February Update - A Year Later

I've been meaning to write this blog for about 8 months now :)  It seems appropriate to share it for this month's update, not because it's the month of love, but because it is exactly 1 year after we asked you to pray very specifically for our marriage as we become parents and as we continue working together.

If you missed that, you can watch it here.

At that point we had been living in Chile for about a year and a half and had a month left before we became parents.  Our first year in Chile was rough on our marriage.  Being isolated in the midst of so many external stresses and changes poured a lot of tension between us.  Sharing an 8x8 ft. bedroom in another family's house for 6 months, having the exact same job with no clear job description, and going from an incredible community of friends in Charlotte to 0 friends in Santiago didn't help much either.


Obviously it wasn't all bad, and I'm not trying to be overdramatic.  Just giving the true background.  

So going into those last few months of pre-parental-life, we knew our relationship was about to leap into another huge transition.  This is when we asked you to pray for us.  It's not every day that we can say God answered our prayers exactly the way we wanted Him to.  But this is one of those times, and we want to not only thank God for that, we want to thank every one who took the time to pray for us and our marriage.

Because we have rocked that transition.

It's like, we don't know, something just clicked.  We figured out how to be parents together.  We figured out how to be better coworkers, each individually finding our own roles and relying on each other more.  We have had a lot of outside stresses, but instead of causing tension and division, they have made us a stronger team.  

Fighting the Chilean medical system together

Getting kicked out of our home together and being forced to move.  Again.

Crying together at the airport as we said goodbye to our families

Being those crazy Gringo parents that have weird ways of raising their kid

[Swaddle = "Baby straightjacket" according to Chileans] 

And we have learned so much together...

Raising a kid

Balancing work with family

Running a business effectively

Perfecting "in-house" date nights

Do we always get along?  Of course not.  At the end of the day we are still humans, trying to be more like Jesus, but coming short every time.  We are also very different in a lot of ways, and often don't understand each other :)  And that's ok.  

It has been an amazing year of growth for us as a couple.  Thank you for your love, support, and encouragement to us in this area!

Valentine's Day 2013

Valentine's Day 2014

March Prayer Requests 

1) To find peace and rest in God even though we have so many questions and doubts

2) To find a small group this year

3) Planning Sunday School and House of Hope as the school year begins

For an added bonus, check out Tracey's 30th birthday poem to me that was featured on our friend Laci's blog :)  You can't tell but it's 30 lines, each one added another word until 15 and then back down to 1.  I was impressed!