More to Say

When we lived in Washington, I was on and led the council of our church.  My time and effort were deeply entrenched in the leadership and operations.  I was a decision maker, teacher, arbitrator, mentor, occasional preacher, and full-time referee.  All of these things were good.  There are no negative things to say about that church.  I love the congregation and they love Jesus.

Ten months ago, my job moved my family to South Texas.  Our family found a great church in our neighborhood that loves Jesus and is growing.  We attend... mostly.  I volunteer... kinda.  We're committed to the community of believers... unless something comes up.  Personally, I've just become more of a back-seat participator our new church - enjoying my view from the cheap seats.

During these last 10 months, I've struggled with my relationship with Jesus and my opinions on the local church. Since leaving WA and getting to TX, I've suffered through the following:

1. Burn Out: Critical emails. Angry phone calls.  Passive/aggressive gossip. Back-handed compliments. Hollow praise. Leaving leadership in many ways felt like a great relief.  No one was sizing up my every move and trying to tackle me in the aisles of the grocery store.  The burden of leadership is heavy and being released from it felt like a relief.

2. Apathy: As the old saying goes, "No one wants to see how the sausage is made."  Once you know all the gory details, you can lose your appetite.   This is very true in church leadership.  You have all the makings of a firestorm if you want one - social cliques, employee relations, financial complexity, and facility maintenance (just the tip of the iceberg).  It was easy to forget the "why" when focusing on the "how".  I lost my appetite for community once I saw everything that could (and did) go wrong.

3. Laziness: Nothing complicated here.  I just didn't want to put out any effort.  My brain likes to disguise and justify this one as "freedom".  I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it.

4. Selfishness: The clergiosity words here would be pride and/or conceit.  The more I stay out of community, the more I am right all the time.  And my time belongs to me.  I am accountable to no one.  I can do whatever I want and no one calls me out on it.  Acting like I know best is one of the things I am best at doing.  I probably need to repent just for writing that last sentence.

I recently read an article that convicted me greatly about my relationship with the church. If you've never been in church leadership, it may be a bit foreign to you.  If you HAVE been in church leadership, it will nail you right in the heart.

The book of Hebrews speaks to group of people to reaffirm and clarify many things they already believe.  It ties together the Old Testament scriptures to a modern faith and establishes Jesus as the one and only true God.  In the 13th and final chapter of Hebrews, the author sums up the many points of the book and it speaks volumes to me in this season of my life.

Hebrews 13
v.1 "Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters." - It doesn't matter how I feel about community or the church.  The term "loving" here is a call to action, not a feeling.  Get off the couch, clear the schedule, re-prioritize the priorities, and move out!

v.4-5 "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'" - Speaking of re-prioritizing! I will focus on my most important personal relationships and be content in my blessings. Being discontent is root of nearly every sin I have ever committed.

v.7 "Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith." - I cannot count the number of leaders that have spoken Godly truth into my life and provided righteous examples for me to follow.  This speaks to me as an unspoken accountability.  I am accountable to all those that know I can do better - and have told and shown me how to do it.

v.9 "Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings." - The cow that eats onions will have milk that tastes like onions.  My eyes and my ears consume all day long.  My life will be a reflection of what I consume.

v.13 "For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come." - My pastor and mentor in WA used to tell me (and everyone) all the time: "Keep the main thing the main thing." In the big picture of community and the church and leadership, it is all fleeting.  We are here to worship Jesus, introduce others to Jesus, and grow closer in our relationship with Jesus. The focus is eternal.  It's bigger than the latest catastrophe or situation.

Doug 

 

Overdue Update!

