Now that Jo and the kids are back with me in Vegas and the nightmare of immigration is over, we find ourselves facing new challenges. First, there is the search for a house. Second, there is work and schooling for the kids. Third, there is readjusting to life together and life in Vegas. Finally, there is the anticipation of what the future holds.
The house hunting has been fun. Our family loves it (although Kyle hates it, but hey, four out of five is still a majority). We have seen 20 or 30 houses over the past two weeks and have finally put an offer on one that we all love. It would be nice to be in before Christmas, but we won't hold our breaths. However, we would rather not stay in the condo any longer than necessary. Last night our neighbor informed us that we are all "far too loud" when we climb the stairs to the condo. What ya gonna do? We don't tiptoe. My sons are big guys. We've been moving in for the last few days. It can be loud. We respect the 10 o'clock noise curfew. Bottom line, the sooner we get into the house, the better.
Schooling has not been so fun. The high school Braden was zoned for (which shall remain anonymous) was less than helpful. Granted, he was out of school for almost three weeks while we did all the immigration interviews and medical exams and flew and drove back and forth across Canada and then drove down to Vegas, but they seemed very inflexible when it came to extenuating circumstances. In the end we enrolled him in CCSD's Nevada Learning Center on-line education program and registered him today. It actually looks really cool and the counselors and registrars were friendly and helpful. Now we turn our attention to getting Kyle and Skye into UNLV and also finding them part time jobs. Of course, they need their Green Cards before they can do that, and as of today, those wonderfully illusive cards are still "in the mail."
All of this is part of the readjustment phase of our journey. We've been apart for 14 months. I just want to spend all of my time at the (tiny) condo with my family but I have to work. Jo is back to work as well (she works through the internet so can work from South America if she needed to). Yet we still have lots of little things to do all the time so we both feel like we've been slacking from work this week. Last night we finally went to Starbucks together and sat outside around a big table and had coffee together as a family and just enjoyed seeing the strip lit up in the dark and the fact that it was still 75 degrees. Moments like that are helping us to readjust.
Now that we are all here, we can begin to think seriously about the future; about our future; about ministry and life and goals and values. This is perhaps the most exciting part of all of this. My wife and I have always been a team. We do life together. When we left the SDA organization we did it together. We both knew exactly why we were leaving and neither one of us had any doubts. It is the same now. We are both excited by the potential of the next phase in ministry but we want to do it together, to be on the same page, to create or lead something that we both believe in, that we both feel best represents our values, goals and beliefs, that we would be willing to die for.
In the mean time, we continue to study, to pray, to search, to dream, to move forward as God shows us the road.
