The Randomness

I am sitting in my mother and father in law's house as I write this blog. I'm curled up in Mama Gayle's comfy chair. I just finished watching Francis Chan talk about joy and the command to rejoice! I found myself examining my own life and how I respond to things. I felt humbled as I sat here and wept over the fact that my name is written in Heaven. When was the last time I rejoiced over that indescribably beautiful fact?

Well, I promised the second half of our life update. Many of you know that Will and I have relocated to Columbia, SC. Will is starting the master's program in clinical counseling at Columbia International University. This is actually his first day, and he's in class right now! I had the immense privilege of going to orientation with Will yesterday. We spend the whole day there learning about the school, the program and various other things. I was very impressed by what I heard, and it left me with a peace.

The following paragraphs will give you a little back story of how we found ourselves here...


Before leaving for Slovakia, we had been discussing what is next for us, and what God might want us to explore. We were having dinner with the Daddy Ron and Mama Gayle (Will's parents) in Columbia in early summer and discussing this very thing. We were aware that our current jobs didn't really have any potential for growth nor did we really feel we were doing things that were our passion? The idea of going back to school came up and Will voiced his interest in counseling. It had always held some appeal to him and we discussed CIU (Columbia International University). We were discussing that when our friend, Stephanie, walked up to our table...

She starts out by telling us what has been going on in her life. The first words out of her mouth are, "Yeah, I've been working at CIU and taking some counseling classes, which has been amazing!". Weird, huh? I mean we hadn't even mentioned what we had been talking about. That was our first nudge from God to pursue this thing.

Will started the application process slowly. It wasn't really until Slovakia or after that he really hit that process hard. He got his references in, wrote his essay and waited to hear back from them. All the while we are recovering from our trip to Slovakia, and the amazing time we had there. We had been praying about missions as a more full time thing, and we found ourselves quite torn. What did God want us to pursue at this time? Slovakia, seminary, some other form of school for Will or myself??

Well, in the midst of this confusion, Will had an interview at CIU on Wednesday (less than 2 weeks ago). We took an overnight trip to Columbia and Will spent the majority of Wednesday taking a personality test and interviewing, while I drove around in the rain and tried to entertain myself. The interview went remarkably well. The head of the counseling department met with Will and was blown away by what he saw in him. He thought he would make an excellent counselor and really wanted him to start fall classes. Mmmm....

We had a lot to discuss. While Will appeared to be a shoe-in, were we ready to make this commitment? Two and a half to three years of school and 2 years of a paid internship. Would the paid internship pay enough? We want to have kids...and don't really want to wait 5 years. We just weren't sure. So, on the drive home from Columbia, Will called our friend Kara, who went through the same program 6 years ago. She was incredibly encouraging, and we found out that you could have a family and live modestly off your intern salary. So that took the process from a five year one to a two and a half year process. So, can we really move to Columbia in less than 2 weeks, we find ourselves asking one another??

Upon returning to Alpharetta, we knew the last step in this was seeing where Will's boss stood on him leaving in a week. She said she didn't want to stand in the way of what God could do. She was completely encouraging and said that there were teachers who wanted more hours that could slide in. It's not natural for either of us to take such a "risk". Our faith was grown in leaps and bounds in the moment where we decided to go in the direction we felt God leading us. Doing what God tells you is never a risk, but as humans we see all of the things that aren't "perfect" about the situation. Because of the speedy nature of this thing, I didn't' have a job upon moving nor did we have a place of our own to live.

We called Will's parents and told them our plan and where we felt God leading us. They opened their home to us and have generously offered financial support. Both Will and I are completely overwhelmed by the love and support we feel.

So, I am on the job hunt, and I know that when God brings that job to us, it will be His perfect timing. I have resumes and applications out there, and I'm looking still. With the help of my beautiful Savior, I will rejoice in this time, knowing He has our best interest in mind.

I'm so completely thrilled for what God is going to do through this time here. Please pray for us. Prays for Will as he starts school again for the first time in 10 years. Pray for me as I look for a job. Pray that God will remain the center of everything we do and that in this time of change, He would remain the constant.



I know this was long, so I thank you for sticking with it. Love you all!

Sarah & Will (I know this is his heart as well)

I'm sitting in our loft after having been gone for 26 days. I can't believe one entire month out of a precious twelve has passed by so quickly. It has been an completely amazing month, however. I will try to recap as briefly as possible.

Will, myself and Katie (one of our amazing college girls) left the country on the 12th of July. We landed in Vienna bright and early on the 13th. Some friends of ours picked us up from the airport and drove us to Bratislava, SK, where Laura was impatiently waiting for our arrival. It was a glorious moment when we saw our Laura bounding from the street and leaping into our arms. Okay, she walked hurriedly and hugged us. It was still glorious! We were re-united with the rest of our team (who came over early to do another camp). We also met Laura's interns for the summer.

We made our way to camp that same day and the train ride was refreshing as we were able to spend quality time with Laura for a few hours (there were also 3 random Slovaks that were in our compartment that we spent some quality time with). Looking back, I'm so grateful for that bit of time we had with Laura because the rest of the trip was so busy and hectic that that was really the only solid time we had.



Onto camp...it was AMAZING! Completely different from last year's in terms of environment and accommodations, etc. Last year we were in a super nice hotel and this year we were roughin it in cabins. We had electricity only part of the day and night. It expired promptly at midnight and hot water wasn't a definite. There were even a multitude of bugs, but camp was AMAZING! Will and I were able to teach a class together. We had 7 incredible english speakers in our advanced class, and we truly enjoyed our mornings playing games and learning english together.










Two sweet girls accepted Christ as their savior and many other conversations were had as Christianity, family, and life were honestly discussed. I was able to share a story from my life one night. The topic was on failure. That was a humbling experience, and I've never really shared something in a group like that before. God spoke through me, and as a result, I was able to have some great talks with some girls at camp.

There are so many other stories I could share from camp. A hike that I was pretty sure I would die on, getting sick in the woods, climbing a tree, eating a sweet pasta with poppy seeds for lunch, holding my own in a football throwing circle with the boys, not holding my own in a frisbee throwing circle, playing raucous games of catch phrase with our class, watching Will kill a giant bee and Andrej inform us that we'd killed the mother ship, Will doing Arnold impressions at the request of our students. And so many more.

After camp we spent a few days in Vienna. Beautiful, gorgeous, elegant, everything you could imaging. We walked like fiends everywhere and treated ourselves to ice cream every night. We met up with two of our girls who were spending a few days there as well. We even saw Harry Potter in an english cinema!









We made it back safe and sound and jet lagged out of our minds. There is much more to catch you up on. I will save that for Part II of our update.

Until then, take care,
Sarah