The Beauty of Uncertainty

It's amazing how quickly our move to Uganda is approaching! We have less than 1 month until we leave, and it still doesn't seem real to me yet. Life has changed drastically for us in the past few weeks. We've finished one chapter and started another that will likely lead us in a completely different direction as we go forward.

Two weeks ago, I left my job at Phoenix Children's Hospital. Needless to say, it wasn't an easy thing to do. It was hard to walk away from an amazing hospital, amazing co-workers, and a cushy (day shift!) position in the PICU. I grew so much in my nursing practice in the 1 year and 3 months that I spent there. It was a wonderful first job for a new-grad fresh out of nursing school. I certainly had my days where it was difficult, frustrating, and exhausting, but at the end of the day, I loved being a PICU nurse. I'm definitely loving my new-found free time, but I still find myself thinking about PCH and missing it on an almost daily basis.

Austin also left his management position at QuikTrip two weeks ago. He definitely isn't as nostalgic as I am when he thinks about his time there, but it was a solid job that helped provide for us during our first year and a half of marriage. I find myself wondering what he will do when we get back. Austin has always wanted to be a police officer, and he may decide to pursue that further after our time in Uganda. Or maybe he'll pursue work with a non-profit or NGO and follow his passion for the work of the Gospel.

I know it may sound like I'm getting ahead of myself, but leaving our lives behind to be obedient to the calling God has placed on us is by no means easy. It's hard. It's messy. It really screws up my life plans. I'm the kind of girl who has always been painstakingly organized and has had every detail of my future planned for the next 5 years. As soon as we said yes to moving to Africa, my agenda went out the window. I am no longer in control of my own life.

I don't know how long we'll be in Uganda.

I don't know where we'll live when we get back.

I don't know where I will work or what I will do when we return to the States.

I don't know about the possibility of going to grad school in the future.

I don't know when we'll have children.

I don't know when we'll buy a house.

I don't know if our lives will ever be “normal” again.

All these things that used to comprise my idea of the future are on hold indefinitely.

This is where the sacrificial element of obedience smacks you in the face. It requires strength and faith to trust that God has asked you to take another path because it will lead you to something better.

God's Word tells us that He is a God of justice. He shows compassion for the oppressed, for the orphan, for the widow. He tells us that where our treasure is, there are hearts will be also. His Word says that faith without deeds is dead and that if we see our brothers and sisters in need and do not have compassion on them, then the love of God is not in us.

If I am to claim the name of Jesus, my life has to reflect these truths. I have to believe that God's upside down kingdom is better than the little one I could construct for myself. I have to trust that no matter what, God will provide for our needs as we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. All the other details will fall into place. I'm choosing to embrace uncertainty, focus on the task ahead of me, and know that God will continue to be faithful to us as we serve Him.

On an unrelated note, our fundraising is just about complete! We need just a little bit more in one-time donations until we're fully funded and able to purchase our airline tickets. Check out our video below to learn more about our story. If you would like to make a 100% tax-deductible donation, you can sign up in just about 1 minute here.   

"And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." - Micah 6:8

5 Questions to a Better Marriage

I'm really no expert on marriage. I've only been a wife for 15 months, and I'm still trying to figure out how to do it right. The amount of Christian marital advice I've come across over the past year and a half has admittedly been overwhelming, but the other day I found something that was too great not to share.

I came across this great blog written by a Christian wife who shared a creative little ritual that she and her husband do every week. (Check out the original source here.) It seemed easy enough to implement, so I decided to try it this week with Austin. It consists of 5 simple questions that you and your spouse sit down and discuss once a week. They're simple enough to go through in about 20 minutes (which is awesome if your husband is like mine and hates relationship talks!), but I've found that they have a lasting impact on my attitude and my actions towards Austin throughout the rest of the week. Let's get to it!

1) How did you feel loved this past week?

