Well Rachel and I are moving on to new stages in life (together of course). Today Rachel officially accepted the position of Children's Minister at Alpine Church of Christ in Longview, TX. We visited last weekend to interview and it was a wonderful weekend. Rachel was called, two days ago, on Wednesday evening while she was at church and she was offered the job. We talked about it when she got home and decided that this is what we want. We'll be moving at the end of this semester, that would be mid-May. This will be the first time Rachel has had a full-time job (I have yet to have one). She is very excited and also nervous. I will be through with classes for my Masters degree at the end of this semester and I will just have my thesis to complete. I am hoping to have that done by May '09. I am going to try and find a part-time job after we move. This is also a new stage for us because we haven't ever lived in Longview before. My mom grew up there, my dad grew up in Gladewater, but it's still a relatively new city for us. So we're excited to start a new life there in a different place than we've been before.
We are going to miss certain things about Abilene (or at least that's what Rachel keeps telling me): people, sunsets, dry heat, no rain, horrendeous pot-holed streets, etc. But seriously, parts of Abilene will be missed. It played home to us for 4 years as singles and over a year now as a married couple. It was our first "home" together. We will also be leaving great professors, mentors, and friends behind.
We are excited about living close to our parents again. It will give us great opportunities to further those relationships as they have grown so much over the last few years. We are also excited that grandparents will be close when children come. Not that it will be anytime soon. But there will be enough distance between us and parents that we shouldn't have to worry about pop-ins.
It really is an exciting and unknown time for us. We are trying to still take it all in and just experience everything as it comes. We prayerfully began the process of Rachel applying and we are going to prayerfully continue the transition of her getting the job to starting the job.
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