He is risen....He is risen, indeed!

Happy Easter! Easter in Portland is definitely different than most Easter's I remember in Colorado. We woke up this morning to a cold rainy day, i.e. the usual drizzle. But, by the time we arrived at church to do our 'greeting' duty it was really coming down. Quite different than the sunny days of Colorado. Part of the reason I mention this is because this week is 'Spring Vacation' for me at school. They don't call it spring break, because really there is no break in grad school. They just give you a vacation from classes and assign extra homework. The forecast, for my wonderful spring vacation, is pouring rain all week. Oh well, I will probably be inside reading the entire time anyway. I just need to think of it as a fellow Mosaic-ite said today "Rain is just liquid sunshine."

March Madness has been exciting (for those of you who are not into basketball). Life has been so busy lately; as most of you can tell by checking the date of our last post. Thus, I did not get a chance to really watch the last few weeks of basketball and really get an idea of what teams were good and could go the distance. I went ahead and filled out my bracket because I am in a pool with Callie's family and with my family. Needless to say, I have already lost in my family's pool, and am pretty far behind in Callie's family's pool with my only hope being Kansas winning it all. Despite my losses, it is still exciting to watch the tourney because anyone can win anyday if they come to play. Who would have thought that 2 #2 seeds would be out of the tourney already.

There has been a lot of change going on in Callie's life and mine. Since we last posted, Callie was notified at work that the family she is currently nannying for is going to go down to part time. The mom has decided that she wants to work from home more and spend a few more days with Mo. This is an extremely exciting thing yet a bummer for us. We are so excited that the mom wants to be with her child, but we were hoping that this job was going to be long-term. Thus, Callie is on the job hunt again for a full-time nannying job. We recently also found out that the family that Callie originally nannyed for once we got here to Portland may be looking for a full-time nanny starting in mid-August. Thus, if Callie could find a summer nannying job, then she could go back and nanny for Addy. We'll see what works itself out in the next month or so. We need to find this full-time job by May, so keep us in your prayers.

As for me, I found out this past week that my boss and other 'ministry degrees' enrollment counselor has taken a position full-time at his church. Which again is really exciting for him, but it means change for us at work. We are going to need to hire another person to fill his spot. The nature of my job is always going to be change because all of us are students, but it's tough to have positions changing all the time. Plus, Dave was a great spiritual leader and will be missed. Thus, it looks like I am the 'veteran' on the team now. Out of the 4 enrollment counselors that we have I have been there the longest with 8 months. The other tough part that we've been having to deal with is that Western is growing a lot and unfortunately we have not been able to keep up with the growth. I feel quite overwhelmed sometimes with how many people I am trying to connect with and answer their questions about the school. The good thing about all of this though is that my hours will be increasing to 25 a week which will provide for us a little more money. Thank God for that. I was hoping to go to 30 hours starting July if we were able to add more hours into next years budget and I was going to decrease a few hours at school, but since all of this is happening now, we will not be adding hours at budget time and I have to take on 25 hours starting next week while doing 11 credit hours. I still think I can manage but I could use your prayers for this as well.

So that is life in a nutshell. A lot going on and change around every corner. We trust in the Lord that he has a plan for us because he did call us out here and has given great evidence for that. We trust that Jesus is alive and working in this world as well! Thus in times that are tough we can know that we have a great high priest that understands. Thanks be to Jesus for his wonderful gift that he gave for us! One thing is for sure, we will praise him during the sunny days and during the rainy, cloudy days. Sorry for the late post...we hope to keep you updated a little more often from here on out. But, I am saying hopefully...

One last note...this blog is for you Kyle! SEE, I blog!