It's really important for me to take a minute and think about how I felt loved by my husband over the past week rather than what went wrong, what irritated me, what I didn't like, etc. When you focus on the positive moments, you tend to remember them more readily than the negative. It's helpful to get Austin's perspective on what I did right and what I did that worked for him. This week, I told Austin that I felt loved when he stayed up late to help me plan my best friend's bridal shower, and I learned that he felt loved when I thanked him and told him how much I appreciated his willingness to help. It was cool to realize that we'd felt loved by each other without even trying!

2) What does your upcoming week look like?

This one is pretty self explanatory. It gives us a chance to discuss our individual work schedules, to-do lists, finances, and goals for the week. It helps us make sure that we're on the same page about what the upcoming week has in store and what we'll need the other person's help with in the days ahead.

3) How would you feel most loved and encouraged in the days ahead?

My love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch, so I feel most loved by Austin through his encouraging words and compliments. And a little snuggling never hurts either.  Austin's more of a words of affirmation/quality time guy, so he feels most loved when I verbally affirm him and when we spend time hanging out together. It helps me focus on loving my husband better throughout the week when I get practical suggestions from him about his wants and needs. Likewise, if I need more love in a certain area, our Sunday night chats create a great, non-threatening opportunity to voice my needs to him.

4) How would you like to incorporate sex/intimacy in our marriage this week?

Let's be honest, even married couples can find sex to be an awkward topic to discuss, but it's of vital importance to the health of our relationship. In the throws of two busy schedules, it helps us to discuss our expectations regarding sex openly and honestly during our Sunday night huddle. For super busy couples, it might even be useful to “schedule” it on a calendar. Because I'm big on physical touch, it's important to me to have time with Austin where we're by ourselves and can be physically close, even if that doesn't involve sex. Physical and emotional intimacy is often just as important to wives as sex is to husbands. The important thing is to make sure that both people are open and honest about their needs in this area.

5) How can I pray for you this week?

I've tried to be more intentional recently about praying for my husband on a regular basis. I pray for his spiritual health, for wisdom, for his ability to serve the Kingdom, and for his ability to be a leader in our marriage. When we ask each other how we can pray for one another, it creates a safe space for me to share my struggles and what's going on in my heart. It also reminds me to keep praying for Austin consistently throughout the week. It's a great way to end our Sunday night huddle.

This exercise has been really useful for us as we learn how to communicate with each other and figure out how to do marriage well. Try it out for yourself and enjoy the results!

The Weight of My Own Words

I’m told that I was notoriously stubborn as a child. I like to think that I was a sweet, innocent little girl who gave my parents nothing but sunshine and happiness, but I definitely had my fair share of conflict with them-- all related to my strong-willed attitude. My Mom is quick to remind me that by the time I was two, she had already threatened to “pull the car over” on way more occasions than any of my other siblings combined. I feel like I grew out of my stubborn defiance by the end of high school, and all in all, I turned out to be a pretty good kid. I got straight A’s, I was always at youth group, and I got a big scholarship to a good university.  Still, my stubborn defiance continues to rear its ugly head from time to time, even in my adult life.

I’ve spoken a lot recently about the two months I spent in Kenya when I was 20. I left Kenya filled with excitement for the Gospel and a renewed sense of passion for the global poor. God had spoken into my life and told me to go to Africa. I was sure of that. I came back home to my little college world convinced that my time in America would be limited. I had experiences that were raw and profound and filled me with excitement about what God had in store for the rest of my life.

Isn’t it funny how familiarity has a way of playing tricks on your mind? It seemed like every day that passed after I came back from my first trip to Africa, my memory seemed to become more fuzzy and faded. Suddenly, those people I had met and those experiences I had shared seemed a million miles away. I still thought about Kenya with a sense of nostalgia, but now the “real world” was in full focus. I focused on surviving my last year of nursing school. I focused on getting engaged to my boyfriend (now husband!) I concentrated on graduating and planning my wedding. Then it was the hunt for my first big-girl nursing job and settling into my new life as an adult. As recently as few months ago, Austin and I were talking about saving up to buy a new car by the end of the year and dreaming about buying a house someday. The calling I had felt so strongly suddenly didn’t seem as real to me anymore.

