion of leaving, they forgot our hanging clothes… we all forgot about them. At the time, it was so stressful and frustrating to me, especially b/c it was a Friday and we would have to wait the weekend before we could finish it up. But, as the weekend went on, I was so grateful that the Lord has allowed it to happen that way. All weekend, I kept finding things that I had meant to crate, or that we decided to crate at the last minute. It was nice to have those couple days to put all those odds and ends together! J

So, on Monday, we packed our Suburban with all our “crate stuff” and headed for Richmond, which is where the crating company was located. I was so please that the same guys, Henry and Raymond were packing this crate, too. They had just done such a great job, and I trusted them to do it well. When we (I went into the warehouse while Wes and ALL the kids stayed in the truck) arrived, they had already wrapped the couch and had all our stuff lined up to pack up. We brought in the extra stuff, and they got started. They had planned to start by measuring the couch and figuring out exactly what size crate they needed to build… but, as they were looking at it, they decided just to put our couch in the crate and see how much needed to be added. It turned out that the couch FIT!! I guess when they wrapped it, it squished the cushions enough that it actually fit in the regular crate! It was great! It meant less work for the guys, and less money for the mission board… and for us, less time to have to be there. J

The guys did an awesome job, and we used less crate space than we thought, so that was wonderful! When it was finally time to go, we buckled all the kids back in their seats…. And the truck wouldn’t start. I guess we should’ve expected as much. So, while Wes went to see if Henry or Raymond could give us a jump, Weston prayed that the truck would start. J We got the jump, and it started right off. Weston was so excited to see such a quick answer to prayer. J

Well, after that we headed BACK to Williamsburg to get all of our stuff that we had packed for “Field Personnel Orientation.” (FPO) We couldn’t fit it all in our truck with the crate stuff, so we just decided to drive back and forth. We got back to Williamsburg and literally packed the kids into the truck. They couldn’t get out without us unloading fans and such. It was quite an adventure. Wes wassn’t sure everything was going to fit, but had just gotten lots of practice packing every nook and cranny with the crate… so, we were good. J lol.

It took a little bit, but we got it ALL loaded up, and we set out on our way BACK to Richmond! What a crazy day! I was so relieved to have it all finished, though. I just didn’t realize that our race wasn’t finished….

Catch up... :)

We crate in TWO days! Wow! I cannot believe how quickly all this has come up. We have been diligently working on our Visa paperwork, and the Lord has allowed most of it to be quick. Wes did get his birth certificate back from the State department of NC, telling him that they cannot validate his birth certificate, b/c it's too old. LOL! What in the world? I think if we hadn't been so stressed over the timing of this VISA stuff, we would have been rolling on the floor. The concept is just funny. What it they actually meant was that he had to order another birth certificate that was more recently printed. The good thing is that it's an easy fix. The bad thing is that it takes MORE TIME!

We found out that we had to send MY birth certificate to the county clerks office to be validated before the State would even look at it, so we are still waiting for that to go through. We do know it reached the county clerks office, so that's good. We are still waiting on getting a new copy of Wes' birth certificate, and then we will mail that to the dep. of state AGAIN. We've just received our VA docutments, so we are still waiting for the police records and Carolina's birth cert. from CA. So, that's where we are with all that. Most of it has been quicker than we expected, so please do keep praying!

We are in the midst of packing up everything we've been living with for the past 4 months, and deciding what clothes we will carry in our suitcases (well, dufflebags, is more accurate... they don't weigh as much as suitcases, so we can pack more in them.), and what clothes we will crate. It's been a MAJOR process, but we are getting closer! :) I could tell you so much about all that, but I want to go back and tell you about the last couple weeks of September. We missed those updates, b/c I didn't have much access to the internet.

First, appointment week was incredible. I think it was refreshing and relaxing to be with other like-minded friends. I don't think I can even put into words the blessing these friends have been to us. The Lord has knit our hearts together in amazing ways. When we went to Candidate Conference back in May, it seemed like most of the people there were either much younger or much older than us... but, by the end of the week, we had found a small group of our "30-something" crowd. We had just barely gotten to know each other before it was time to go. This time, we had the whole week to bond and fellowship. Wow. What a blessing the Lord has provided in these friends. There were 3 other couples that we somehow just gravitated toward all the way through the week. There were several nights where you could just find us sitting around tables in the lounge, or on the couches under the stars by the pool, just sharing our hearts... "ok, how are you guys REALLY doing?" It was so good.

I was scared to death the night of "appointment." Most of you know that I VERY MUCH dislike speaking in front of people, and we had to share a "testi-bite" (so nick-named, b/c it's actually much shorter than a "testimony"... we only had 90 words... literally.) So, I had to walk across the stage with my face on these huge video screens and speak into a microphone with spot-light on me... NOT my comfort zone. :) But, it really was amazing. I didn't trip, fall, or forget my lines. :) I think one of the highlights was worshiping with our friends... singing "These are the Days of Elijah" with hands lifted high and hearts overflowing with the power and majesty of our Savior. It was beyond words.

After such an amazing night, we came home to all our babies having the stomach flu. I won't dwell on that too much... it was interesting having all 10 people in one house sick one right after another. We made it through, but it didn't leave us a whole lot of time left (healthy) with Wes' family. We were bummed about that, but we did have Carolina's first birthday party together! She had her first cupcake, and Nanna decorated the kitchen with streamers and balloons. It was too cute.

On our way back to VA, we stopped in NC again. We were able to visit a church plant, Revolution, on Sat. night. It's located in downtown Raleigh, right across the street from NC State. It was an amazing service. We loved how down-to-earth, yet how professional they were! It's an amazing atmosphere, and the people were so loving and gracious... and we got to visit with Mike (who is the pastor there) and Ginny Penry and their girls for a little bit. Mike and Ginny were friends of ours from before we were married, so that was wonderful fun. Wes had the opportunity to share a little bit and you can it check out at: www.revolutionraleigh.com. If you go onto their website and find the teaching titled "Uno" from 9/26/2009, you can hear Wes's testimony.

Then, the next morning, we went back to the Creek Church in Apex, NC. My parents drove in and we were able to dedicate Carolina Joy. :) It was so special. My sister Trisha and her husband Todd dedicated their youngest, Keira Starr McDuffee, as well. Matt Rice did such an excellent, personal time of dedication. It was a blessing for us. I think our hearts are fast feeling at home at this little church plant. It was wonderful to be among them again, and to feel their love and encouragement. Matt and Wes share such a similar passion, and they've made plans to sit down and map out a partnership over the next several decades.... yes, I said decades. This church has a VISION! It's exciting to be a part of that. They have really taken us under their wing and made us feel covered in prayer and loved. We are looking forward to seeing how God uses this partnership.

So, we are back in VA again. We are speaking in two small groups this week (well one down and one more tonight!), as well as finishing up all our crating! I will be so thankful when this is all finished. We've barely even had time to take a breath! :) It is exciting times, though. Thank you all for your continued prayers.