Its official!

Wednesday eveing I was waiting for Chris to get home from work and I decided to play some Guitar Hero. Will gave us the Guitar Hero for a wedding gift and I haven't played much lately, so when Will happens to come into town trash talk starts and I get showed up because I havne't played in a while, so I decided to brush up on my skills. I almost made it the 2 1/2 steps across my living room to my chair when my phone rang. I looked at it and saw it was a number from Arizona. I had talked to Deanna, the lady I'd done my interview with and been in contact with since this whole craziness started, a few days before and she said a lady named Lisa would be handling my situation from here on out. I was so very excited to hear "Kim? This is Lisa from Scottsdale Culinary" come across the phone. Chris and I have been trying to hold off on telling people whats going on because although we feel like its where we are suppose to be have the final acceptance makes everything much more real. Lisa said enrollment was open for the first of the year and asked if I could get to a computer and get my information going. I quickly said SURE! About 30 minutes later I had finished the online application and Lisa and e-mailed me the three pieces of paper that had to be printed, signed, and sent back. She told me if i could do it now then she would be able to wrap everything up then. So Chris, who had arrived home by this point, and I hopped in the truck and drove up to my office, since my printer is out of ink, and printed out, signed and sent back the papers needed. Of course, being that this was a victory for me, Chris and stopped at our favorite gas station to get an icee :-D. On our way home Lisa called back to let me know she had gotten the papers and I was done! It was awesome to hear "Congradulations! You are officially enrolled to start on January 4th. WHOOP!!! We were (and still are) pretty stinking excited! Its official. Now fear and nervousness has set in but we know this is where Father wants us to be and we know he will work things out for us wether is be money, place to live or jobs, he has a plan and will show us exactly what it is. We are preparing for a nice big garage sale (which I'm very excited about)! I'm odd and I love garage sales. I always have and I don't know why. But we have some friends who are cleaning out and giving us things along with family and we are going to use all the money we make to go towards our Arizona fund!

Earlier this week I was looking for a homemade ranch dressing mix to try out because the ranch I buy is a little pricy so I was wanting to try something different. Along my road of google-ing 'homemade ranch dressings' I came across what is now my favorite website. thepioneerwoman.com She has some awesome recipes, cute kids, great pictures and good stories. I pretty much love her life. Its been fun over the last few days reading her stories and seeing her pictures. Tonight, along with our pork, I'm trying out a new recipe I saw on her website! I'm excited! :-D

Thank you all for your prayer and support so far in this journey. We would appreciate for y'all to continue to pray for and support us. The next few months will be filled with more stress, preperations and prayer on our part. We are excited to see what Father has for us as we move into the next adventure he has planned.

How He Loves Us

"my heart is longing with a need to feel my soul come alive"

Thats probably my favorite line from any song ever. I love it. There is something about my soul coming alive that seems so beautiful. I think that comes from the fact that it would be Father moving in me for my soul to come alive, at least the type of alive I long to feel.

Sunday morning after a man named John Herring (former college/young adults pastor at FBC) preached Jake Kornegay got up and played this song. I've always enjoyed listening and worshiping with Jake while he plays. I think a lot of the reason for that is that I know Jake and I know his heart and I hear the passion in him while he sings. This time was a little different than normal. It was just Jake and his guitar and some sort of effects type pedal thingy. (as you can tell I work a lot with musical technology) I've seen someone use this type of equiptment before and its really cool. Jake started out by playing a few notes on his guitar over and over then he hit one of the pedals and it would repeat what he did over and over then he tapped out a rhythm on his guitar and recorded that for it to play over and over. This is a great way to create your own band with just a piece of medal. So he played and sang. This song was moving. I could feel my heart in my chest. I closed my eyes and danced with my Father. It was awesome. Take some time to listen. The truth of the song is so awesome. Go to youtube.com and type in How He Loves Us and it will the the first one that comes us by Kim Walker. Listen to the words.

He is Jealous for me

loves like a hurricane

I am a tree

bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy

When all of a sudden I am unaware

of these aflictions eclipsed by glory

and I realize just how beautiful you are and

how great your effections are for me

Oh, How he loves us Oh

oh how he loves us

how he loves us oh

yeah, he love us

oh how he loves us

oh how he loves us

oh how he loves

We are his portion and he is our prize

drawn to redeption by the grace in his eyes

If grace is an ocean we're all sinking

so heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss

and my heart turns violently inside of my chest

and I don't have time to maintain these regreats

when I think about the way...

He loves us

oh how he loves us

oh how he loves us

oh how he loves

yeah he loves us

oh how he loves us

oh how he loves us

oh how he loves

How awesome is that? I think I need a constant reminder that he loves me no matter what. I really like the part where it says "I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way...He loves us" Sometimes I stop and think about 'well maybe if I would have just...' and it doesn't really matter...He loves us oh how he loves us. All of that becomes nothing when I'm reminded that he loves me. He loves me so much. This song makes me want to dance around the room and prise Father for love he has for me that is so much more than I could ever imagine.