I look back on the two years that have passed since my time in Kenya and I can’t remember how many times I have had to ignore the Spirit tugging at my heart. I have been stubborn. I have been defiant. I have heard His voice over and over telling me to go, and I’ve busied myself with other things to drown out the sound. It was in January that my own words finally caught up to me. I was cleaning out our closet one day and stumbled upon my journal from Kenya. I sat down on my closet floor, opened it up, and read page after page of my innermost thoughts and experiences. I finally got to the last entry and felt my stomach turn when I read these words:

“Being in Kenya has cemented in my mind that being a missionary in Africa is the path God is calling me to. He has showed me what the well-lived Christian life looks like: it’s dangerous! I know that going back home to become a nurse/wife/mom in suburban America would be a form of disobedience to God when I believe that He has called me elsewhere. I don’t know what form being a missionary in Africa will take, how I plan to incorporate my nursing practice, what organization I will go with, whether or not my boyfriend shares in this calling, or any other logistical details. All I know is that I have a passion for helping the African poor, and that the things God has placed in my heart are the things He has for me to do here on earth.”

Ouch. In that moment, the weight of my stubborn disobedience hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized the comfortable path I had fashioned for my life was not the one I was being called to. This realization didn’t come easily, but in a way, it was… a relief. It was a relief to not have to fight it anymore. To not have to make myself so busy that I didn’t have time to listen. It was a relief to get to the place where I was so tired of struggling that I stopped and said “God, I give up. Do what you want with me.” 

I don’t think I’ll ever totally get rid of my stubbornness. God is still going to have to hit me over the head with things in order to get me to listen. But I’m glad I finally did. I feel like the path He has called me to will be even more rich and rewarding than the one I could have ever chosen for myself. I just have to keep following Jesus, the perfect example of self-sacrifice and obedience, even to the point of death on a cross (Phil. 2:8).  There’s a profound sense of joy and freedom in picking up my cross, laying down my plans, and choosing to follow Him where he leads me.

My final journal entry in Kenya; July 2010

To the Ends of the Earth

I’ll never forget the day when I realized my life was not going to be normal. It was July of 2010. I was a junior in college, halfway through nursing school, and smack-dab in the middle of Kenya. I had spent two months there and was exposed for the first time to visions of hope in the midst of raw, desperate poverty. I looked at my life and realized that if I was going to claim to truly follow Jesus, then I had to be about the things that he was about: serving the poor, caring for the orphans and widows, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and imprisoned, and dying to my vision of the American dream. It was in the middle of Kenya that God shattered my comfortable ignorance and selfish heart. It was there that He made it abundantly clear to me that the path He was calling me to was no longer going to be one of normalcy. This realization hurt deeply, but it sparked a fire in my heart that changed my life forever.

I began to talk openly with Austin about my heart for East Africa and my desire to pursue long-term mission work in February of this year. I was shocked that he was even willing to take me seriously with all of my big, crazy, ridiculous plans! We had lots of long heart to hearts and came to the conclusion that it was time for me to go back to Africa and for Austin to go for the first time. A few days later, my sister Lara called me and told me about her upcoming trip to Uganda with Sixty Feet. It seemed like the perfect option for us. We would tag along with her, explore Uganda and the ministry of Sixty Feet, and see if this crazy, long-term mission work idea was something we were even interested in pursuing.

We had an absolutely amazing week working with Sixty Feet in Uganda, which you can read about here. Austin and I fell in love with the work and the people almost immediately. Within 48 hours of arriving and working with the children in the remand homes, Austin and I decided that it was time to talk to our trip leader, Shelly (who just so happens to be the wife of the CEO of Sixty Feet!) We sat down with her the next day over dinner and explained our heart for serving the poor in East Africa and our desire to be obedient to what we knew God was calling us to do. We explained what we could offer to the ministry—my obvious skill being nursing and Austin’s being a hodge-podge of potentially useful experience, including several years in management, a computer degree, and some construction experience in high school. It was an awesome opportunity to share our hearts and our desire to be a part of the amazing work that Sixty Feet is doing in Uganda. Shelly seemed excited to hear all this from us. She told us that if we were still interested after we returned to the States, she would love to fly us out to Atlanta to meet with the Board of Directors of the ministry.