I keep meaning to hop on here and write and update and always think....tomorrow....I will do it tomorrow....Well, 4 months worth of tomorrows have gone by and here I am:-) I am anxiously awaiting the start of the Seahawks Super Bowl game and could think of nothing better to do than write about whats been going on around here. Let's start with the kids. Bekah is doing very well. She is getting straight A's in 3rd grade and is a part of her yearbook club at school. She has made a couple of friends at school that she likes to hang out with, but definitely no one who compares with her BFF's back in Yelm. Those friends still hold her heart. She has been playing basketball and is excited about fastpitch season starting soon. JD is becoming a young man right before my very eyes. He has adjusted to the craziness of intermediate school and is making A's & B's. No clubs at school for him, but he is on a fantastic league basketball team that is currently undefeated. They have invited him to be a part of their AAU tournament team, The Hill Country Hawks, and he is excited to start that soon. Bethany is doing so well academically and socially. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this move has been fantastic for her. The schools offer so many more things that are up her alley and she has found people that she has things in common with. It's been very fun to watch her grow into a teenager. She is all registered for high school and she is hoping to be in the International Baccalaureate program. Doug's job, which is of course the reason we came down here, is going very well. He has come to be a leader in his group. He has to wear a tie everyday, which is very different, but he looks so nice:-) Right now his job has taken him to Korea for 2 weeks. We knew travel would be part of this position and I am so excited for the experiences it will offer him! As a lot of you know, I began a new adventure of working full time in the office of an elementary school in January. I haven't worked a full time job since Bethany was born, 13 years ago, and it has been quite an adjustment. I really do enjoy it and I'm loving the independence I'm already seeing in the kids. They are packing their lunches at night, getting themselves up in the mornings and making their own breakfasts. The best part of being at a school is that I'll have all their same vacations, so I really feel like I get the best of both worlds! I am not at Bekah's current elementary school, but she has said that she would like to come to my school next year, so that will be fun. The house is definitely coming along. I continue to feel so blessed to have such a beautiful home. It isn't quite what we imagined as far as having more space outside, but it's more than we could have imagined on the inside. So far we've been able to host Doug's dad and my mom and are looking forward to having Doug's mom and stepdad come in a couple weeks. We have lots of space for visitors, so just remember that our door is always open! As with any move, some things have been hard. The biggest thing for me is my nutrition and fitness. As a lot of you know, last year I made a huge leap in my personal nutrition and fitness and by July was in the best shape of my life. I had decided that I wanted to become a personal trainer and that is still a life goal that I have. Moving here, I still have yet to find my routine for working out. It might seem crazy, but it is a big point of sadness for me . I am absolutely determined to get back on track!!! I will have to keep you updated:-) We continue to miss our friends and family back in Washington tremendously!!! We love you all!!!

Chugging along

It's been quite an amazing three weeks for the Enfield family. I continue to drive around in shock that we are here. I keep thinking that at any minute I'm going to pull into my driveway in Yelm, go up to Fort Stevens or Crossroads or Bootcamp and go into Walmart or Safeway and see about 50 people that I know. I am getting used to the walmart here and the grocery store. The H.E.B. is quite different from my Winco, but it's not bad. Driving around is also improving. I'm able to get to the grocery store, the kids' schools, the main shopping area and the YMCA without needing my GPS. Oh, and the Starbucks! Although the Starbucks here is INSANE! It is always super crowded. It's probably because it's the only one within several miles, so people come in droves. It's definitely different to drive around and not have a little coffee stand on every corner, but that's probably better for my wallet and my waist line. We closed on the house a week ago today. We are so happy that we were able to close a week earlier than expected so we could get into the house, have lots of space, and be in our neighborhood. Speaking of space, we have lots! The house is twice the size of our Yelm house, and right now we have almost no furniture. The delivery for our stuff is scheduled for Sept. 30th, so we are making due until then. We have been on Craigslist and have purchased guest room furniture, a couch set for the bonus room and we have also purchased Bethany her own queen bed. So, those areas have some furniture:-) As you can imagine, JD is loving all the space to run around in the house and Bekah is doing lots of cart wheels and we keep reminding them that at some point we will have furniture, so don't get used to it. As far as activities, we are jumping right in. JD's baseball team, The Cibolo Curve, has their first fall tournament this weekend. We are looking forward to that. Bekah is also enjoying the Volleyball team. Bethany is thriving with all of the activities at her school. She is getting super involved, which makes us so proud. She just jumped right in. She has joined student council and is working with them at the home football game concessions. She is also auditioning for the first (of 4) school theater production. She is adjusting well to the larger work load and is loving having her own room to go to for her homework time. I finally get to start work on Monday!! I am really in need of some routine and this will definitely help. I am not in a good workout routine right now, haven't figured out a house cleaning routine or chores for the kids, and I'm finding myself just wandering around the house wondering what to do. So, I think starting Monday I will be able to put myself into a routine knowing that I have a time that I have to be at work. I am going to be a lunchroom monitor at one of the elementary schools here. The hours are so perfect! I was so concerned that I wasn't going to be able to find something like ABC academy and the fact that I was able to come and get my foot right in the door at the school district is such a huge blessing. I will be working from 10:45 to 2:30 everyday, so that gives me plenty of time to get my workouts done in the morning and any errands done in the afternoons. Bekah is set up to start riding the bus starting on Monday and , once we have our things, Bethany and JD will start riding their bikes. I also can't wait to start decorating the house. We really need our stuff here for that so we can see exactly where the furniture will go and where the pictures and other wall art we have will go. After that I can start figuring out if I want to paint and what we still need to get. With the items that we've purchased off craigslist I feel like we are off to a good start. Like I said, we already have guest room furniture, so feel free to come and visit:-) I think that's about it for now. We are all doing well, but we definitely are missing everyone a lot! We went to Bekah's open house at her school last night and it definitely made me a bit sad because I didn't know anyone! We do have our tickets purchased for Christmas, so we look forward to seeing as many of you as we can!

