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Career Members

I don't know how long I'll keep this blog going. I suppose I won't stop it, but my posts sure have become few and far between lately. Life just isn't as exciting for me in the US compared to Shell, Ecuador. Since Sunday we have been at the MAF US headquarters in Redlands, California. We done our field debriefing and a meeting with the candidate committee, along with a few other meetins. Today we found out that we have been accepted as career staff. That was good news for us. You might think that after five years as short term staff that we'd be shoo-ins, but we didn't want to take anything for granted. Our next two weeks here we will be in the Ministry Partnership seminar, during which time we will prepare for the next step of our ministry. We will be doing deputation until we reach 100% support, and then at that point I will be working for the IT department. Currently we have 55% of the support that we need.

Right now I'm just plain exhausted. A lot has happened in the last month; coming back from Ecuador, spending time in Oakhurst, moving to Idaho, planning to buy a home there, and then coming down to Southern California. Friday we'll be at the beach for the day visiting with family friends. I'm looking forward to that. Oh, and I'm also going to take my bicycle along, and hope to get a ride in on the Pacific Coast Highway. I've really missed riding my road bike that past five years. I went out for a ride tonight, as well as last Saturday, and I can hardly wait to do more. There's a lot of great riding in the Boise area and I'm looking forward to that.

In The Pine

It's supposed to be cool here in the pines of Idyllwild, but it's warm this year. We were in Idaho just over two weeks, but that was enough time for me to figure out that I like the summer there--it does get hot or even very hot during the day, but it does cool down in the 60s at night. I am missing the rain of Shell, and we've only had two days in the past month where we saw rain. One of those was in California, and one was in Idaho.

Thursday we drove down to Southern California. We figured we'd take two days, but after we got started we talked about doing it all in a day. That's what we ended up doing, pulling into Idyllwild around 1 AM, with an elapsed travel time of over 18 hours.

Monday we will start three weeks of debrief and training at MAFs headquarters. After that we will likely head right back to Idaho, as we continue to settle into life there. The boys will start school on August 29, and we still need to register them for that. We have put reservation money down on a lot in the Hazelwood building development. If all goes accordinng to plan when we get back we'll sign a contract with the builder and construction will begin in mid-August. We're being told we can be in the house before Christmas. The next thing to start working on is the sale of our house in Oakhurst. I think we'll have that on the market the first week of August.

If you're still reading this now that we're back in the States, thanks for your interest. This is quite a transition for us, and we're slowly adjuting to being back in the States. We miss the routine, work, and friends of our lives in Ecuador, for sure.

Keys In My Pocket

Once again I have keys in my pocket. It was a strange feeling in Shell to give back all my keys to MAF, and have nothing on my key ring. Now, we're in Idaho, and I have keys again. Car key, van key, apartment key, PO box key, the works. Funny what keys can symbolize. Our trip from California to Idaho went well, and was uneventful as we came up here with the U-Haul and our Toyota Tercel. We arrived on Tuesday evening, and stayed the first two nights with a family in Caldwell. They are with a group called the Idaho Friends of MAF, which is made up of supporters of MAF in this area. Wednesday we went and looked at an apartment that I had phone ahead about. We liked it enough to fill out an application, and by Thursday afternoon we were all moved it. It was a tight fit getting everything we own into a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment, but we made it. Ellyn has done a great job of making it our home, and we're happy with our home base. We're in Meridian, the town we are thinking of living in, and where we want the boys to go to school. It won't be until the first of August that we can start to sell our home in Oakhurst, so I imagine it will be early September before we can buy here. We signed a three-month lease for the apartment, and it looks like the timing will work out well. All along the way we've seen God's hand preparing our path, and it's been a huge blessing to relax in His goodness.