The Jury is Still Out... For Now

So, we made it back from our two weekend out of town. Two weekends ago we were in Flagstaff, AZ (pictured above), and this past weekend we were in New Braunfels, TX. They were fun trips, even though they end up sort of exhausting meeting tons of new people and going through the interview process. We were interviewing the people from the churches just as much as they were interviewing us.

I was a little paranoid about flying with my guitar, especially when they forced me to check it at the gate. I felt much safer when my baby can be strapped in nearby where I can see that she's alright :)


I think I know which direction we're heading at this point, but we're just taking a few days to soak it all in and seek God's will. The two churches are so different from each other, it's almost difficult to compare. The AZ church is smaller, about 300 people, but has been growing fast and seems to have a strong forward momentum. They were down to about 25 members a few years back and asked one of the remaining congregants to try to revive the church. It's been growing fast ever since and has a strong college age and young family demographic. The TX church is at around 1500 people, and has a newer pastor that is the son of the founding pastor. The overall vibe of these two churches and the areas they're in are so drastically different from each other too. They're both really pretty areas though. With both Texas and Arizona I typically picture desert and cactus in my head, but both of these locations are very green and filled with trees. We were so busy that we forgot to take many pictures, but here's one from the Austin airport... I'm always drawn to guitar art.

Both churches have offered me the positions, so it's really up to us at this point. I'll post something later this week to let everyone know where we're going. Stay tuned...

From 4 to 2

Aubriella was a pro immediately after taking her training wheels off. She asked us for a few days to take them off while she practiced on Gavin's old bike on the back patio. She's a little wobbly once in a while but for the most part she has it. She smiles the entire time and tries to create challenges for herself already (i.e. driving one-handed, asking to go down hills and not applying the brakes, trying to skid out at stop signs). One time, after much begging took place and against my better judgement, I let her go down a steep hill while I waited at the bottom. Good thing I was there because she uncontrollably plowed into me and I had to make her come to an abrupt stop so she didn't go in the street. Being the little dare devil she is, she keeps asking to go back to that particular hill. She usually chooses to bike to a park about a mile from our house while I jog after her, which has given us some mother-daughter time together. At the park she likes to practice the monkey bars, swing spider with me, or climb the little rock wall.

Arizona or Texas?

The two churches I mentioned before have turned out to be strong possibilies for our future location. I still haven't met the pastor from Arizona yet, but we've talked a lot on the phone. They sent someone to watch me lead worship last week just to make sure I can do what I say I can do. They are flying Sara and I out to the church in Flagstaff next weekend so we can meet the people and get a feel for the city.

On Monday and Tuesday, the pastor and his wife from New Braunfels, Texas came to Colorado Springs to meet us. We spent a lot of time with them over those two days and they decided to fly us down to Texas the weekend after next. This is a much larger church with a lot of responsibilities, but I'm still leaning towards Texas right now. We'll see how everything goes.

We're obviously very excited to have some solid opportunities at the perfect time. School is done at the end of May and both of these churches would like to have the position filled by June, but are okay waiting until July (which is what we'd prefer). It will be nice to have a month to do some final packing, move, take our time traveling, and settling in wherever we end up. The Texas church has already offered to pay for our move and I'm assuming the Arizona one will as well. This will be an exciting few weeks, but then we obviously have a huge decision to make. We're praying that God will make the decision so obvious that we won't even have to think twice about it.