Week One Done

Well, we've been in Texas for a whole week now as a whole family. Doug and I continue to look around in shock that we are actually here. The scenery down here is so different than that of the PNW. The trees are different, the ground is different, the sunsets look different, and the bugs and creatures are definitely different. Both Texas and Washington are beautiful, but definitely in different ways. So, here is a recap of our first week here. Monday was of course Labor Day and Tuesday was a busy day. We came out to the lake to set up the trailer, did some driving around and took the kids to the new house. The realtor met us at the new house so the kids were able to see inside. They of course ran straight upstairs to claim which room they wanted. There was no arguing, which was nice, and they all decided pretty quickly. Bethany claimed the largest of the 3 bedrooms, although all the rooms are fairly nice in size. The girls both ended up with small walk-in closets, which will suit them nicely. JD ended up with the middle room with the regular closet, but there is plenty of room for him to run around and play his nerf basketball in there. Tuesday was a fairly busy day for me. I started the day by registering Bekah at her new school. It was so weird working with any school other than Fort Stevens or YMS, but they were very nice. After an hours worth of paperwork she was all set and ready to go for Wednesday to be her first day. I then went to the district office for my interview for a part time position with the school district, which I did get. Yay! Hoping to start next week. After that I went and repeated the same lengthy paperwork process at JD's school and then tried to get Bethany registered, but they have a deadline of 10am, so she would start on Wednesday morning after we dropped the other 2 off. After that, Doug and I took the kids to buy school supplies. I will definitely advise anyone needing school supplies to not wait until 2 weeks after school starts. It was nearly impossible to find everything they needed. Wednesday was definitely bitter-sweet. It was so exciting for the kids to start their new schools, but it also made us miss the familiarity of our Yelm routine. The kids handled the first day at a different school fantastically. We were so proud of them! They all came home that afternoon full of excitement about what this year will bring. There are many differences about the schools here. First of all, the Elementary school has a very smooth, safe and coordinated pick-up and drop off. When you go to drop off in the morning you get in the car line and the line keeps moving. As you move to the sidewalk area, there is someone standing there to open your car door and let your child out. They then close the door and you are expected to keep moving! Long gone are the days of the crazy Fort Stevens drop off where cars are parked, parents sit there and watch their kids walk in and other cars are cutting in line. Then, in the afternoon, you have a bright orange card with your childs name on it, as you pull through the line someone with a walkie-talkie calls your childs name to someone in the building and then as you get to the sidewalk someone is walking your child out of the school, opens your door, lets your child in, closes the door and then, again, you keep moving! So weird, but it works! JD is in an intermediate school for 5th and 6th graders. He is changing classes just like middle school, which is so strange. Thinking of him having 6 different teachers is very overwhelming for me, but so far he is handling it ok. We will be having a 504 meeting sometime soon so we can discuss any modifications he may need, but I am excited to see how this schedule will allow him to grow. Bethany's school is HUGE! It is only 7th and 8th graders but has 1100 students! She is very excited about all of the club opportunities and all the different classes they offer. She is in a theater arts class that will have 4 productions over the year and she will get high school credit. So exciting! The biggest struggle for her is how intense it is. So much more is expected of the students out here to include things like actual grading of homework. If you miss questions on your homework it will affect your grade. Once she has all of that figured out, she will do great! Well, that's all I will bore you with today. We are adjusting well, we just can't wait to get into our house! I will write more next week:-)

