a God-sized task...

We had a great meeting yesterday afternoon with one of the pastors and missions coordinators from our church! They have agreed to act as our "sending agency" in that they can accept any donations made for our move which will make the donations tax deductible! There are some other little things along the way that they'll be able to handle as well. We are so blessed to have landed in this church with such generous people who are willing to help in any way possible!

So that brings us to the question, "When are you going?" Like my last post, you can always go to www.therewego.org to find out more about our move to the Philippines for missions. But I feel like this question deserves a little more attention. The short answer is that if everything falls into place, i.e. raising enough money, selling/renting our house, etc, then we would prayerfully move sometime early this summer. But honestly, that is a big "if."

That's where God comes in. Our pastor made a comment Sunday morning about the tensions of following Christ. He said that many people who look at God see someone who places a lot of demands on you and asks everything of you. Others look at God and think that if you follow God, you're suppose to be super happy and joyful all the time. Well, in reality, there needs to be a proper balance to those tensions. God does ask a lot - time, money, control of circumstances - but He asks for those things because He knows when you give them to Him, you will be free and can experience unthinkable joy. That struck me because my humanness tells me that if we're going to move across the world this summer, I need to hit panic mode and start running around like crazy trying to make it happen.

But the way I picture it is that God has called us to this mission. At times through the process, we have tried to rationalize it away as way too big for us to do. We've explored other options and pursued plan B. But this just keeps popping up and crying for us to do. So we have excitedly agreed and said we'll go. So now we just open up our arms and say, "God we've agreed to follow you wholeheartedly, now we need You to provide and to clear the way for us to go." Of course, we will be working extremely hard and not just lounging around, but the stress is gone. The burden is on God, not our hearts. If this really is God's plan for our family to move this summer, then He will do it. If it doesn't happen this summer, we have a few options like going next summer to pursue. But for now, we're running wide open for the summer and we're excited to see how God will come through!

a big move...

Well, we've made our decision. Lord willing, we'll be moving to the Philippines this summer! If you've been reading my blog at all in the past months, you know that we've been struggling over whether or not to make the move and we just can't ignore God's calling any longer! We've been counting the costs and weighing our options. We've prayed and prayed, we've talked and talked, and we've thought and thought till our brains have hurt! Everywhere we look, everything we read, every thought we have leads us to the fact that God wants us to pursue moving to the Philippines and so we have said, "Ok, we'll go!"

2009 holds many new adventures and challenges for sure, but we are hopeful and filled with faith in our God who always provides where He leads! We've seen miracles in the past and eagerly await new miracles in 2009! I'll be posting more about the process of making the move in the next few weeks and we're in the process of finishing a website that will explain it all. I'll post the link to that in the coming days!

Happy New Year!!!!

a little mid-week encouragement...

I read a passage from Galations 5 this morning out of the Message translation that I thought I'd share. I sometimes find all of the bickering, back-biting, pain, and suffering around me kind of depressing at times. It's also easy for me to fall into the same kind of behavior that I see around me. This passage reminds me of the change that can and shout take place in me when I allow the Spirit to change me.

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time; repetetive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional baggage, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper;an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addicitons; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inheret God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard - things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in lfe, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. The passage goes on to tell us that we need to not just hold onto a Spirit-filled life as an idea, but work out it's implication in every aspect of our lives.

What a great summation of the Gospel of Christ. Is believing in Jesus about getting into Heaven? Well, yes that's part of it. But it's so much more. It's so much about change in your life and making the brief time we have here on Earth count.

Advent Conspiracy...

I just finished watching this quick video about the Christmas season. Please take the 2 minutes to watch it if you haven't seen it! It reminds me of some great Christmas experiences we had in Los Angeles helping with the toy drive our church sponsored and one Christmas Eve that Sarah, Kyla and I wandered around the city giving out some gifts we had bought to homeless people. Those are honestly some of my favorite Christmas memories! Anyway, check it out!

a little Monday morning encouragement...

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promises is faithful." (Hebrews 10:23)

"So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised." (Hebrews 10:35,36


I don't really have any commentary for now. I could tell you what those verses speak to me in my life at this moment, but I'll just let them speak to you instead. Have a great week!

what about the kids?

One of the biggest mountains to climb in regards to possibly moving to the Philippines is the thought of raising the kids in a developing country. For those of you who may not know, our youngest daughter Avery suffers incredibly from eczema. For some, that may not sound too bad, but let me just tell you it has been Hell at times dealing with this. There are times when about 60-70% of her body is covered in horribly irritated, dry skin and all she knows to do as a 2 year old is scratch and cry. She's allergic to a ton of things including milk, eggs, nuts, pine trees, grass, formaldehyde (found in carpet and a ton of other things), petrol chemicals (found in gasoline and just about every lotion), and we recently found out she is allergic to the two vaccines she was given (DTAP and HIBB I think). Ironically enough her eczema didn't start until after she had those two vaccines...hmmmmm...but that's a controversy for another day.