We came home at the end of our trip and tried our best to go back to our daily lives. All along, we knew our hearts were still in Africa. We counted down the days until we could fly to Atlanta and meet the people responsible for starting the ministry we had fallen in love with. The couples we met in Georgia were some of the kindest people ever and their heart for living out the Gospel was contagious. We laughed together and had some wonderful discussions. Two weeks after we returned home, we finally got the email we had been waiting for: we are officially going to Uganda to work as full time staff with Sixty Feet!

Our decision to go to Uganda is one of both passion and obedience. God has made it undeniably clear to us that moving to Uganda is His plan for us at this stage in our lives. I feel so passionate about caring for and advocating for these imprisoned children in Uganda, and the fact that my husband feels the same way reassures me that we are making the right decision. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 25 that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Him. The imprisoned children of Uganda truly are the least of these. We choose to go to them out of obedience, out of joy, and out of a true desire to follow Jesus.

I know everyone is curious about the logistics of how this move is going to work. Our goal is to leave for Uganda sometime this November. We will be making a commitment of at least one year with Sixty Feet, though we could realistically see ourselves living in Uganda for several years beyond that if that is what is required of us. I will still be working primarily as a nurse, though it won’t be in an in-patient hospital setting. I will be spending the majority of my time working with the Ugandan nurses to provide direct care to the children in the prisons. Austin’s role will be to come alongside the interns already in Uganda by working to develop the child sponsorship program, by visiting and ministering to the children, and by dealing with the Ugandan government as the need arises. We are fully prepared for the fact that our roles and job descriptions may change daily in Africa, so we are training ourselves to be flexible and to do whatever we need to do to make the in-country day to day operations run smoothly. As full-time interns with Sixty Feet, the ministry will pay for most of our major living expenses. We will, however, still need to fundraise a bit for other parts of our cost of living. But we’ll save that for a later post!

We are unbelievably excited about the opportunity ahead of us. The next few months will be spent planning and preparing for what God has in store for us in Africa. We appreciate your love, your prayers, and your support as we seek to be His hands and feet. This is the start of a great adventure!

“And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth…” - Acts 1:8

My Week in the Red Dirt

Is it super nerdy that I have a pair of raggedy old socks that I refuse to throw away because the bottoms of them are stained with red dirt from Kenya? Despite applying ungodly amounts of bleach and serious scrubbing, I just can’t get the stains out (not that I really want to anyway!) Africa is like that. It leaves a red dirt stain on your life that you just can’t wash out. One of the many reasons that I love it.

I was so excited for the opportunity to go back to Africa last month with Sixty Feet. I would pretty much leap at any opportunity that allowed me to head back to my favorite continent. Even more exciting was the fact that Austin was able to come with me and experience Africa for the first time.

First, a shameless plug for the ministry that we worked with in Uganda: Sixty Feet is an amazing organization based out of Atlanta. The ministry works primarily with children imprisoned by the Ugandan government in remand homes. Some of these children have committed legitimate crimes. Others have been incarcerated for “offenses” such as stubbornness or disobedience. Many of these children have not committed crimes but are simply orphaned, abandoned, or have special needs that leave them with nowhere else to go.

As I have seen with my own eyes, the children in these prisons live in dire circumstances. Sixty Feet works to bring them medical care directly through their nursing staff (which is what I spent most of my week doing.) They also work with justice initiatives and prominent lawmakers to change the Ugandan court system and allow children to get through the judicial system faster. They resettle children who have been released from the remand homes and work to set them up with American sponsors to pay for their school fees. This allows them the chance to get an education or learn a trade. They teach the kids about a gracious God who loves them infinitely and redeems the lost and brokenhearted. Ultimately, the goal of the ministry is to raise up these forgotten children to be healthy, thriving leaders of Uganda who love and serve the Lord. True beauty from ashes.

