Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Before the Throne of God

When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there who made an end of all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me. I am working on playing this song this week, we have started to attend our friends the Renslow's church family which meets in each others homes and I have been playing music each week for some musical praise. We have had a lot of things to praise God for over the last two months. I have found a job at a flight school in Winston-Salem which wasn't even looking for help. It can only be attributed to God; I still have no idea why the owner magically decided to take on more help. I am helping out in management and special projects, and instructing any students I can find. We are definitely struggling financially sometimes makes it hard to have faith in God. I thought about the opposite though; which is might be worse. When you have everything you need with no financial problems, you stop relying on God for daily needs. I would rather be struggling with faith than have a complete absence of the need for it. Katy has been working hard at Old Navy putting in a lot of hours, and I have been doing anything I can at the flight school to make some money including washing planes and office work. We are barely paying bills, but I am glad to be finally on a track towards what we believe is our mission from God. I am doing excellent in my classes and only have a couple more weeks of this semester. I am registered for spring semester, but do not know how I am going to pay for it. It will be around $700 plus books. Please pray for God to deliver us some assistance. We believe God is in control of every aspect of our life and ultimately all the money is His. I thank God Katy and I have not been sick so far this year, and I have been able to attend every day of class. I have also been working one third shift at Harris Teeter for some extra income. Please pray for Katy and me to grow more spiritually together and to pray more; pray that Katy would find a job that would be more set hours, better pay, and benefits. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. I would love to be able to take my bibles classes I need soon, and get some more flight training in for my experience, tailwheel and seaplane. Please pray for us to continue to do God’s will whether it be a huge miracle pay off of our loans, or a good job to get us debt free after I finish my A&P. I have been envisioning some sort of organization to help promote missionary aviation to younger pilots from middle to college age, and possibly somewhat into the training aspect of it. I am asking God to help me decipher my vision. I think it would be beneficial for making disciple of all nations and spreading the gospel. Please pray for my family and God’s hand in their lives.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

"Consider it pure joy,...

my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4

We officially have overcome may trials(with many more to come, I'm sure of it). With this verse in mind, it has helped to keep us strong. Pure joy, there has been a lot of joy lately. :) These past few weeks have brought up a different type of joy. Michael and I both started our first day(s) of our new jobs! Michael is working for Harris Teeter(a grocery store close to us), and I am working at Old Navy. They are both part time jobs, but we are so blessed and excited to see how God uses us at our new jobs. We have also moved into an apartment on the west side of Greensboro, woo hoo!!! (pictures to come soon after we get things set up) Our new home is just around the corner from the family that we have been living with, so we'll still be close to them :).
The weeks before the jobs was very trying on our patience. There were so many days where all I had to do was to search on the internet for jobs. I'm sure that I applied to close to 100 jobs. Michael and I are still hoping for me to get a full time job, but we know that where we are at right now is where God wants us to be. I'm so excited to see what God is going to do.
I want to thank you all for keeping up with us and praying for us as we go through this journey. I hope that we may encourage you to step out on faith and listen to God.

~Katy

P.S. We don't have internet at our new home for the time being, so we will try our best to keep you all updated on how things are going.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Getting Established

I dont know what else to call this blog, but that's probably not worth my time thinking about it. So it has been quite a while since we last posted, hopefully the only time we wait this long to update. We have made our move to North Carolina; we are currently staying with a family who are friends of Katy's family during the week and we have been going back to Charlotte on the weekends to my Mom's house. I am attending school at GTCC (Guilford Tech) and I am already on my third week of classes. My classes are split up into separate subjects as they relate to the General Course for Maintenance school. I have finished up the first subject which is called Forms and Records (all the paperwork associated with being an Aircraft Mechanic); I have made a perfect grade (100) on all my work and tests so far. I have made a lot of friends in my class, and have been probably been deemed "Mr. Valedictorian" of my program. It is definitely a strange fit to attend community college after already graduating from a 4 year university, but I do enjoy the diversity of the class. I have even learned how to solve the Rubix Cube during our lunch break (one of the classes only creative escapes that we have had). Pretty nerdy, I know.
We really have put ourselves in a position to totally depend on God. We have received many blessing thus far, from friends and family supporting us and we Thank you all immensely. I have started to see some light shining on job possibilities which has probably been the toughest part about the move. I have always left one job for another, but I have never left a job to the unknown especially moving somewhere foreign and trying to find a job. I have made connections at the college and have been put on as a part time simulator instructor. It is more of a sporatic on call position, but we will see how it pans out. It is definitely a foot in the door for future openings at the college. Just today, I had my first official interview, and I will most likely taking a job at a local grocery store chain. I have a couple of leads on Flight Instructor positions, but it is definitely a tough field to get into when you need a position in a specific location. There is definitely some possible openings in the future. Please pray that Katy and I might find the right job position. We are trying to get into an apartment very soon, we are still waiting out the best deal and trying to figure out how our finances will align with that. Please pray for our continued dependence on God, and opportunities to develop relationships for the sake of the Gospel.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