Through this decision process, I feel like I have just been waiting on a miracle with Avery. I've found myself saying that I would be able to make this decision a lot easier if we didn't have so much trouble with her condition. I've always viewed her as frail because for a long time she even had trouble gaining weight. She's moved on from that and is very healthy, but I still have it in my mind. She is improving so much as she gets older. This time last year, we were ready to fall apart at times because of the stress with her health. Now those days are a little fewer and we find ourselves being able to actually get to know our daughter for the first time. She's developing her own little personality and I'm realizing she's probably one of the most interesting people I know! We're also taking her to an acupuncturist who is doing an amazing acupressure technique that has been proven to eliminate allergies...and we feel like we're actually starting to see results...I'll post more about that later.

So what about the kids? Why would we move them overseas? Well, let me turn that around. Why would we not? When we think about our kids as adults, how do we want them to turn out? We desire for them to have a broad world-knowledge, to understand how the world works, not just their own little community, but the world as a whole. We want them to have compassion for those in need. We long for them not to be caught up in the consumerism and materialism that so easily engulfs us. We want our kids to tangibly see how God can provide in tough situations. We want our kids to know that life isn't always easy and life isn't always fair, but God always works things out for the good of those who love Him and are called to His purpose. We want our kids to be grateful for all they have been given.

Can those desires be fulfilled for our kids here in the Sates? Of course they can, but in my little mind it seems much easier to instill those values while walking in faith in a developing country. Sure they will be young while they are there and may not catch everything that happens, but I can't help but think that Sarah and I will be so radically transformed while we are there that it will have a lasting impact on how we live as a family forever.

I have a coworker who lived in Japan as a missionary for 19 years. I talked with her last year about our possible move and our concerns with the kids. She and her husband had their two boys while living overseas and they were teenagers when they moved back. Now, as adults, she says her sons continually talk about their days in Japan as some of the best times of their lives. She says she'd go back in a heartbeat if she could.

So in my mind, the kids shouldn't really be a reason not to go. Do I worry about their health and safety? I try not to, but sure I do. We love our kids more than anything and want nothing but the best for them. And that is honestly one of the main reasons why we want to go overseas. We can trust God for their safety and do all we can to show them a life of faith, love, adventure, and service. That seems like the best thing we can do for our kids.

One big thing that might have a big impact on our decision, though, is whether or not Avery will be able to get the vaccines she needs to go. We're looking into that and watching, waiting, and praying that she'll be healed of all these allergies. Keep praying for us and I'll do my best to keep you updated. Thanks!

continued thought process...

Nearly two weeks ago, I started writing about our decision about whether or not we should move to the Philippines. My plan was to keep up the inner-discussion regularly, but I got slammed with a ton of photography work. But it's a rainy Saturday morning and my photo shoot isn't happening. Avery woke me up early but went back to sleep so I'm up in a nice quiet house. So here goes...

I wrote earlier about Plan B which is basically moving back to the West Coast for a myriad of reasons (see the post if you're curious). I feel like Sarah and I had kind of reserved ourselves for that plan and I was beginning to feel quite comfortable with that plan. I mean, it sounds great to be back in Cali again for all the reasons I listed on that post. We were beginning to lean that way and I was getting rather excited about it. I mean, there was this little nagging inside me from time to time saying that God still wants us to move to the Philippines, but it was just a small voice and I could easily drown it out.

That is until our church started a new teaching series on Jonah. As soon as I heard that was to be the next series, I honestly thought, "Crap. I'm feeling alright about not going to the Philippines and it's about to get difficult again." If you don't know much about Jonah, here it is in a nutshell. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah says no and tries running the opposite direction to Tarshish. Jonah gets tossed overboard and swallowed by a large fish.

The first teaching two weeks ago was like a severe blow to the gut. There was no guilt or bullying. Just an honest plea to follow God even if it doesn't make sense, or even if you don't want to do it, or even if you have no clue how to do it. I can honestly say that in our decision about the Philippines, I've felt all three of those feelings. There are times when it doesn't make sense. There are times when I don't want to do it. There are times (and this is where I've spent most of the time) when I don't know how it will happen. But at the end of the day, I still feel that still, small voice urging us to go.

should I stay or should I go now...an intro to a new beginning

I've spent a lot of time here on politics over the last few months...probably too much time. I started out trying to nail down my views and I've engaged in some good discussion along the way. Now, as the election is upon us, and as my endurance is running out, I'm off to other things. Sarah and I are in the midst of many huge decisions. And rather than work them out behind closed doors and hope for the best, we thought it might be good to bring some of them out and see what insight come out from others. So if you're interested...keep reading! I'll be posting more thoughts as we seek to figure things out.