The majority of my week was spent working with Betty, the Ugandan nurse on staff with Sixty Feet. We went to a different remand home each day and provided care for the kids there. It felt like each of the homes had very different medical needs. At M2, I spent most of my time administering malaria tests. At M1 and M3, there were many children walking around with large, gaping wounds that desperately needed to be dressed. I busted out my big ole’ bag of nursing supplies, lined the kiddos up, and dressed wound after wound after wound. It was hard to get over the fact that many of them needed further medical attention than I could provide (like some serious stitches), but in a third world country, you truly have to learn to work with what you have.

It was great to meet a practical need by providing some nursing care, but my favorite part of the week was the time I got to spend loving on the little ones at the remand homes. And I do mean little ones. I was struck to see children under the age of 3 living in these prisons. Many of them were severely malnourished and some of them were visibly sick. The older children did their best to care for the babies, but it truly shook me to my core to see toddlers living in these desperate situations.

We were sitting on the grass one day at M1 when Austin had a little girl who was maybe 2 come up to him and promptly curl herself in his lap. We took turns passing her back and forth. I don’t think I’ve ever met a toddler who was so content to just sit and enjoy every ounce of love and affection she could get. I remember rocking her and rubbing her back and wondering when the last time was that she had been held. I thought of my blonde haired, blue eyed 2-year-old niece who I love to pieces and shuddered at the thought of her living in a place like M1. When we had to leave, I went to set her down with one of the older girls and she broke down into big sobs with crocodile tears rolling down her little cheeks. I fought back my own tears as I turned and walked towards our van. I think that’s when the injustice of the whole situation got to me. Something about a 2-year-old in prison deeply disturbed me that day. I’m not okay with that. I can’t come back home to America and make myself be okay with that. These children may seem forgotten by the world, but they are not forgotten by their Creator, who knows them intimately and loves them infinitely.

Every night as I lay down in my comfy bed, I think about the children I met that week in Uganda. I think about their faces and their stories. The red dirt rubs into my heart deeper and deeper. I’m so grateful to have been able to serve them in a small way by putting on some Bactine and bandaids for a week. But a week is only 7 days. I think about the work that Sixty Feet is doing to embody the Gospel by serving these children day in and day out. It excites me to my core and makes me want to be a part of what God is doing in the lives of these kids in East Africa. He is restoring what is broken. He is making all things new.

Austin and I at the source of the Nile in Jinja, Uganda

Fun, Fabulous, 4th of July Food

I love food. There, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Food is definitely one of my favorite things, and I would probably weigh 20 pounds less if I didn’t love it so much. One of the things I love about food is the way it brings people together, especially around holidays.

This year, 4th of July was a little different for my family. It was the first major holiday since my parents’ divorce, and the first one where my Mom wasn’t there to cook a big meal as she has done for the past 22 years of my life. Rather than spend the holiday with my dad and sisters eating take out, I decided to try and fill her shoes by making a really good 4th of July dinner.

I planned the menu out a few days in advance and went shopping early on Wednesday with my little sister, Caroline (who also proved to be a big help in the kitchen!) We started cooking at 1 PM. First, I made a spectacular loaded baked potato salad. (A big-shout out to Pinterest for giving me this awesome recipe as well as other everyday food inspiration!)

Next I tackled my red velvet cupcakes with homemade cream cheese frosting. I will never use canned frosting again now that I know how much better it tastes when it’s freshly made without all those chemicals! Surprisingly, these turned out to be the most time consuming part of the dinner. It probably would have taken less time if I had just made a whole red velvet cake, but I’m a big believer that cupcakes are always far superior to cake (and much more fun to eat.) Besides, who wants to wash all those forks?

The next thing I tackled were the deviled eggs.  I used my 91 year old great-grandma (Nana’s) recipe. Nana is famous for two things: her fudge at Christmas, and her deviled eggs. She was thrilled when I called to ask for her recipe. It was funny because when she explained to me how to make them, she never actually used a measurable quantity of anything. She just told me to add a little of this and some of that. No measuring cups or measuring spoons in Nana’s kitchen I guess!

