The Update That Took 7 Months to Write

Really, this is the update that took 7 months to happen. It all started with a crazy question to the Reach Global missions organization In mid-December...but you can check out all those updates in the Living Faith tab. Today we are starting with last night.

Adam and I headed to Apple Valley where we met the lead of the Montreal team. He was visiting MN to teach at a missions training week. It was wonderful getting to know him. We talked for 3 hours about so many subjects. We chatted a bit about our faith and what works we are currently doing for the Lord. There was a little bit of budget talk and he asked about our technology needs and apartment needs. He also gave us some wonderful advise about the work we have to do ahead.

In the end the important things we came away with were that he is very encouraged about the works that we are currently doing and feels that we will be a great fit in Montreal. That he wants us to come for 15 months instead of 12 so we can do language training for those additional months. The immersion training that he wants us to do would involve our living in someone else's home for 6 or so weeks. The people in this home would not speak any English and we would be learning in survival mode. It sounds quite intense, but God would not put us into something he did not think we could do and so, with Him, we will make it through. Plus he is planning to have the team up there really train us on being missionaries so we won't be tossed out to the sharks alone, thank God for that.

We also learned that not all missionaries have the gift of faith. The gift of faith is the highest gift for both Adam and I and I can't imagine how difficult it must be to go into missions without it. The lead got to see a glimpse of this faith in us and he was really amazed, so far as to say he could learn a lot from us (commence blushing).

It was after 11pm when we finally made it home and I always check my messages before bed. There was a pile of junk mail, the lead's e-mail to us and our rep detailing our night's conversation, and a surprise for the lead and us...

I am very pleased to let you know that we are accepting you for an 12-15 month term to serve with ReachGlobal in Montreal!

What an exciting way to end the night! Let's just say it was hard to get to sleep and poor Adam worked at 5am this morning.

It is time for the 2 of us to get to work as the ideal leave time for us would be April. There is a lot to pull together, letters to write, people to connect with, and everyday life needs to be in there too. We wanted to share all of this exciting news with all of you. You have been a fantastic support team so far and we look forward to having you all continue in this journey with us!

Half the News

We came back from a 3 day vacation on Wednesday and the house and our routine are mostly back in order. The highlight of our stay in the Twin Cities was visiting the EFCA headquarters in Bloomington where we were able to meet our ReachGlobal rep in person. Yes, the Como Zoo and science museum were fun, but this was a big deal.

These past 6 months we have done all of our communications through phone or computer so getting to see our rep face to face was great. The most exciting, of course, was finally getting to talk to him about our acceptance. It was the reason we went to visit him after all. I will stop stalling now and get to all the nitty gritty.

ReachGlobal is very excited to have us on board and wants to send us out on a 1 year mission trip. The position that we are going into the field for is quite new and 1 year gives everyone a chance to feel out how it will work. There will be a possibility of a 1 year extension which we can apply for toward the end of our stay, any longer and we will be looking at making the transition from short term to long term missionaries.

We do not have our "official" acceptance yet. For that we need our location to be finalized. That is taking a little longer as Jay, the Montreal lead is just getting back from Haiti...possibly helping to translate for our own church's mission trip. How crazy would that small world connection be. We are meeting with Jay on Wednesday to chat and just start building a relationship with him. It is also a time for him and us to see if we will mesh well on the same team.

There is a lot on our minds right now. We are planning a trip back to the headquarters in August for orientation and training. With our trip being only 1 year we have to make a decision about what to do with the house. In the coming weeks we will be determining a shop closing plan for The Crazy Elephant, how and when to get our wordpress blog up and running, what technology needs we will need filled, and a plan of attack for how determine what to bring, leave, or get rid of as far as stuff in our house goes.

It is all a bit overwhelming right now to look at all there is to do and plan. We will be turning to the Lord to help us in all of this. It is a comfort to know that He will be guiding us in this journey. We want to thank everyone for your prayers over these months. Please continue to pray for us as we begin making huge life changes in preparation for our trip. We look forward to seeing how God uses us to change the lives of those we will be serving and those who will be serving with us.

Extra Interview

It has been 2 weeks since our interview and we heard from our rep yesterday (2 weeks to the day). Sadly, it wasn't the definitive answer we were hoping for. Cue awesome facebook graphic...

https://www.facebook.com/busyhomeschoolmom?hc_location=stream

This morning we had yet another interview. This one was all about our family life. We discussed how we discipline, touched shortly on homeschooling, and talked about how we connect together as a family. It went very well! The rep was laughing and having a good time with us which put us at ease and made it so much easier to chat.

She said at the end that we are very wise parents for our young age (complimentary in so many ways). We said that we are always praying that God would make us wise in our parenting. It was wonderful to hear because most of the time we feel like we are total failures as parents. I guess it is like standardized testing for school. You don't know if you are doing well or not based on your own guesses on the matter.

