Well, here’s to our first real update on TheNarwolds.com. I’ll try to be succinct while making sure that you all (friends, extended family…) can get caught up with what’s going on in our lives.
Our Past (Since the wedding)
After the wedding and honeymoon, Rachel and I returned to Shelby, MI, where we finished up my internship at Ao-Wa-Kiya. We were able to stay in a little house all by ourselves, which was a huge blessing so early in our marriage. Rachel was the summer-long photographer at camp, and I was the waterfront director (aka head lifeguard) for most of the summer.
Once camp came to a close, we headed back to Grand Rapids to get our affairs in order and say farewell to our friends and family there. That process actually ended up being a lot less emotional than I had predicted, which was a good thing.
After that, it was off to Colorado, where we lived with my parents for a week while my dad and I refinished the floors of the house we now live in. God was amazing in providing us such a great place to live for such a great price. In fact, the landlady gave us three months free rent for finishing the floors!
Our Present
We are currently (hopefully) at the end of our search for a home church. We have been attending the same church for the past three weeks and are very pleased with the teaching there. We hope that they will be willing to take us under their wing as we prepare for full-time missions, which I will talk more about in a minute.
We are part of an amazing Bible study that is comprised of a bunch of people our age who really have a hunger for the Word. We’ve been making friends there, and felt accepted from the moment we walked in the door. We had a blast yesterday when we got together with them for a night of eating and dancing.
Rachel is employed full-time by Renewal by Andersen (which is a window/door company) as a receptionist. She was blessed to find out that the owners and a majority of the employees are believers.
I am back working with my dad again, laying hardwood floors. I felt a little out of the loop when I came back after a year, trying to get used to a new work truck and a few new methods. But now I am feeling back on top of my game, and enjoying my work.
Our Future
This is the part I have been most excited about. Sometime within the next three to five years, Rachel and I plan to move back to Michigan where I will attend New Tribes Bible Institute (from which she has already graduated). Immediately following that, we plan to go to New Tribes’ Missionary Training Center to complete our training. So within 10 years, we hope to be in a tribe that has never heard the gospel. So far, the longer we stay here in Colorado, saving up money, and getting involved in a local church, the more excited I get about leaving. This definitely feels like my home, and I am more than comfortable here, but I think God is definitely moving in me, and preparing me to leave the state, and then the country to accomplish His will.