Everything else was super easy to throw together at the end. Heat a can of Bush’s Baked Beans over the stove, slice up a juicy seedless watermelon, shuck and steam some fresh corn cobs. Austin came over at about 4:00 to tackle the steak. I was admittedly nervous about letting him cook the meat because he has never grilled a day in his life, and there is nothing more upsetting to me than overdone or improperly cooked steak. (Okay, I’m exaggerating. But still.) He completely surprised me by grilling some of the best steak I’ve ever had! He seasoned it with coarse salt and pepper, seared it on the grill with garlic and onion powder, and then cooked the first side for 7 minutes and the second side for 5 over low heat. Then he covered it and let it rest for a few minutes to lock in the juicy yumminess. Oh my goodness, it was melt-in-your-mouth kind of good. Who knew that my husband who can barely cook a bowl of cereal would be such a grill master? He was pretty proud of himself and I was too.

Here is our completed dinner, 5 hours after I started cooking it!

I think my family really loved our little feast. It was nice to be able to serve them in this way and to maintain a sense of normalcy and tradition when so many things have changed in our lives. Plus, I love every minute that I get to spend in my Dad’s big ole’ kitchen, with counter space galore.  Hope your 4th of July barbeque was just as fun and delicious as mine!

Our First Anniversary

Austin and I celebrated our first anniversary on Tuesday! It’s hard to believe that we’ve already been married one year. In some ways, it feels like our wedding was yesterday, and in other ways it feels like we’ve been husband and wife forever (in a good way!) I was joking with Austin about how I know I’m growing up because I was honestly more excited about our anniversary this year than my own birthday.

On Tuesday morning, Austin came home from his night shift at work while I was still sleeping. Before I woke up, he set up a whole scavenger hunt for me in our little apartment, with notes, cards, and gifts along the way! I woke up to find the first clue on my bedside table. That led me to our guest bathroom where I found this:

Then I went to our guest bedroom and found some lovely roses waiting for me.

The rest of the scavenger hunt led me to my car, our mailbox, the laundry room, the fireplace, and finally the pantry. Austin got me a new flat iron (which I desperately needed, seeing as how I scorched my other one by plugging it into a European outlet while we were in Uganda). It was really sweet and thoughtful. All of the clues rhymed and I told Austin that I was legitimately impressed with his poetry skills. I’ll definitely be keeping those little notes forever.

That afternoon, we went to the movies and watched Madagascar 3. Then we came back home and watched our wedding video. Austin thought that was really cheesy, but I’m sentimental and I thought it would be special to re-live that day in our lives. Finally, we got all dressed up and went out to a super fancy dinner at Donovan’s (a steakhouse in Phoenix where my sister-in-law, Kori, works as the head hostess!) Austin had made reservations for us, and when we got to our table we saw that it was sprinkled with rose petals and had a card from my in-laws with a Donovan’s gift certificate inside (so sweet!) After I got over my sticker shock upon opening the menu, I had probably the yummiest steak dinner of my life. And we got free crème brulee for desert! It was definitely a rare occurrence for us to spend so much money on one meal, but I had to remind myself that our first anniversary only comes around once.

We knew that our trip to Uganda would be our big “vacation” for the year, so instead we opted for a stay-cation for our first anniversary trip. We stayed for 3 nights at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, which was really special for us because it was where we stayed for the first 2 nights after our wedding last year! It was awesome to be able to relax without having to travel very far. And we were even able to stop by our apartment once to check on our little cat, Lily. All in all, I loved spending time with Austin without needing to be anywhere or do anything. We tried several new restaurants in our area that we had never been to. My favorite was a breakfast place called Butterfield’s Pancake House where I ordered the Nutella Banana Crepes (ohmygoshIthinkIdiedandwenttofoodheaven!) and Grazie, which is a little pizza restaurant in old town that makes their own mozzarella. We spent an evening by the pool and just relaxed and enjoyed each other for three days. It was very much needed for us.

I had lots of fun celebrating our first year of marriage. I’m thrilled that this is only the beginning of our story together, and that I’m blessed enough to look forward to many more happy years with my husband. God has truly blessed me with him, and I can’t wait to see where He takes us in the future.