Tag: Chaplain

Our Life Together

The beginning…

This is the first steps in our parenting journey.

It was the year 2000
We couldn’t get pregnant.  I needed pills and pills and tests and tests, and the whole time I kept saying, “we can adopt… I want to adopt too, so we could just do that now instead of waiting…”  Ron was in agreement, but he was also busy moving us.  We had a new assignment at a new church and we were moving back down closer to our hometowns and our parents.  We decided to wait until we were settled in the new house and then begin the process of adoption. (We were so naive about how all of that would work).

Year 2003
We move back near home and get settled into our new house.  I start to notice that I feel weird and that I’m cranky… well, more cranky than normal 🙂  I’m actually being super moody and freaking out for no real reason.  My mother suggests that I take a pregnancy test… I guess she’s had enough of my attitude. Ron was gone to camp to be a counselor during this time, so it’s good that he wasn’t around me during this time.

I bought a test but decided to wait until he came home from camp so he could be there when I took the test.  It was positive!! I was so excited.  We were busy getting everything ready for the baby, and then busy taking care of the baby.  That first year Ron graduated seminary and entered the Air Force as a reservist.  He was technically an IMA Chaplain, but that’s not what this post is about.  So let’s just say he continued to preach for the UM Church and do his regular monthly reserve duty at Little Rock Air Base.  I kept assuming we would adopt, but we would start it all when the baby was a little older.

Year 2005
Once again… I started taking all the pills… and running all the tests… this time we added in a fertility monitor someone sold us and bought our first pack of testing sticks… y’all… those things are expensive!!

Year 2006
One month using the fertility monitor and it told me exactly when I ovulated… I got pregnant.  This was 2 years after Price was born, so don’t think this happened right away.

Another baby on the way, getting everything ready for that, and Ron telling me he wants to go into the Air Force on active duty… meaning, full-time.  I was completely good with following him wherever he thought God was leading, so we started getting all of that ready and all of that training done.

We had the second baby, Wesley, and I settled in as best as I could with being a stay-at-home-mom with two kiddos, and Ron was still preaching and doing his reserve duties.

Year 2007
When Wesley was only 2 months old or so, we found out our first assignment with the Air Force on active duty… Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

We’ll start the next part at Peterson…  July 2007…

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Sunday Sermon Recap

What I learned at church…

Scripture: Isaiah 43: 1-7       “Don’t Worry!”

My translation says this….

“But now, this is what the Lord says – he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead.  Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life.  Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.  I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’  Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth – everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

I really needed to hear a sermon about worry this week.  Or just be reminded that I don’t have to live my life worried about everything.  It is truly great to be able to turn my worries over to God and just relax…

Okay… that whole paragraph is a lie.  Maybe that’s the way it works for some people (maybe even most people), but that’s little comfort for me.  I have to take it one moment at a time instead of saying “here you go, God” and then never thinking about it again.

If you’ve read my previous posts, then you know some of what’s going on with my body.  But not quite everything.  Just in these next 7 days, I will have a chest x-ray, an ultrasound (of my thyroid), an MRI (on my uterus), consultations with two different ENT’s (One Spanish and one military), and a followup appointment about the MRI results.  Then MAYBE I’ll know what the next step is.

I am trying to memorize part of the passage above so I can recite it to myself when I have moments of worry or panic.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

This part in particular because it doesn’t promise that we WON’T pass through waters or rivers and we WON’T walk through fire… just that when we do we won’t be alone.  So I just keep saying those verses to myself.

I’ve also noticed that I’ve been left alone a lot during these appointments.  Someone will need to take a scan to make sure they got the right picture they wanted, or to get a second opinion about something, and I’m stuck sitting in the room… just waiting.  I’ve been using those times to pray.  I just pray that I will make the people who are dealing with me feel better than they felt when I walked in.  I try to make sure I talk to them and let them know I appreciate them doing their jobs.  It also helps me take my mind off of whatever I’m trying not to worry about.

The other part of the passage is:    “Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you,”

We all know… “God is love”… but to see the words “I love you” just makes me smile for some reason.

The MRI this week is the first one I’ve ever had, and so my amount of worry over this is huge.   It doesn’t help that it’s in a Spanish hospital and, while I’m working hard to learn Spanish, it’s still really hard to communicate.  So I’m going to recite these verses moment by moment and lie as still as possible, probably with my nose itching, and pray that I can put a smile on the technician’s face before I leave (being funny in Spanish is so much more difficult)… or really they just smile most of the time when I try to speak Spanish, so it might not be as hard as I think! 🙂

I hope everyone has a slower week than me, but that you’re still able to make someone smile.  I pray that someone makes you smile, and that this week is better than last week.

