Anchorage again and at last!

It is good to be back in Alaska!  It has been a LONG journey to get here this year, not just in miles and time but in a lot of emotional energy.  We will be making the fulltime move to Alaska next May, 2013.  We have conflicted emotions as we leave the best community our family could have ever experienced in Texas to what we sense is the place we have been wired for living in the bush of Alaska.  We will stay with Cru (campus crusade), I will have the opportunity to expand on what I have been doing best over the past few years in my job  working with our staff teams.  We’ll also grow the summer leadership trips so we can do more of them and use the things we are learning and apply them to our other teams. 

We left College Station on March 12^th.  Its been so good connecting with many of our long time ministry partners.  (When people open their arms and homes to us even when we unload with 6 humans—with two teenage boys who consume a large quantity of food, you know you are in the presence of great people).  So good to be part of the Body of Christ…

When we left home on the 12^th of March we put our house on the market so that we could have it up for sale during the summer giving us the margin in time to list it for what we felt was the top end of the market price.  We really expected to have it sell later in the summer but as it goes it was on the market for just 3 weeks and we got an offer that was very fair.  So, Julie flew back last Wednesday and began the process of sorting what we will keep and selling off all but a few precious pieces of furniture (my mom’s cedar chest, a sewing table from Julies grandmother, a drop leaf table…).  It was hard, very hard actually to see the things which are parts of our lives go out the door.

Some of those things don’t seem worth much and really needed to be replaced like the bunk-beds.  I would pray with Zach at night and sometimes silently pray that the bunk above him wouldn’t fall and crush him at night.  But you know what, those beds were the beds that my brother and I grew up sleeping and playing on…not “worth” much, when some on comes to look but worth more than money can pay to me.  I have been mulling over Luke 18 a lot this week…not so much the Rich Young Ruler, but Peters response “Lord we have left our homes for you” and Jesus’ gentle reply which he in effect says, “don’t worry about it, it is worth it now and forever” (paraphrased by me).  I’m so glad Jesus said that…I do believe its worth it.  

We asked the Lord to sell the house and he did.  We closed on May 2; this past Wednesday—it’s a line in the sand, we are in for real…   We do get to go back for one more academic year which is joyful to think about.  It seems easier to say “goodbye” to the home and stuff without having to say “goodbye” to the people at the same time.  We have a great rental in College Station for next school year which is fully-furnished in the same neighborhood with some of our closest friends (and a community pool!).  It seems like a perfect way for us to spend the twilight of our 10 years in College Station.   

Well today is a transition day after 124 hours in the car and 5805 miles from College Station to Seattle we are in Anchorage today. I’m ready to get going on what we call the “Anchorage Dash” as we prep for the summer trips.  We are so excited for the people the Lord is brining to learn with us this summer.  I think we have somewhere in the neighborhood 50 people coming to what we’ve started calling the Alaskan Leadership Adventures Lodge.  Its good to be back!