Round 2

Holly and I had our offer accepting on a house! We feel much better with this house because our monthly payments will be less than $700/mnth (mortgage, taxes, insurance). This will allow us to pay off our debt faster while we invest in a home. We are set to close on April 28th! We are pretty excited.

Pros:

• .25 acre
• garage for my kayaks
• lots of storage space
• covered front porch
• washer/dryer hookups
• close to our church
• new paint inside and out
• new dish washer
• new hardwood floors
• no rotting wood
• 60 years old - good floor plan
• 3 bedrooms

Cons:

• only one car garage
• grass looks thin in some areas
• on a one-way street
• small closet space
• only one bathroom

Texas it is!

After much prayer, Holly and I have decided to stay here in Texas and just work work work to pay our debt completely off. We are on a plan to pay our school debt off in about a year from now. Yes, that's right... one year. Donations are accepted but not expected :D

What am I?

Holly introduced me to another song that really tugs on the heart. The song, by Shawn McDonald, really emphasizes our worthiness before God. The author questions over and over, "What am I?" because he is so morally bankrupt yet the holy King still calls him his child and dies for him. While some might say I have cleaned up my life I still stand a sinner before a wrathful and angry God. Thanks be to Him that God no longer sees my constant sinfulness because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.

As I look into the stars
Pondering how far away they are
How You hold them in Your hands
And still You know this man
You know my inner most being, oh
Even better than I know, than I know myself
What a beautiful God
What a beautiful God
And what am I, that I might be called Your child
What am I, what am I
That You might know me, my King
What am I, what am I, what am I

As I look off into the distance
Watching the sun roll on by
Beautiful colors all around me, oh
Painted all over the sky
The same hands that created all of this
They created you and I
What a beautiful God
What a beautiful God
And what am I, that I might be called Your child
What am I, what am I
That You might know me, my King
What am I, what am I
That You might die, that I might live
What am I.

Crossroads

Holly and I are at a crossroads in our life. We both recently graduated college and have begun our careers. This is a really good thing and I'm excited... well sorta... bittersweet at best. Shortly after coming to know the Lord, I was influenced by Richard Wurmbrand, Jim Elliot, David Brainerd, and the like, to live a risky adventure at the helm of God's providence! I couldn't wait to get out of college so that I could take the gospel to the darkest places of the world.

As I was finishing school, God put very special lady in my life with a similar dream. We have looked into several programs (MTI, BCTP, Downline, etc) wondering what the possibilities were of us completing them. Now that we are both out of college the "rest of our life" has begun. Questions come up like, "what do we do now?" "When do we have kids?" "Do we still want to do MTI, BCTP, Downline or something similar?" "Do we want to be missionaries overseas?" "Do we want to be missionaries here?" etc... etc....

Here are two options we are considering for the time being as we try to figure out where God wants us:

Option 1: We both continue to work in the DFW area. We buy a house to get the $8,000 from Obama and put it towards our debt. By the time our debt is mostly paid off (2012) we will have a kid or two. From there we can decide if we still want to do a mission sending program and go into the mission field.

Possible problem(s) with option 1: We might get too comfortable with living the American Dream and lose our passion for missions.

Option 2: We buy a house in Memphis where we can do Downline and pay off our debt. We get the $8000 to help us out and remain in Memphis for 3 years. We have kids when our debt is mostly paid off and from there think about going into the business world or mission field.

Possible problem(s) with option 2: We are far from family as we will miss them. We also would like to raise our kids near their grandparents. We will also miss our friends here in Texas. We would have to start all over in Memphis.

This is just to give everyone a heads up on what we are thinking about. Feel free to contribute any thoughts and above all, pray that God will guide us wherever he wills.