If you’ve found your way to our blog, congratulations! This is going to be one of our ways of communicating and keeping up with our family and friends to the east. Yeah, I know, Midwest is not the east. But, you are east of us, so you’ll just have to deal with being referred to as “from the east.”
If you are uncertain as to how we ended up in Colorado, buckle up and enjoy the ride...
Just a short four months ago I was working for my dad at a great place called EmbroidMe (I assure you, it’s one word). I helped him start it up just over a couple years ago as a way to put my entrepreneurial studies degree and my love for marketing to good use. It was also a great way to help repay him for all the years he put me through college.
While I was working hard for my dad, Tiffany was in her second year teaching at Windsor High School. We had a wonderful little rental house in South St. Louis City – so close to the brewery you could almost taste it (seriously).
Then, God happened (cheesy enough for you?). Seriously, I was praying and felt the need to pray more about what I ought to be doing. It’s not a knock on my dad’s business. I really enjoyed being creative and innovative in the fast-paced environment. You should hear about his t-shirt printer (technical term: Direct Garment Printer), it’s awesome! In any event, I prayed and felt the need to look for another job opportunity and found what looked like a great opportunity in Colorado Springs for Focus on the Family. I applied for it and heard nothing. Not even the “thanks, but no thanks,” canned response via email. I prayed some more and just got to a humbled point where I just asked God for some feedback. The next day I got an email response from Focus saying that I’d essentially passed their initial screening of resumes. That was an awesome answer to prayer. I didn’t expect anything more after that. I could have not even gotten a call for an interview at that point. Luckily, though, they did call and I had 4 phone interviews in one week. Tiffany and I prayed before and throughout the processes and we saw God give me the confidence and the words to answer the barrage of questions. The following week they called to set up an in-person interview in Colorado Springs. They flew me out, and I had 7 consecutive, 30-minute interviews (six of which were in a windowless conference room). Luckily, one of the interviewers, about half-way through, brought me water (it’s extremely dry up here, so it was much-needed). After taking me out to lunch they said they’d be in touch to let me know of the next steps (as if there could be more). Well, less than an hour later (I was in our hotel room, still in my suit), they called and offered me the job. I later found out that they normally don’t work that fast when it comes to hiring and that typically it takes months. This was another sign to us that God was leading us out west.
So, naturally, I accepted (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this blog about being in Colorado). That gave us less than a month to pack up all of our possessions, load them on a truck and get out here. Luckily, God was faithful in helping us get this done. We were able to stay in a friend’s apartment for a month – free of rent – so housing was temporarily taken care of. We had great friends and family to help us pack and clean our house and load the truck (and teaching me how to secure a car to a truck trailer).
The drive out was interesting. I know, Kansas is terrible, but what kept it interesting was making sure all of our earthly possessions were right behind my driver’s seat – including Tiffany’s car swaying back and forth on the trailer in those Great Plains cross-winds. That, and making fun of our drugged cats (hey, you try traveling with two cats in a crate hearing them meow for 12 hours), making one over-night stay at a great friend’s house complete with home cooking (we didn’t eat much that week of packing, and when we did, it was fast/junk food) kept the trip from getting too boring.
Wonderfully, and mercifully, we made it to Colorado in one piece. As you can see from this picture, Tiffany was extremely excited to make it (note: that’s our truck in the background).
Next blog entry I’ll try to catch everybody up on the last three-plus months.
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