10 Years in Review

As we just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary, I thought I would do a quick review of the memorable things that happened in the last decade.  When we think back on what our lives were like ten years ago, it feels like a lifetime has passed, but when we simply look back it feels like we blinked and here we are.  Last night as I was reflecting over our years as a married couple and over what our dreams for the future were and what they have become, I thought it would be fun to look back with all of you as well.  Those of you who lived through it with us, feel free to add.

2001: We got married just two days shy of ringing in 2002.

2002: Found us living in our first apartment together on Batchawana St. in Grand Rapids, MI.  Brandon had his final semester of college to finish and I had graduated the spring before.  I was working at a daycare.  Life was so simple.  We loved our apartment, it was one bedroom, but had a basement, which meant lots of storage.  We rented lots of movies and spent many cozy nights on the couch.  In the early summer we packed up our meager belongings and moved back to Utah.  Brandon had big plans to go to seminary.  I was a little more cautious in those beliefs.  We found a great apartment and got real jobs (HA!)  Brandon worked as a bellman at a hotel in Salt Lake (sound familiar?) and I worked in the produce department at Albertson's and was a teacher's aide at a local elementary school.  Brandon brought it quite a bit of money in tips and life was easy.  Brandon began scouting out seminary's.

2003:  Brandon was accepted to Denver Seminary, and in the late summer, just one year after moving to Utah, we packed up again and began life over in Littleton, Colorado.  We literally lived around the corner from my grandparents, it was about a three minute walk to their place.  I am so grateful for our time with them when we lived there.  Brandon began school and I found a job at a local daycare.  I quickly made friends, and after about a month of crying myself to sleep over missing "home", we settled right in.  We LOVED living in Denver. 

2004:  Brandon meets Eric in class.  Eric introduced us to what would become our church home for about 18 months.  We begin getting to know Eric and Cassy and spending time with them here and there.  We also meet Mike and Tori.

2005:  Our relationships with Eric and Cassy and Mike and Tori deepen.  We meet Patrick and Julie as well.  We spend the year working, going to school and enjoying our first ever couple friendships since we got married.  We also begin to plan our summer of 2006, where we know we'll be overseas, somewhere for two months. 

2006:  We start the year planning and raising support for a two month internship in Northwest Argentina.  Our first half of that year is devoted to that outside of work and school.  We spend June and July in Tucuman, Argentina.  We feel God's confirmation during our time there to pursue full time missions.  We were challenged in ways I would have never expected.  While there we also find out we are expecting a baby.  After our return home we begin talking to WorldVenture about being appointed, and they give us some goals to achieve before we can begin the process.

2007:  Patrick is born in March and Brandon graduates from seminary in May.  I start this blog.  We make the decision to move back to Utah after graduation to be close to family while working on paying down student loans in order to be appointed as missionaries with WorldVenture.  Brandon is offered his old job back and I start my new job as a stay-at-home mom.  We find a great apartment exactly 2 miles from my parents and we settle into life.

2008:  Brandon works at the hotel and also works a series of second jobs.  We get appointed with WorldVenture to Argentina in the fall. 

2009:  We find out we're expecting Henry and continue on in life as normal.  Life is beginning to feel routine and we enjoy lots of time with family.

2010:  Henry is born in May.  God uses many events and people in our lives to start letting us know the ministry in Argentina is not the right fit for our family.  I am much quicker to get on board with this than Brandon and I spend tons of time in prayer over what God wants for us.  Brandon goes to Haiti and God uses his time there to bring us back into synch as a couple regarding our future ministry. 

2011:  Well, it's been a whirlwind year.  We started the year thinking about getting to Argentina and hoping for a way to make our hearts for children's ministry fit into the field in Argentina.  God quickly makes it obvious that is not His plan.  We find a ministry we love, in UGANDA, my heart skips a beat (or a thousand) and we quickly throw together a trip to Uganda in June.  We frantically apply for passports for the boys, we race to get our immunizations in, Henry gets tubes in his ears just a few days before we leave, and we hop on a plane in mid June.  And, if you follow this blog, you know the rest of the story. 

This run-down doesn't even begin to cover everything, so here's some more because the years sort of blend beyond the big stuff. 

In this time we also went from having no nieces or nephews to having five nephews and three nieces. 

We watched the heartbreak of divorce hit our family hard.  We've had a relationship fracture and in this year we've seen a repair of that relationship. 

We watched many of our family members move and move again. 

We've made many trips and seen more of our own country we thought we would.  Some of those places include: Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Arizona, California, Nevada, Idaho, Ohio, and Florida.  And as we were reminded of this week, we've seen lots of the world, including: Buenos Aires, Tucuman, Salta, and Juy Juy, Argentina; the airport in Amsterdam (the Motherland for Brandon), Kigali, Rwanda, and Kampala, Gulu, and Masaka, Uganda (and the places in between). 

We have had great sorrow. 

We watched as my Grandma fought cancer for three years and we celebrated her life together when she went on to her eternal home.  I miss her.  There are many moments in the last year when I think of how much she would have loved this or that. 

We were witnesses to a horrible and ongoing injustice committed against Uncle Wesley.  I still find myself angered or crying over it at times.  My heart breaks a thousand times over every time I hear about abuse and the injustice that so often goes with it.  We cried when we couldn't be together with our family when uncle Wes died.  We are grateful for God's redeeming love, because only God could have redeemed the situation in Wes' life, although it didn't stop any of us from trying, and we believe by taking him home to heaven that he did just that.  

We discovered Patrick was significantly speech delayed.  We mourned the loss of what our expectations were for him in these early years.

We have also had great joy.

We have two amazing, wonderful, creative, exhausting, and brilliant boys.  Ten years ago we didn't know if having our own kids would even be a possibility because I have PCOS. 

We welcomed our nephew Tommy into the world exactly three weeks after Henry was born.  It was a long wait for his parents and a desire for them that we didn't know God would fulfill in the way we expected him to.  And now, we're awaiting the arrival of Tommy's little brother.  God does work in his own time.

We have an entire new list of friends in Uganda.  A year ago we weren't aware of their existence and now we can't wait to cultivate those relationships further.  We are so excited we can hardly wait.

We have watched as Patrick's speech has flourished and we have thanked God profusely for the strides Patrick has made in speech. 

So, there you have it.  Ten years (and this is the brief version) of our life as a family.  I thank God for this life he has given me.  I thank him for it everyday.  We are truly blessed beyond measure.