We also learned that the highest number of missionaries leaving the field are families. It is the reason that they really want to make sure a family is right for the job. It does make sense as the position we originally applied for became open because the man currently doing it left when he got married.

She said that our rep would get back to us with an answer quickly (early next week) because they realize that this process has taken especially long for us. It has felt long, but has gone by quickly. We have been going through the application process for 6 months! It was nice to hear that they also think it has been drawn out and not just that we are impatient.

So, we still don't have an answer but have gotten some great affirmation. God answered our prayers of the Reach Global team continuing to be punctual in their communications even if the communications were not what we expected them to be.

We are looking forward to what God has planned for us this summer. It could be a very busy one. Over the past 6 months of application time we have had several people tell us that they believe our fundraising will take 6 months. If we get our approval right away next week that could mean leaving in November. That is by no means our goal, but it will be very exciting to see God put this all together and to see when exactly He has decided we should go.

This Week

God has definitely prepared our hearts for this wait and the upcoming answer we have been waiting months to hear. This last week since our Missions interview has been filled with peace and calm, over the impending decision any way.

We have been busily spring cleaning the house, something we had planned on anyway. The rooms of our home are getting a deep cleaning. I am talking scrubbed walls, floors, doors, ect. We have cleaned out a lot of clutter as well. There have been several bags of garbage, baskets sent to the thrift store and boxes to be donated. Some things are going back to their original homes and some are going to new homes to bless other families with things we are no longer using. This all makes great prep work if we are going to be selling our house and leaving and if we aren't then it means a beautiful clean home to live in.

We have also started fleshing out some of our plans for our potential trip. This weekend we are talking a lot about what items would be on our prayer list and what our first missions newsletter will be like. I have also been visualizing our new blog. Should we get a yes, we will be switching to wordpress as it will be our missions hub and we want our updates and projects to be easy to access.

Today I am prepping for the new homeschool year. Since we have chosen to school year round, our school year starts in 1 week. It is a good reminder that even in the midst of big life changes we need to keep our everyday routine going. It also reminds me how wonderful it is to homeschool. Should we move, school will not change and we can get back into our routine gradually if needed. God has certainly blessed us and we pray He is blessing all of you as well!

Mission Interview

Thank you to everyone that has been praying for us this week.We went into our interview today with calm and peace. 3 hours on the phone is a very long time, but we filled the entire time.

The first 2.5 hours we discussed our entire lives. That includes our past and current sins/temptations, our marriage, our ministry work, and most importantly our walks with Christ. We did our best and with help from God Almighty, we didn't fumble over our words and were able to speak clearly and decisively.

In the last half hour we talked about what will be happening should we be green lighted and move ahead in this process, training, funds, timeline, ect. We found our chat during this time to be very optimistic. Our rep is planning on putting together our mission description and budget during the 2 weeks we will be waiting for our answer. Since mission description and budget are supposed to be the next step after we are approved, we are feeling pretty strongly that we will be approved. Until we get a definitive answer, we will continue life as usual.

Life as usual means taking the next 2 weeks to do major and deep spring cleaning. Our house needs it and it is great ground work for putting our house on the market this summer. I am going to enjoy the peace of these next 2 weeks. Should we be approved 2 weeks from now, we are going to have a lot to do!

Less and More

So many posts to write! Since missions updates are in slot #1 of the blog post priority list, I will start there. Tomorrow I will be sharing our Squinkies craft. Thursday I will share our 100th day of school. Friday will be a book review and giveaway. And ending the week with a post about Balloon Volleyball. Now that you know what to look forward to, let's get to the meat of the day...

We had a long chat on the phone today with our new Reach Global rep. He spent a large amount of time asking us questions to get to know us a little better. Then we got into missions talk. Somehow we now have less of an idea of what we are going to be doing but know more, in general. The missions team has found themselves in a unique position  They have several people who have applied for this one spot. This is very out of the ordinary for them. They normally get 1 applicant for each posting. Crazy, right?

At any rate, he wanted to know our thoughts on taking another post. We discussed where our gifts lie and locations we would and would not be interested in (NOT Africa, you're welcome mom!). He said he will be looking into other opportunities for us and was happy to hear that we are planning that this short term trip will be a launching point for long term.

Ultimately, we came away feeling that ReachGlobal is looking forward to having us on board. We may not end up in a media position but we will end up where God wants us to be. If we remember back to the beginning, this was not a job we initially planned to apply for. It did open the door for us to get started on our missions path though and that may be the purpose God had in mind.

