Call Your Mother

David and I have had a crazy past year and are blessed beyond belief to have supportive families who have stood behind us as we have made all kinds of wild decisions and traveled all over the world. They may have been (okay, definitely were) a little skeptical of some of our wild ideas, but have encouraged anything and everything we could have dreamed of.

In particular, we are so thankful to have such wonderful moms! It would be impossible to list all of the thankless things they have done for us over the past 20+ years....or even just the past months. As we have adjusted to life back in the US and have been figuring out our next steps, our moms have been invaluable in taking care of our every whim. If nothing else, I don't know how I'd get through my 30 minute drive home from work without having my mom to call, or who I would stay up to judge the trash on Teen Mom with if David's mom weren't around :)

Traveling this year has given us the opportunity to see a lot of different families and family structures, and while we have been able to pick up a few pointers about what we do and don't want to do with our own future family, it has also made us so much more appreciative for our relatively normal families, and for everything our moms have done to get us where we are today.*

So, all you moms out there (and especially ours), thanks for all you do and know that it doesn't go unnoticed.

Oh and in honor of mothers day (and because we went to Sephora at the Mall of Georgia today), I'm wearing OPI's matte "Call Your Mother" on my fingernails. I think I'm a fan.



*Okay, we live in David's parents' basement, which is the epitome of loserdom but we're working on it...

RSVP

The past year has been quite the adventure for us. We felt called to Africa, and after a lot of researching, decided to apply to the US Peace Corps, seeing it as an opportunity to serve without raising support and with the safety of the government in case anything crazy happened.

We had lots of interviews. We went to Jacksonville to meet with our recruiter, and we were nominated to teach English in Eastern Europe, and later Asia (which we were convinced was Mongolia). To prepare, we had countless medical and dental exams, had a lot of shots and blood drawn, and volunteered at El Sol teaching English to Guatemalans in Jupiter.

Then, we made a big decision to hook up with YWAM and spend 6 months in Switzerland and Africa learning about how to share our faith and live in extreme conditions. DTS wasn't exactly what we were expecting and ended in quite a strange way, but we did it. It wasn't always fun but we experienced the life that much of the world encounters every day - life without electricity or running water, and we learned a lot about ourselves, our marriage, and each other. Our faith was stretched and our relationship was tested. We read a lot of books, ate a lot of questionable food, lived with a wild collection of various people, and had our fair share of outhouse incidents.

So now, after a year of waiting and planning, the D-Day of Peace Corps applicants has come. It's a day that we have been waiting for with anticipation. The day we receive our official invitation and learn our location and jobs.

This big day came last week, and David waited for me to get home from work to open the envelope. Our location is [drum roll, please]....

Rwanda. With a departure date in September.

We thought we'd be headed to Asia, so this is quite different. We have a week to accept or decline, and there is a lot that we are considering in making our final decision: the location, our prior experience in Africa, the situation in Rwanda, our current job situations, the time commitment.....the list goes on and on.

So, we are researching, thinking, discussing and praying over the decision. It's a big one and we'd love to have your thoughts and prayers as well, as we try to figure out where we are meant to spend the next 2.5 years.