When we were in college at Virginia Tech, our church began talking about some people moving to Los Angeles to plant a church. The big question on everyone's mind was, "should I stay or should I go?" I sat down and wrote a spoof song based on the Clash's famous song by that title. My friends Scott, Patrick, and I performed the song at our church's Christmas banquet (I felt like it was an encore performance to Patrick's and my hit "We 4 Kings of Orientar: It's Me, Vince!" from the previous year's banquet). Our fans were yearning for more, so we gave it to them!

Anyway, back to the point. There is a point, you say?

So as many of you know, about this time last year, Sarah and I began sensing a huge burden on our hearts to move to Davao City, Philippines so that Sarah could work in a Christian, charity-based maternity clinic serving the poor women from the city and surrounding villages. The desire grew so great that we could think of little else. We even went as far as beginning to raise support to possibly move this past summer. But after lots of prayer, thinking, reading, and talking to others, we decided to postpone moving.

Sarah had the chance to visit this summer for 2.5 weeks and fell in love with the program at New Life School of Midwifery and all of the wonderful people there. She noted the challenges and hardships of life there, but still felt a strong draw.

As we prayed and talked more and more, we began to feel that maybe this just isn't the right time for us as a family. We could think of a million reasons why not to go. But we could think of just as many reasons why we should go. In the end, we found ourselves settling on Plan B - which isn't a bad option, but we're still not settled with it. Next post: starting with Plan B

Starting with Plan B...

Some people blog to express their thoughts and opinions. I've certainly done that here, but now it's becoming, once again, a place to get my thoughts straight. A place to unwind of the mental knots tied in my head.

So here's Plan B for our future in a nutshell. I'll explain Plan A as we go along, but I feel B is easier to explain:

It should come as no surprise that teachers don't get paid very much...especially in Union County, NC. I took a $15,000 pay cut when we moved from LA and I had to start paying for health care - health care for the entire family provided by the district was something I took for granted! So needless to say, finances have been a nightmare since moving here. We've been trying to find ways to make more money. My photography business is starting to pick up. I tutor once or twice a week. Sarah became a childbirth educator and now she is a doula (labor assistant). We basically have about 3 small businesses in start-up mode which makes for little free time! And Sarah wants to become a midwife in the near future which would obviously be a huge help financially!

So basically, plan B would be for us to move to an area where 1) they pay teachers more, 2) there would be a good market for photography (Charlotte is pretty good, though I think), 3) there is a good market for childbirth classes and doulas (not the best in Charlotte), 4) Sarah could study midwifery (NC does not license midwives so NC is out), and 5) Avery's allergies would not so drastically affect our family (pretty much the entire Southeast is out there).

The clear choice for us that fits the majority of those criterion would be California. I don't think we'd want to move back to LA, but we've been looking at some places like San Luis Obispo, Carpinteria, and Ventura. Of course we wouldn't be able to afford a house there, but in all honesty, we can't really afford a house here either on $34,000 a year. Also, in CA, one of the midwives who helped deliver Avery is willing to help Sarah with her midwifery studies! There might be other places besides California that would fit a lot of our criteria, but we know we like Cali and we can see ourselves happy there.

Wherever we land if we stay in the States, however, we have decided that we will be a family devoted to missions. My dream is that we take advantage of my free summers as a teacher and take family mission trips every year. We could plan for the entire year where we would go and work to raise the money to get there. We could even go for a month at a time. Then the next year we could go somewhere else or go back to the same place. After several trips, and once Sarah has her midwifery license, we would maybe have a clearer sense of what God wants us to do.

So that's Plan B. Like I said, it's not too bad. And I'm honestly pretty excited about that option. But then came Jonah...more later.

what is it good for?

The 7th anniversary of September 11 brought back too many bad memories for me as I know it did for most Americans. I get squeamish every time I see the images from that day. Maybe it's because I spent weeks after that day filling my mind with the endless news coverage. Perhaps it's branded on my heart because Sarah and I traveled to NYC and saw Ground Zero with our own eyes one week after the towers fell. Whatever it is, I'll certainly never forget what I felt that day and the following weeks.