Lots of Help

We have been working on our missions application forms for about 2 1/2 weeks now. The form that had given us the most difficult time was the Theological form. Thank goodness we have gotten so much help with them! First off, we have fantastic pastors who have given us resources to help us. Second, we prayed and waited patiently for the Spirit to help us put the words to paper. Third, was our past studies. In all the places we needed a verse reference but there weren't any suggestions we wanted to use in the books, we were able to draw from our past bible studies and our Sunday school classes. It has been incredible to use what we have learned over the last few years for something other than personal growth. I guess you just never know when you will get to take your knowledge out for a spin.

Our Theo forms are coming along. We are taking our time and the second drafts are far better than the first rough, very rough, drafts. We were hoping to get the remaining forms in by the end of the week, but now I will be happy if it is by the next. I never thought they would be so time consuming or difficult to fill out. We will keep plugging away at them and hopefully we will have all our applications in (including the demo reel) by the end of March. As long as we keep working on them and making progress, I will be happy!

Humbling to Say the Least

Some accurate, but not to be used, slogans for becoming a missionary...

Relive every dark moment from your past - fill out a missions app!

Put your doctrinal and biblical knowledge to the test - fill out a missions app!

Seriously though, it has been a very humbling experience thus far. I don't think anything could make me feel less adequate as a spokeswoman for Christ than these applications. I thought waiting to get them was hard. Turns out that was a piece of cake! I don't think I ever claimed to know it all when it comes to, well, anything to be frank, but I am starting to really feel just how much I really don't know.

There are 2 things holding me through this application process...well, 2 things that are not God. First are all the encouragement and prayers from our family and friends. Second is this post on the ReachGlobal Facebook page, "Jesus entrusted the leadership of that which he died for to non-professionals after just 3 years with them. And you're dragging your heels?" It is so true! I am doing my best to remember that God doesn't need me to be an expert, he needs me to be willing. That, I can do!

Application Checklist

Have you ever wondered what a missions application looks like? I will break it down for you. You will never look at job applications the same way again!

Adult Reference form - with 4 references
Child Reference form - with 2 references
Medical history form for all of us
Physician's exams for all of us
ReachGlobal application - similar to a normal job app
Theological questionnaire
Missiological questionnaire
Personal life history - very, very personal!
2 background check forms
Sending in a family photo
DiSC - self-knowledge tool (this one will involve some $)

That's it...no big deal right? I have already sent questions to 2 separate e-mails for 3 of the forms. We will just have to take it one at a time. At least we have a lovely checklist to mark up and keep us organised.

Moving Forward

After 4 long weeks of complete stand still, we are finally moving forward in the missions process! It is so exciting, but makes me a little nervous too. Not doing anything for so long kind of makes you comfortable.

The main issue holding us back was location. After a meeting they were able to have on Monday, this was resolved...in a way. They are planning on placing a 3rd team in Europe and the Media Producer position (the one we are applying for) would be part of that team. Amsterdam is high on the list of locations, but the actual location has not been finalized yet. So, the question was, "Will you be okay with going forward and not knowing where you will actually be going?" We said yes and that we feel called to use our skills, not called to a particular location.

Next we talked a bit about the position. Before filling out the application to be missionaries with Reach Global we have to fill out a questionnaire for the particular position and make up a demo reel. For those who don't know what that is, a demo reel is a DVD that showcases our video/editing abilities. This is a special step for this position. She also told us that there are other people that have applied for this same position. She wanted to clarify that this will not be a competition. We let her know that we would be more than willing to take a different position should we not be chosen for this one. This is how we ended, for the last time, with our rep yesterday.

Today she sent me the questionnaire. She also introduced us to our new rep, in the short term department. That was all I was expecting, questionnaire - check...new rep - check. We got an extra surprise though! Since we have expressed an interest in doing missions in general and are not necessarily dependent on the Media Producer position, she is also hooking us up with a rep from the engage team who will be sending out our application pack! This is awesome because we weren't planning on filling that out for at least a month, when we plan to have our demo reel sent in. I am all smiles and excitement today! I was happy to just take another baby step, but here we are taking leaps and bounds. We will be busy at work on our forms the next few weeks and happy to do so!

I almost forgot! We were brainstorming video ideas for our reel and we were informed of a need in our church for a very particular video that will be a prefect fit for our reel. I love how God provides everything you need.

God Made Me

*For the men that read my blog, this is a warning...I will be discussing "lady issues"*

I want to thank everyone who has been praying for me this last week! For those of you who don't know I went to the doctor last week and then waited patiently till yesterday for an ultrasound to see if I have fibroids. It was incredibly uncomfortable and I left with no information at all, which was very disheartening. This morning I got the call from my very confused doctor. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he had no idea how my body works. My ultrasound came back perfectly normal. He thought maybe my uterus felt enlarged because it is tilted abnormally, but no, that wasn't it either. He said I look absolutely and undeniably normal in every way and to have fun on our journey to try for another baby.