Big Changes

I’ve been trying to find time over the last couple of weeks to sit and write a blog post, but time has flown by. I can’t even believe the whirlwind of events that have taken place since mid-July. On July 18th Doug and I flew down for our trip to Vegas not knowing that we would be returning to Yelm with big news and big changes. That Monday we received the call that we had been expecting for over a year, that Doug was being offered the position at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. We’ve been anticipating him getting this position for quite some time, but had honestly gotten to the point where we were moving on with our lives in Yelm. I know to some, this move came as a big surprise. People have been shocked and have said that it all happened too fast. For us, this move has been on our minds for 3 years. It all started when we spent the summer down in San Antonio 3 years ago. It was then that we even began to consider living anywhere other than Washington. We felt at home in Texas. We loved the people, the culture, and the activities and yes, even the weather. Well, maybe Doug didn’t love the weather, but the rest of us really enjoyed lots of pool time and lots of sunshine. Doug also loved being at headquarters. He loved the challenge that came with being there and loved thinking about all he could accomplish there if given the opportunity. To go back to getting back from our trip to Vegas….we immediately jumped right into the moving process. First on the list was telling the kids. Then we started telling friends and family. We also started tying up loose ends with all of our commitments. Most of you as our friends and family know that we are so involved in so many areas of our lives and ending all of those commitments has been difficult. We said goodbye to the Enfield clan, which was very hard. We have also been getting our house ready for new people to live there and went on a house hunting trip to find our new home. This last week we had packers and movers in and out of our home and we have said more goodbyes than we can even count. There is so much we are going to miss about our lives in Washington. We are going to miss our family. Having our kids grow up with so many aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents has been such a blessing. They are better people because of all of you! We are going to miss our friends, who we also consider family. You have all loved us and supported us and have helped our children to have such wonderful lives. We are going to miss having cows in our backyard and living in a town with only 5 stop lights. We are going to miss going into Walmart or Safeway and always seeing someone we know. We are going to miss our baseball, fastpitch and basketball teams. We are going to miss Crossroads and all of our church family there. We will miss seeing Mt. Rainier all the time and we will probably even miss the rain. We are going to miss our house. That house has been an amazing home for us over the last 10 years. We have made so many memories there. The children have grown up there, we hosted small group there, numerous parties and get togethers and of course had the annual 3rd of July party. Saying goodbye to the house was hard, but as I reminded the kids, the house is only sticks and wood and paint, what matters most is the memories we made there and those we take with us. As long as we are together as a family, that is what counts. With all of that said my favorite thing to say this last week was I’m so ready to stop saying goodbye and start saying hello! We are getting ready to say hello to so many new wonderful people and things. We are looking forward to a new neighborhood with new neighbors and a pool! We are looking forward to learning more about our new church and making friends there. We are looking forward to exploring a new area and learning what it’s like to live in a city. We are looking forward to what living in a city will offer the kids as far as sports and theater and swimming and other fun extracurricular activities. We are looking forward to LOTS of sun. We are looking forward to finding fun new hang out places and finding our new favorite shopping areas. We are looking forward to making so many new memories in a fabulous new place. In closing I want to say that our home is always open! I know that this move has been hard on us and I know that it’s also been hard on those we love. There is an open invitation to anyone who wants to come and visit. Our lives would never have been the same without all of you and we would love to see you again!

On the road again...

Time to dust off this Blog again.  I think everyone knows by now that we are leaving the Pacific Northwest and heading out for Texas!  I got a job opportunity and we decided that this was the right move for our family.  Over the last month we have cleaned and gutted (furniture) to our Yelm home.  We have renters moving in shortly.  We flew down to San Antonio and bought a house in Cibolo, TX.  The packers are at our house right now shoving all our wordly possesions into boxes as I write this.  My wife and kids will be flying down there and staying with friends until I get there.  I will be driving the truck and travel trailer down there with the dog.  LONG trip, but this is really the best way to do it.  More to come through our adventures!