What I wish we could all forget is the warrior mentality that overtook American politics following 9/11. We're good, they're evil. We're right, they're wrong. Those who are not with us are against us. We were suddenly no longer invincible and that stung probably even more than the loss of innocent life. We were suddenly afraid of everything, and with good reason.

However, I wish we could go back and do things differently. There are several questions I would like to ask about our response to 9/11 and in my own feeble way, I'll try to answer them...we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to work these things out in my mind, so bear with me. At the heart of these thoughts is my growing sense of pacifism, my desire for peace, and my belief in God and that Jesus called Christians to love our enemies.

Should we have gone after Bin Laden? Yes, I think we should have focused all of our energy and attention on finding Bin Laden. I certainly don't know all of what went on in the planning of our invasion of Afghanistan, but it seems like we tried to take on too much all at once. I feel like after searching for him for a while, maybe we should have waited for a while instead of sending more and more troops leading to an occupation of the entire country. Would that have seemed cowardly? Maybe to some, but keep reading.

I have read that some estimate the cost of the War on Terror is going to hit upwards of $2 TRILLION, some reports aim closer to $4 trillion! Wow. And that is just government costs. That doesn't take into account the burdens that families have endured from losing loved ones, the lifetime of medical costs of those injured incur, the cost of $4/gallon gas on the nation, and the endless untold expenses. Is war just about money? No, but how would our world be different if we invested that money in peace-loving ideals instead of war?

What if we took $2 billion and invested in building schools, roads, small businesses, and water filtration in Afghanistan and Pakistan instead of dropping bombs? Do you think there would be so many people lining up at Al-Qaeda's door willing to wear a bomb? Probably not? That might sound foolish and I realize it's not as easy as it sounds. There are lots of things to consider here like international relations and corrupt governments. But isn't it always right to try to bless others?

What if we would have taken another few billion dollars to insure uninsured Americans? Or given more help to first-time home buyers, invested in public education, improved health care for veterans, or built more green energy infrastructure to wean ourselves off of foreign oil?

What if we would have avoided war with Iraq? That's a whole other story in and of itself.

I know these things were probably the furthest from our minds on 9/12/01, but maybe they should be on our minds now. How would we respond if something like that happens again? What can we do to help improve our image in the international community so fewer people hate us? What can we do to purge our addiction to oil (not just foreign, but all oil)?

These questions are one more reason I cannot support McCain/Palin. They are both incredibly divisive people when it comes to foreign policy. In today's world, I don't think we can stand up and say we are good and they are evil. If we do that, we are getting into the same game as the Islamic extremists. We need to find ways to bless our enemies (and more specifically the people who are oppressed by our enemies) which the Bible clearly tells us is the best way.

I feel like Obama would be the best at reaching out to our enemies to work things out diplomatically. He has said he will open talks with adversaries. I also saw a poll of about 20 other countries who said they would rather see Obama win the presidency and the Queen of Jordan expressed her desire for the United States to reinstate itself as a leader of inspiration, hope, and ideas in the world. To me, Obama has the best shot at doing that.

our car...

As promised, here are a few shots of our new-to-us-FREE-car we got a few weeks ago...

The best part for me is that I now have a car that is big enough to haul the wood for my various woodworking projects!!! What a huge miracle this car has been!

a free car?!?!?!

On Friday, Sarah called me on my cell phone at work. Typically, she only calls me when something is wrong because I usually can't talk during the day and I don't get great reception in the middle of the farmland where I teach. It had also been a difficult week with Avery, so I could only imagine what she was calling about. At any rate, this phone call brought great news! Some friends of ours at church had called her and offered us a free car! That's right, I said FREE!

When we lived in LA, we got by on one car pretty well since Sarah could walk with the girls to several parks, the library, coffee shops, and stores. Our double jogging stroller was our second car! But here, she can't really easily walk anywhere except a small park in our neighborhood and some of our friends' houses. We've managed this school year to get by with one car, but it has been difficult especially when Sarah would have to spend 2 hours of her day dropping me off and work and picking me up so that she could take the girls somewhere! She's been a real trooper this year.

So back to the free part. I just got off the phone with our friend, and we should be getting our 1998 Volvo Station Wagon with only 70,000 miles on it sometime tonight or tomorrow! We just have to pay to transfer the title and such! God is so good in his provision! There is no way we could have afforded another car and we had actually prayed for a free car recently because we knew next school year would be an even greater challenge with one car since we hope to enroll Kyla in Preschool. We've seen God do some pretty wild things and provide in some extremely creative ways. I guess we'll have to put this somewhere towards the top of that list!!! The more He does things like this, the stronger our faith becomes that He will always meet our needs. I'll post some pictures when we get it.

huge miracle!