"Take nothing for your journey...

neither a staff, not a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that city. And as for those who do not receive you, as you go out from that city, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony to them." Luke 9:3-5
This is what Jesus said to his disciples when he sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to perform healing. I listened to a sermon by Matt Chandler today about this chapter, and he was talking from Jesus's perspective - Here are the rules I'm sending you out to cast out demons, and heal diseases, and proclaim the Kingdom, but you can't bring anything with you, no snack, cell phone nothing with you. And he was saying how if a town is not receiving you, I'm guessing you're not getting a sandwich from them, or a place to stay, and with no extra blanket, or jacket, etc. I want you to have the faith to leave everything behind and do the Lord's will. I feel like this move is a huge step of faith, lots of uncertainties and me not being in control of everything which is a very good, but scary thing. I told Katy a couple months ago, that I felt like we needed to get ready and start living like we could drop everything and go in a moments notice; and here the time has come. I have been looking towards missions aviation for about four years now since I finished up college and God really moved in my life towards His purposes. I have been actively considering going to school for maintenance for about two years, and being heavily involved in trying to do it here in Birmingham, for about a year. Now the time has come, and I don't want to put my hand to the plow and look back.

Katy and I are well on our way to making our move to Greensboro, NC so that I can attend aircraft maintenance school. Some things to report, and to praise God for, I have been accepted to the school, and I am able to pay in-state tuition which is extremely reasonable for a program like this one. We are still in the works with our apartment here in Birmingham, but we've had some people come look at it, and we had one guy come today who took an application. Please pray that He will be the one to take our apartment or that God will send another. We are planning for a yard sale this weekend and need to pray for clear skies and lots of attendance.

School starts August 17th for me, and I have two weeks left working in Birmingham. Please pray for jobs for Katy and some work for me that I can do outside of class hours. Something on my mind tonight was to pray for other missionary aviation students in my class this Fall that I can connect with and share interests with, and even non-believers that are there for a regular career path that I can show them what is on my heart and why I am in maintenance school. I also pray for a Church family for Katy and I, and for friends that we can grow with in Christ, hopefully a cool young married couples group like we have here in Birmingham. We had bible study tonight at Branch Life Church, and I learned to pray expectantly, God will work through our prayers.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?...

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, " How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" ROMANS 10:14-15

Michael and I have begun our journey towards missionary aviation. We've been married and in Birmingham for a little over 3 months now and it seemed that we were just waiting for God to do something. But in reality it is God who calls us to do something. Michael has been working at Birmingham Flight Center as a pilot and as an aircraft mechanic apprentice, so that he could get his license and eventually join a missionary organization and do missionary aviation. It was this past saturday that we realized that we were waiting on God, but isin't it truly God who is waiting on us? We began brainstorming about what we need to do to be working towards our passion of missionary aviation. After prayer and much talk we've decided that Michael going to school to get his aircraft mechanic license was the right answer. This involves leaving my job and finding a new one, looking for someone to sub-lease our apartment, finding a new home, and getting together prayer support and financial support; all of this to eventually move somewhere to go to school.

After weighing our options, it looks like Guilford Technical Community College is going to be our best choice. It is in Greensboro, NC, which is close to Michael's side of the family. The part where family was going to be close is what sold us. Our family is very important to us. Since we have been called into full time ministry, we want to spend as much time with them as possible before we're off in a foreign country.

Right now it all starts with preparing to move towards Greensboro, NC. Today, Michael is registering for classes, which begin on August 17th (in like 4 weeks)! He is in Florida right now and will be talking to the school and trying to rush everything so that he can get morning classes. If he gets morning classes he could still possibly get a job as a flight instructor there too!

Last night I told the youth at Brook Hills that we are moving. It was so tough, I wish Michael had been there, but he was working in FL. I pray that the students heard clearly and that God left an impression on their heart. They all prayed for us, it was so encouraging. I'm going to have a hard time leaving that group of students. We will definitely plan on coming back to visit. :)

Keep us in your prayers!

~Katy