Welcome to my world… it’s pretty great around here!!

Amanda

Who am I?? – Traveler

I’ve seen things…

When we go back to my childhood (yes again!!) you might or might not be surprised to know that I didn’t go anywhere for vacations.  Our family all lived near us except for one uncle who still lived in Arkansas.  We did go see him a few times, but not really any other vacations and not anything that I would consider traveling.  My high school youth group for church provided me with more traveling in those few years than any of the years before combined.  We went to church camp at Glorietta, NM and Panama City Beach, FL.  We went on a spring break ski trip to Breckenridge, CO and another spring break trip to Disney World in Orlando, FL.  These trips were awesome, but somehow it didn’t feel like traveling.  I mean… I’m sure I was a normal, self-absorbed teenage girl who was just loving hanging out with her friends on the bus and terrified of the birds that were allowed to fly willy-nilly all over the Disney Theme Parks!! YIKES!! My senior year, our physics class went to Washington DC on a trip and got there on a train from Meridian, MS to Washington DC.  I was a great trip, and one of the ones I remember most easily.  Both of my parents went on this trip, so maybe that’s why I like it so much!  After graduation, I didn’t want to go on a “senior trip” or anything like that (I told you I had no desire to be rebelious).  My parents took me to Branson, MO for a few days.  We had a really good time, and I’m surprised by how much of that I remember too… We went to my first Ripley’s Believe it or Not?!  museum (these museums – or odditoriums – will for some weird reason continue to pop up in my life and travels!)

I went to college in Arkansas, and spent most of that time just trying to get over my freshman year and graduate.  So… no traveling then… I guess that might not be completely true.  We did a spring break mission trip to Kentucky with the MBSF to help them start a youth group.  I then went back there by myself for the summer to be their youth group leader and try to get it going.  I worked for the preacher’s parents at their hardware store, and lived with them while I was there.  It was fun, but weird being on my own… sort of!  The spring break after I met Ron (maybe I never said his name, but that’s my bald-headed man!!)  anyway, we went on an MBSF trip to Washington DC and stopped by the church in Kentucky on our way home.

I wanted to see more of the country.  I didn’t really have a desire to leave the United States, but I knew there were cool places out there that I wanted to see… eventually.  And some places I wanted to see again.

So Ron told me, when I met him, that he thought he was being called to be a United Methodist minister.  I knew some of what the methodist believed, but most of it was just what I had heard other people say.  I needed to find out more about this, and maybe my research will be in another post, but this one is about travel! 🙂

I told him that I was ready to go with him anywhere… then excitedly explained how I couldn’t wait to move all around the country with him and see new and awesome things.  He informed me that he would be in the Arkansas conference and that we would be moving quite a bit, but only around the state of Arkansas.  I pouted… I admit it.  I thought this was my chance to get out and see things.  I got over it and kept reading books so I could graduate! 😉

After we were married for a few years, and in the midst of infertility angst, He comes home from one annual conference and says he’s been approached about joining the Air Force as a chaplain and he was thinking about giving it a try in the Air Reserves.  I followed right along with him.  No griping from me about him following God’s call… Nothing really changed very much except he did have to go to training more often.

We moved churches (inside of Arkansas), I finally got pregnant the first time.  After Price was born, he went away to another training, and before it was even over he was talking about doing this for real.  Joining the Air Force on active duty.

My question “Will we move out of Arkansas?”  His answer “We will get to live all over the world!”  I was IN!!  And it’s been a great adventure…

We spent nearly 3 years in Colorado Springs, Co as our first assignment, then to Ankara, Turkey for nearly 2 years where I was pretty terrified.  Next was Fort Meade, Mayland (directly between DC and Baltimore)… I LOVED it!! And now we are in southern Spain for the next 2 years (it’s actually only about 18 months now… we’ve already been here 1/4 of our time.  It is flying by over here!!  I’ll write more about these individual places and the things we were able to do and see there, so stay tuned for more travel!!

After nearly 10 years on active duty, and now with the number of places I’ve been and places I’ve lived stacking up…. I can honestly say that every single time I drive into Hamburg, Arkansas no matter how long I’ve been gone, it feels like a warm blanket has been draped over my shoulders.  There is truly no place like home, and Arkansas is kind of a wonderful place to call home!!

Welcome to my world… it’s pretty great around here!!

Amanda