God told me something very important today, "I made you! If I wanted you to be just like everyone else, I would have made you that way!" No doctor will ever be able to figure out why Aunt flow will visit for 3 solid months or not show up for months at a time. It is just the way God made me. There is no medical reason why it is uncomfortable to have pressure on my lower abs, the main reason that I don't like wearing jeans. God made me this way. He did not make a mistake and there is nothing to fix, as proven by internal photographs.

This has been an "a-ha" kind of day. I need to stop thinking about my body in light of what is "normal" and start doing what is best just for me. I have always disliked shopping because I rarely find things that actually feel comfortable for me. It is time for me to start focusing on what actually works for me. I don't have to wear what everyone else wears. I don't have to exercise the same way. And I will never have the same "flow". God made me ME and not someone else! We should all learn to embrace and work with the ME that god made for each of us. Why do we all try so hard to be the ME that God made someone else? If he wanted me to be you, then he wouldn't have made me ME!

Small Strides

You get 2 posts from me today because after nearly 3 weeks of waiting I got an update from our Reach Global Rep! I know that some of you are just as excited to find out something new as I am. It is pretty small though. I just feel good knowing that small steps are still being taken.

Our rep discussed the change to short term with her team...today. Apparently she has a very full plate and hasn't been able to till today. That is good though. It means lots of people are ready to accept Christ's call to action! They still need to talk to the people who are in charge of the Amsterdam location. There is currently no team there and Reach Global doesn't normally place people in a location with no team. So they have to find out what the plans for Amsterdam, and our position, are before getting us into the thick of it all.

In the mean time, I have been through my medical exams (got the paperwork on that early) and we will set up Adam and Little Guy for theirs later this week. That should be lots of fun...a 5 year old taking blood and urine tests. I guess this is where they start weeding out those who are not truly committed. We also need to get in touch with our church and make sure they know what is going on and the plans ahead.

So, we will get back into patience mode. God knows when the time is for us to go. We just have to follow Him faithfully. Thank goodness Adam and I both have faith as our strongest spiritual gift. It is the one gift that has never changed.

Switching It Up

We had our phone call last night, so it is time for another missions update! The big question was, do we want to do a short term mission trip first? The answer is, YES!

This changes the look of our year by so much it would be scary if we didn't have complete faith in God. The short term process is much shorter and there is less funding to raise. So here is what our new outlook looks like:

Our rep will be getting with some other reps and supervisors to get a set idea of what we will be doing, where, and for how long (we are hoping to do 23 months). Till this is done, there is nothing for us to do but continue slimming down our house. 

Then we get our application package. Our rep said we could get it done in 2 weeks if we hunker down and focus on it. Then we send it in and it is reviewed and accepted based on our new reps work load. that could be 2 months or more.  

Next budgets and job descriptions are finalized and we go into the training/support raising phase.  

Then we leave. 

If it only takes 6 months to raise the funds, there is a good chance we will be saying Merry Christmas form The Netherlands this year. This is a huge change from the 1.5-3 years till we leave that we were anticipating with the long term trip timeline. There is a very possible potential that we will be leaving in 9 months. While it could take longer, I am planning for 9 so that we will be prepared for whatever may happen.

I will try to answer some of the questions we have been asked recently.

Q: What about the house and the dog?
A: We are not making any decisions on those till we hit the fundraising phase and we are locked into our trip. That being said, we will likely sell the house and poor Tucker will most likely need a new home.

Q: Are you crazy? Adam already has a good and reliable job!
A: We are going to be working for God! You can't get a better, more caring, and rliable boss than that. Fith has always been our #1 spiritual gift and we intend to fully use it in this. We are going all in with God and couldn't feel more comfortable with doing it.

Q: What is happening with all your stuff?
A: Most of it will be sold, donated, or given away. The big stuff we will worry about when we are locked in, like the house. We will store a very, and I mean VERY, small selection of things with family.

Q: What are you going to bring?
A: Clothing, a small selection of homeschool materials, bibles, Kindles, studio equipment, and a very small selection of personal items. We fully intend to start from the beginning when we get there.

Q: What does Little Guy think of all this?
A: He is really excited! He can't wait to be a short term missionary. Just the title makes him feel better. Long term sounds like forever, and short term sounds short. He has decided that he can handle a short term trip, even to say good-bye to the house and Tucker.

Our little house is all a-buzz about this exciting new turn around. We are all on board and planning for the future. We will be doubling our efforts to unload stuff and clean things out. It is also time to let our vollunteer activities know what is coming up, so they can prepare too. Mostly, we are just praying for wisdom and strength during this enormously changing time in our lives.