Something else dawned on me Sunday as Chris and I were walking into Village Foods to stock up on Kool-aid. It came from a very funny moment that happend about 3 minutes prior. We were driving and talking about the future and money. Chris made the comment that if he is going to be a minister he wouldn't be making a whole lot of money. My hope is that one day I will have my own restraunt and that is will be a good place and make a good amount of money because of the possibilites of what we could do with that money. The mission trips we could send kids on and the organizations we could pour into. How cool would that be. But we were talking and I made the comment that I'm going to need to make decient money if we are going to adopt 12 kids. Chris's face and remark were so funny. I laughed the rest of the way to the grocery store. and I laughed hard. He kinda just sat there and went "ough...don't you think we could be good with like 9 or 10?" I don't know that I've ever seen him speachless like that...after I regained myself he said if we are suppose to adopt 12 kids we will...if we are suppose to adopt more we will...(oh how I love my husband) and I know he means it. My desire to adopt is so big. My heart hurts for kids that don't have a mom and dad and brother and sisters to fight with. For some reason growing up and now, when it comes to mission trips I was never worried about where the money would come from I just knew it would come. I feel the same way about adoption. Some people like to continually tell me how expensive it will be but I know...the money will come. One of my biggest struggles with moving to Scottsdale is the amount of money we need to have saved in the little amount of time before we leave. I've stressed over this. Well at some point during our very interesting conversation about adopting our team Father spoke softly to me. I love it when he does that. I love it even more when I realize there is no way I came up with that idea by myself and I know he is speaking...For so long I've just trusted this money would come for me or my family to drive across the states to play with kids or to go across the world to love on some beautiful kids or even to bring kids into my home and raise them...but yet I stress over money to move? I feel like Father has set Scottsdale up for us. He has prepared this for us and he isn't going to prepare something for us and then not provide for what he has for us. The money will come. I just know it will now. I don't know how but I know he has a plan. We will save and we will have a garage sale and we will do all we can and somehow...it will come.

OH HOW HE LOVES US!

I fear you understimate my sneekyness.

This last weekend Chris, Scuba and I crawled into Scuba's mustang and drove across Texas to the booming town of Andrews. We left about 4:45 Friday morning and drove to Midland. We stopped on the way in Colorado City to see my grandmother for a bit but then headed into Midland. Once we got there we got to spend some good time with Justin and DeAndra, oh how I miss them!! We talked with them for quite some time before ventruing across the apartment complex to Cole and Lynn's place. Cole was still at work but Lynn was home. She tried to give away half of their belongings. Its was quite funny. We got yelled at when we started searching through the dvd box though. We then went grocery shopping and got food for the cookout we were planning for our parents the next day. The poor girl who checked us out. We split the payment into 6 and then paid with four different credit cards. It was very funny! We all then piled into our vehicles and drove to Andrews. When we got there we were sad to see that Dad wasn't home, but mom was. We decided to go ahead and go in but keep the cars hidden. Its normal for Kent to walk in the door because he lives with them so he walked in first and the rest of us followed. Mom's face was great! She had no idea! We did very good!! A little while later dad came home and was just as surprised. I love surprising my parents. There is nothing like expecting one kind and getting 6! haha.

That night we went to Cassidy's for dinner then to Nana and Grandad's for games. Stephen, Linda, Savannah and Rhett were there too. They were just as surprised as mom and dad were! We had fun playing games with all of them. Saturday I got up and almost everyone else was still asleep. I saw dad was out messing with the truck so I went out to talk to him. We ended up talking for about an hour. It was really good. I got to tell him all about Scottsdale Culinary Institiute. I haven't talked to him at all about anything so I didn't know what his reaction was at all. In true dad form, he said that if its what we want to do then go for it. If it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out but that a lot of people miss out on things because they wait too long or they don't just go for it. Thats my dad! After we talked it was time to fix breakfast! Mom and I cooked a big breakfast for everyone. While we were cooking we got to talk about Scottsdale some. It was good. We talked about what kind of place we were looking for and if we thought we might get to look into a house. We think we will end up in an apartment for location and money but we are unsure. Mom and I talked about how we haven't had any red flags or bad thoughts on the idea. So Chris and I are just going to proceed as planned and if along the way Fathers says no then we will go a different direction. But it was a good talk with Mom. After breakfast all the kids cleaned the house. We figured since we just showed up and invited people we should help clean the house. We then spent the afternoon goofing off and started cooking our big dinner. It was sooo good! Kent fixed backstrap, Chris fixed a brisket, Lynn made mashed potatoes and pasta salad, Nanny made banana pudding, I helped prep veggies to grill, Lynn also cooked our asparagus and we grilled chicken too. It was a great meal!! Nana, Grandad and Rhett came over and Nanny drove in from Colorado City too. Of course we played games afterwords and watched the Nascar race...which was followed by a very exciting conversation on who was in the wrong. It was funny. Of course Dad and I did some damage at Hand and Foot this weekend. We killed mom and Grandad by a good 10,000 points and Chris and Scuba by about the same.

