is this thing still on?

Wow, I feel like it's been too long. I've had a hard time as of late logging on and getting a chance to blog. This blogging stuff is therapeutic and I miss it! There's nothing like getting out deep thoughts for a million of your closest friends to see! Here's what's been happening:

1. I hit my blog-o-versary! That's right, as of January 13, I've been blogging for a year now. 181 posts later, I'm still running strong. When I first started, I thought this blog might end up getting trashed like a treadmill that someone buys and only uses twice. But like I said, I've found blogging therapeutic1

2. Photography is booming! That's actually the main reason I haven't blogged much recently. My free time has been taken up with photography - but I am certainly not complaining, I love it! I recently shot team pictures at my school, I'm shooting a wedding tonight (crazy story you have to read about!) and another in April. I've got a Bar-Mitvah lined up as well as a few other possible weddings in the spring and a few other gigs in the works. Not too bad for a side business. I truly feel blessed!

3. I'm planning out my first photography workshops! I've been having a lot of conversations lately with people who buy fancy new digital cameras but don't really know how to use them. So I've been cooking an idea of teaching several workshops this spring to help amateurs build their skills. I have a lot of it together except for the dates and the people! You can check the info out on my website. They're called Beyond the Snapshot: Surpassing 1,000 words with each picture and Going Further. If you'd like to attend or know someone who would, let me know! I hope to have it all hammered out by the end of next week!

4. The Philippines! We're still hoping to move this summer to the Philippines for mission work. We're putting as much money as possible from my photography towards our moving costs to help us get there. Our church, Next Level Church, also agreed to act as our sending agency and are willing to collect the money we raise! We did have one huge answer to prayer recently! Our good friends behind us told us that her brother is moving to Charlotte this summer and would possibly like to rent our house! Is that awesomely perfect God-like timing or what??? Keep praying!

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!

therewego.org

If you've got some time and want to check out the website we just launched about moving to the Philippines, go to www.therewego.org! Thanks and have a great night...I am up way too late!

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!!!!

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.

she's back in LA!

I just got a call from Sarah letting me know she's back safely in Los Angeles where she'll be spending the night with our friends Kevin and Annie! It's a relief to have her back in the States and we all certainly look forward to having her back here late tomorrow night! We're planning on taking the next few days to dig down deep in thought, prayer, and discussion to make a decision on what we feel God leading us to do about moving to Davao City. We'd appreciate your prayers through this time and we'll let you know what we decide!

chatting with sarah...

I just got finished chatting online with Sarah for the first time since she landed in Davao City yesterday. She seems to be doing well and got 13 hours of sleep after being awake for nearly 36 hours of travel! I can't wait to see her pictures...the things she described sound quite interesting! The biggest surprise for her, I think, is that there is no Air Conditioner in the dorm or the clinic where she's staying! It sounds like she's in good hands at the clinic there and she even got to see her first birth yesterday...a 9-pounder! But I won't steal her stories, I'll let her post on her blog when she gets a chance!

she made it...

I woke up to an email from Sarah this morning saying she made it safely (yet very exhausted) to Davao City in the Philippines. I got a 2 minute phone call early yesterday evening saying she was in Manila. For whatever reason, her global phone we rented wasn't working, but she borrowed the phone of a Baptist missionary heading to Davao as well!

I'm not sure when she'll be able to write on her blog, but please keep checking it and please continue to keep her in your prayers!

On a different note, the girls and I have had a good 2 days. Kyla keeps telling people that her mommy is in the Philippines because we're moving there. She tells them that she's excited to move! Whenever Avery asks for Mommy, Kyla cocks her head and says, "Don't you want to move to the Philippines, Avery?"

Sarah's leaving in the morning...

I'm taking Sarah to the airport in the morning for her big trip to Davao City in the Philippines! She'll be there for 2.5 weeks (she returns on the 31st)! Please pray for her safe travel and safety while she's in the city. Please also pray that God would give us a sense of His calling for us while she's there. She'll be staying at the dorm of the midwife school where she's been accepted to attend next year and she'll be working in the maternity clinic seeing first hand what she'll be doing if we go! She's really excited about her trip, and I'm honestly getting a little jealous. Thanks so much to our friends who provided the money for her to take this trip. This will hopefully make our decision process a lot easier as we decide whether or not to move there!

You can read her blog while she's there. She'll have our laptop and wireless access and hopes to post some pictures and stories while she's there!

Oh, and if you think of it, please pray for me too because I'll be a stay-at-home dad for the 2.5 weeks while she's gone! I'm sure we'll be fine, but it'll be something new for all of us.

Philippines update...

As I was looking through some old posts, I realized that I never updated anything about our possible move to the Philippines. We spent a lot of time praying and thinking through everything and decided that it would be best for us to wait a year to go. It was a tough decision, but we feel like we made the right move for our family. We're still hoping to go next summer and we'll be in constant prayer about it over the next few months. Thanks for all of your support! We'll keep you updated.

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!