Adventures on the mountain

Well, I wanted to be able to get in all the details, so figured I would hop on here instead of doing just a regular facebook post. Most good stories start with "it was a dark and stormy night....". This story doesn't start this way, but pretty much ended up that way. We have been planning and waiting for our first trip out in our new trailer since the day we bought it. The whole family has been so excited. We planned our first trip out to go to Leavenworth,WA. For those of you not from here, it's a small Bavarian village located in the mountains. It's beautiful! Every weekend during December they have a tree lighting festival where the whole village lights up with Christmas lights. We've never been for it and were really excited to go. We found a cute little RV park right in town, made our reservations and made our plans. The first part of this adventure is that Bekah started not feeling well on Wednesday night. All of a sudden she was complaining of her head hurting and throat hurting. Thursday morning wasn't much better, so we both stayed home from school and pre-school. Since we were heading out of town the next day I decided to take her to the doctor. So glad I did because she was diagnosed with strep throat. She continued to get worse throughout the day but we started her on the antibiotics and alternating Tylenol and Advil. By Friday morning she was feeling quite a bit better. Thank goodness! So Doug and I continued to pack everything into the trailer and make our preparations. Bethany got home from school at 2 and we picked up JD early and left Yelm around 3:30. We headed north on I-5, hit highway 18 and headed towards I-90 to go over Snoqualmie pass. Snoqualmie pass was no problem, clear and dry! Doug and I had been checking the pass reports most of the week so we figured we would have no problems! After Snoqualmie we headed towards 97 north to Blewett pass. As we start heading up Blewett the snow really started coming down. This was very unexpected. I called Jeff and Angela to see how the pass was a couple hours earlier when they had gone over it and they said it was fine! Definitely not the experience we were having. We were skidding, losing traction, seeing cars spun out everywhere. We pulled over to the scene of an accident where there were a few firetrucks and police cars. Doug got out to ask what they thought about us making it up. The policeman told us to keep going up, just go carefully and slowly. So we did. We made it up a couple more miles.All of a sudden our truck wouldn't go forward anymore. We were completely losing traction. Doug again pulled over and we realized that we were stuck. Doug hopped out into the 2 degree snowy windy weather, turned the heat on in the trailer and told the kids and I to get in there. We were just in there and trying to start coming up with a plan when there was a knock on the door. A very nice man named Bill had stopped to see if we needed help. Bill and Doug had found that we blew a tire on the trailer and that was probably why we lost traction. For the next hour Doug and Bill tried to change the tire, but had no luck. Apparently the tire jack used on a trailer is a different size than a car, which we know now:-) Bill said good luck and was on his way. While they were trying to fix the tire I was in the trailer trying to call 911 with spotty cell coverage. They transferred me to state patrol and the guy I spoke with on the phone didn't seem like there was anything they were going to be able to do. So, we decided to unhook the trailer, leave it, and head over the pass with just the truck. The plan at this point was to get the kids and I somewhere safe, Doug was going to get what he needed to fix the tire and chains for the truck tires and go back and get it. We got about 3 miles up the road and our phone rang. It was state patrol. They were at the trailer and said they could help change the tire, so we turned back around and went back to the trailer. The kids and I stayed in the truck while Doug and the very nice state patrol officer changed the tire. After the tire was changed,and the trailer was hooked back to the truck we tried to get moving. At this point it had probably snowed more than 6 inches in an hour and no matter how hard Doug pushed on the gas the truck/trailer combo wasn't moving. It wasn't looking very good. It was by the total Grace of God that at that exact moment a guy named Chris was driving over the pass. He immediately pulled over and offered to tow us to the top of the summit. He had straps and strapped our rig up to his truck and pulled us out of the snow and up to the top of Blewett pass. When we reached the top of the summit we disconnected the straps and offered to follow us all the way down the mountain to Leavenworth. We rolled into the RV park around 11pm, about 4 hours later than we had anticipated, tired, hungry and cold. This story has taught us many lessons. Our first lesson is that if we are going to do winter camping it will be on our own side of the mountains! The biggest lesson is how we can serve and sacrifice for those around us. Bill and Chris didn't need to stop and help us, but they did. They didn't need to spend time out in the snowy stormy weather, but they did.They didn't do this for reward, but they did it to help a family in need. Such an amazing example. Overall, we are very happy with how the kids handled this whole ordeal. They behaved and didn't get whiny. We ended up having a great time in Leavenworth and took the LONG way home. We went south east to completely avoid Blewett pass. We can't wait for our next camping adventure as long as it's a warm fun one:-)