adventures await

I am too tired to give a long update and too tired to enter in all the addresses I need to in order to make this private. So, for those of you who do not yet know, Dec 31st was Chip's last day with Campus Outreach. God had been redirecting him and we were being faithful to seek Him and our next step in this little temporal journey called life. On January 7 the job we thought was going to be the perfect job for Chip fell through. As soon as the news was delivered that it was not an option, an other option was on the table. It was an offer to work with a great company doing what he wanted to do, but it was out of state. This was hard to take at first because we love where we are and we have yet to be here for a full year. But, a few days after the news we met with the company, heard more about the new job opportunity and knew it was what we had to and wanted to do. I have told many people that the only sacrifice we are making with this next step is leaving friends and moving farther from family. There are countless positives to working for this company. And I really think it is going to be a perfect job for Chip. He has been out of town training all week (the first of 8) and he is so excited...about the company, the new team, his job responsibilities, etc.

We have our moments of sadness. Church is hard. We love the people here. Since the news is so new people are just finding out so telling people is sometimes hard. Telling the kids teachers and watching them play with their friends is hard. I take comfort in that they are young. But, I am sad that they do have great friends here. But I am thankful that they have made such good friends here in such a short period of time. Chip and I have made some great friends here too. Yes we moved here with people whom we have known and worked with forever. But we have also made some great friends that we feel like we have known for a lot longer than 11 months. So that gives hope for the next place we will live. When I was putting the kids to bed the other night I prayed for God to give them new friends. I want to teach them to pray for things like that. To pray about all things. God most certainly cares about our friendships. It is very weird to think about Chip and I going to a totally new place where we know NO ONE and meeting people. Chip and I are so different. When we met some people here for the first time I told Chip that I was nervous because I wondered if they liked us. His response was, "Why wouldn't they!" I just had to laugh.

The key to all this and the theme of our sadness is centered around the body of Christ. It is painful when there is a tear or a sever in the physical body. This is true for the spiritual body as well. The difference is that we can and will go attach to another part of the body of Christ. It is like a transplant, not an amputation. So, we will go to our new destination and look for a body that is in need of some Crooms. We pray that God will fit us right where we are needed.