Training

The day after finishing my service as a police officer life became CRAZY and has not really slowed down, nor do we expect it will. Prior to stopping work we made the decision to rent our house which meant we needed to move completely out before we left for training. It also meant we had a few things to fix before we left town. Part of our fixes included exterior painting of our whole house. This was a much larger project than I anticipated (I should know by now), but never-the-less we got into it and had to finish. It turned out great but added a level of craziness. On top of the paint we moved all of our belongings into storage, cleaned the whole house, packed for three months, and got ready to slap a "For Rent" sign down when God decided to rent it for us. Praise God a police officer whom I had worked with needed a house and he is now renting from us. God's timing is perfect! I signed the paperwork at 5:30 am the morning we left for Colorado. 

We then stopped to visit the Marston family in Boise and enjoyed a sweet time of fellowship. The next day we headed to Colorado and have been at Missions Training International (MTI) ever since. We just finished a course on Language acquisition and will start another course tomorrow. We have three weeks left here. It has been great to be here as family and begin to process what is next. The area is beautiful and we have met some great people here as well. My next post will be about one of the couples we met. Some pics below capture our time in CO and time as family. See more at Facebook!

 TRAINING!

EOW (End of Watch)

Our goal is to now keep up with our blog as we make a huge transition in life. This transition included a complete job shift, which means I no longer am a police officer, and once again just a mere civilian! Now that sounds a little degrading to civilian life, but policing had some great benefits! I am excited about life as a civilian again, but leaving a job I loved was much harder than I anticipated. I am very grateful for the lessons I learned while employed as an officer of the law. It was a great joy to serve the community we lived in and to enjoy the camaraderie of a team. I have had some time to reflect on my resignation and am beginning to understand a little more about why it was difficult to leave, and also why I am grateful to move on. Being a police officer today is not a glorified job like it used to be. Everyday you leave for work you expect to encounter someone who would like to kill you, and to be ready for this you literally have to put on that mindset everyday. Obviously this requires a certain hardness which was necessary for the job. Within the job you often see the worst of humanity and certain things are harder to process than others. Because of the uniqueness of the job and the daily preparation and intensity that goes into the day, it is clear that leaving that life behind was difficult. Yet, I am grateful to move on because I feel the experiences and knowledge gained will be useful in the context of ministry. Being a police officer has given me a greater and different level of discernment, it has created a greater compassion for people, it has caused me to see the hopelessness of the world and it has mostly allowed me to understand more clearly God's grace and mercy in my own life. I thank God for the opportunity to be a police officer and how He will use that now in our family's life. I thank God for the many men and women in blue who daily risk their own safety in protecting us all in the communities we live in. The aspect of the job that will be missed the most is throwing the lights on and waving goodbye to my family everyday. See the last time captured in a pic below!

WInning At All Costs

Karsten is determined to win, which I both love and hate! When given the choice to eat all of his lunch or sit at the table until nap time he decided to choose both . . . WINNING!

Happy Easter

He is risen; he is risen, indeed! Rejoicing in the resurrection of our Lord!

Still Bloggin'

We are still here in the blogosphere, but admit it has been silent for awhile. Our family is well. Since January it has been non-stop hustle and bustle, and we don't anticipate change anytime soon. At some point in the future I will post some pics of our family, but I wanted to share what God was doing in Slovenia last week, since at some point in the next year this will be our new home! Slovenia is home to 2 million people of which only 1,000 have a relationship with Jesus. This ratio causes Slovenia to be considered an unreached people group. Well, last week God used a man named Nick Vujicic, over the course of 5 days, to proclaim the gospel clearly to 18,000 people. Never before has the gospel message been proclaimed at this magnitude in this land. Praise God for the opportunity and pray for fruit. National pastors and missionaries now have a large task of follow up for many who expressed a desire for more info and for others who have accepted this message of hope. Pray in these days. Pray especially against the enemy who has such a stranglehold in this part of the world. Pray for the next generation of leaders in Slovenia. Rejoice God is moving in the land and hearts of the Slovenes! See some pics below.

Another Crazy Month

There is never a dull moment in our house and that is especially true during the winter months. We had a wonderful Christmas reflecting on God's grace in the birth of Jesus. The day after Christmas we drove through a blizzard enroute to the bay area. We spent time there with the Wick side of family and enjoyed the time immensely. We drove back home through terrible weather and made it home just in time to celebrate the boys turning two, and then sickness hit our home. Karsten battled croup and a sinus infection, Mikaela battled pneumonia, and now we are dealing with the flu. It really has been a blessing in disguise though because we have had to lay low for a few weeks which has created wonderful family time, and it helps us consider just how gracious God is to provide our family overall great health. Below are a few pics from the last few weeks.