Many of you know of all the troubles I had transferring my CA teaching license to NC. EXTREMELY long, complicating, frustrating, and confusing story short...I had to work as a substitute making $85/day with no benefits for the first 2 months of the school year. My school district did retro-pay me for the second month, but I was left to eat that first month. I had begun to get over it until they shorted me again in January because I hadn't technically been a real teacher long enough to earn a fully-paid Christmas break (even though I had been at the school since day 1 doing the same job I am doing today as a "highly qualified" teacher).

Anyway, I hit the roof when I found this out and tried to get it worked out to no avail. So I quickly drafted an email explaining my frustrations and concerns to the superintendent of HR and got the typical, "let me look into it" response. All I was asking for was to get paid for the vacation time over Christmas break the same as all the other teachers. Well, this afternoon, I received the following email from the superintendent of HR:

Mr. Davis,

Information that was passed onto me shows that the State is recognizing your license for the entire school year. Therefore, I am approving for your salary, along with sick leave, and annual leave to be updated to reflect an August 16, 2007 start date.

It turns out that not only am I going to get that paid vacation time, but I am probably also going to get retro-pay for that first month where I got sub pay too!!! Praise God, because He knows we really need that money! I am so relieved that someone at the district level finally saw the absurdity in the whole situation and decided to make it right. Perseverance does pay off!

Valentine's Day ten years later...

It is funny how time changes things. Ten years ago today, I wooed Sarah on our first date in college. Two poor college students living on campus without cars, eating a "picnic" and watching a movie in a cramped dorm room. We never looked back from that point on and were married 3.5 years later. We're going on 7 years of marriage and life has been fun, exciting, difficult, beautiful, and challenging ever since that picnic. We've been through a lot together and I'd say we're more in love now than ever before! I know that may sound like a corny Valentine's Day card, but it is so true. Our love has been tested over the past 10 years, and by God's grace, we're still running after Him together as fast as we can (even though it feels like we're crawling at times). Here's to the next ten years. Happy Valentine's Day Sarah!

(oh and by the way...if you're wondering why I'm blogging at 9pm on Valentine's Day instead of spending time with my wife, it's because Sarah has been pretty sick the past few days. We got to celebrate early last week and we postponed V-Day until we're all feeling 100%.)

possible move to the Philippines...

I haven't written anything about this yet, mostly because I figure that if you're reading this blog, you're probably also reading Sarah's blog and she has spent a little time on the subject.

There's a very good chance we might be moving to Davao City in the Philippines this summer for 2.5 years! This is something we've been praying about and considering for several months now. Sarah was recently accepted to a midwife training program where she will work at Mercy Maternity Clinic (the largest charity-based maternity clinic in the Philippines) while she is working towards her certification as a licensed midwife through Newlife International School of Midwifery. I'll have the chance to take part in lots of exciting ventures possibly including building water filters for nearby villages! I'll write more about that later.

It has been quite a process, but we have never felt more sure about anything we've ever done. God has confirmed this to us over and over. For example, we prayed that if He wanted us to go, that He would take care of Avery's severe eczema, digestive issues, and weight-gain problems. Not long after, her skin cleared up and she received a glowing checkup from the doctor! She's even gaining weight again!

The biggest challenge facing us now is that in order to go, we must raise our financial support because foreigners are not allowed to earn a salary in the Philippines. So we are required to go on missionary visas.

We've begun the process of raising support, which I must say has been a surprisingly fun process so far! We raised support before we moved to Los Angeles to work with Kairos, and that was probably the most difficult thing we've ever done. However, this time, we feel like we have a fresh vision and a renewed hope that where God leads, He provides. We've also taken a little different approach which feels more natural and fits us a little better than the way we were trained to do it before. So far, we've received a very warm response! We've already had several thousand dollars in special gifts pledged and several hundred dollars in monthly gifts pledged! Thankfully, our living expenses will be much lower in the Philippines than they were in LA! We can actually live on less than what we paid in rent there each month!

Please join us in praying for this mission. We have to pay a deposit by April 1 to secure Sarah's position in the program, so that will serve as our cut-off date to see if we can go this summer. If we don't meet our support goal by then, we'll postpone it till next year. We are meeting with the mission committee from our new church, Carmel Baptist, this month. The missions pastor has said they might possibly take us on as one of their missionaries and the support they typically give would provide approximately 25% of what we need! We will find out their decision on February 25th and we are praying that we will have a clear picture by then whether or not this will become a reality for us this summer! Thanks for reading, I'll keep you updated!