Sunday we got up and all went to church. It was good to see some sweet faces! Then we all went back to the house and had some leftovers for lunch. Scuba and I agreed the honey do only got better after the first day. Overall the weekend was a lot of fun. It was good to just get to hang out with the family and relax. It was also good to talk with my parents face to face about Scottsdale. Chris and I are still very excited about it and can't wait to see what happens next!

More information

Monday evening I talked with a lady from Scottsdale Culinary Institute on the phone for a while. It was an interview for the school. Every prospective student has to go through one either by phone or face to face. So Monday I was armed with every question I could think of, my pen to write notes and my husband sitting on the couch across from me. Deanna is the name of the lady I have been talking with. She is very nice, helpful and excited to be able to help people. She told me at the beginning of the phone call that this would be an interview (I thought it might be, knowing everyone had to do one, but I wasn't sure if this would be mine.) She said that if at any point during the interview I felt this wasn't the place for me to let her know and we could end the call or if she felt at any point that I wouldn't be a good fit she would do the same. We talked for a good 45 minutes. She went through her list of questions and information tid-bits I would need. She told me about the Career center and how they are the ones who help direct you through the externship and then help place you in a job after graduation. She said the Chefs are there to help teach you but they are also there to pass on the batallion to the next generation of chefs. She said they like it when you pick their brains, they want to be able to teach you everything they can. I would be in class Monday through Friday either morning classes (7-12) or midday classes (12-6). I could then have a job while in school (which will be very important for Chris and I). She said that she thought the Associates of Culinary Arts would be the way for me to go. I didn't really understand this because after looking though the programs I thought the Bachelor's would be best because of what I would ultimately like to do. I asked Deanna about this and she said the reason was that the Assoc. is the beginning of the Bach. program. So if, before I do my externship, I want to go ahead and do the Bach. I can talk to her about it and get switched over to the Bach. program and then I would graduate with two degrees in the same amount of time. HOW COOL?!?! Yes, I would like lots more fluff on my Resume for the same amount of time please! Deanna said she would have the dates for the start of classes after the beginning of the year in about 2 weeks. She is going to call me then and we will go from there.

After that phone call Chris and I really wanted to look more into the seminary in the area. So I spent a lot of time yesterday reading about it and Chris e-mailed a couple of my questions to the lady at the school to find out some more information. I was encouraged by what we found out. The Seminary is set up so that students can continue in the ministries they are already involved in and finish school. The classes are set up to work around someone's already existing life and career. I thought that was cool. I also found that on the Diploma program Chris would be entering goes along the same exact class course as the MDiv he wants except you have to have 8 hrs of biblical languages for the MDiv and you don't for the DTh. Well I wondered if you could go back and get the 8 extra hours or if he would need to go back through the entire program to get his MDiv. We found there were two options. He could either finish his undergrad and then do the MDiv or there is an exceptions way in. If you get into the Diploma program and after at least 20 complete credit hours if you have a 3.25 and a few other requirements (certian classes taken) then you can apply to be moved to the MDiv program on an exception. Chris wanted to know after finding this out if it was something they do very often. He e-mailed the lady he had been asking questions to and (there were 92 students enrolled at this seminary campus in 2008) she said that if you meet the requirements they will help you out and move you. Basically you just need to keep your grades up. She said they have a few students now that have done it by exception. That was encouraging for us. Chris is so smart. His big thing with school is feeling like its relevant and being interested. He is ADD (has been all his life) and so his focus can be very short, but he can get into the MDiv program pretty easially I think. We are going to get him back on his medication while in school so he will have a better focus time. He was also telling me last night about some of the details of the school he found. He said the school is very missions oriented. That is something he is really excited about. The school is very diverse in itself. You can tell when you read the requirements and the last one is that you take the test to make sure you are proficient in the English language. Its a very cool thing. Chris thinks it would be a good fit. We think the smaller classes will help too.

We talked last night and we really feel this is the direction we are suppose to be going. I keep wanting to not do things because what if we aren't suppose to go? Although at the same time I feel like we are...a lot of my thoughts are coming from this has only been a week and I want to make sure it isn't hype and that its really what we are suppose to do. With it only being a week its amazing what all has fallen into place in a week. So Chris and I are going to continue to research and move forward until we feel like this isn't where we are suppose to be doing. We can't really do a whole lot to move forward except things we were planning anyways, mostly saveing as much money as possible. We will continue to research as much information as we can though. Its exciting. We are praying Father will guide us in our next steps and show us if this isn't right.