The month of August saw us traveling from Idaho to Arizona, to New Jersey, and back to Arizona again. We left Idaho on July 31st and arrived at Ethnos360 Aviation in McNeal, Arizona on Aug 4th, three weeks before the start of orientation. Unfortunately, on July 30th, the day before we left, Becky’s dad (90) fell getting out of the car and hit his head on a stone curb, fracturing some bones in his cheek and suffering bleeding on his brain. The whole time we were driving to Arizona we were in frequent contact with Becky’s family, and the night we arrived we got the call that things weren’t going well and we should come to visit as soon as we could.
We flew out to New Jersey on August 7th and were able to spend four days with Becky’s dad before he passed away at home, on hospice, in the early hours of August 12th. It was a rough week. It was good to be with family. We are so thankful that we were able to get there in time to be with him and able to stay long enough to attend the funeral. We arrived back in Arizona on August 23rd. Nathan started kindergarten on the 24th and we started orientation on the 29th. It was a bit of a whirl-wind, but we are feeling settled in and we saw God’s hand in many things all along the way: enough money left in the budget for the plane tickets, a free apartment for two weeks four houses down from Becky’s parents house, and the timing of everything.
And we’re off!
Travis began his training on September 6th. He will usually be working 7am-4pm Mon-Fri. He will be doing flight training, taking maintenance classes, and doing maintenance work on airplanes and helicopters in the hanger. Becky will have class twice a week for two hours at a time and will also be responsible for flight following one day a week. She hasn’t had the flight following class yet, so we’ll have to tell you more about that in a later newsletter.
All in all, we’ve gotten all of our boxes unpacked and are feeling more settled in. We’ve figured out grocery shopping (20 miles to Walmart!), found a local church, and are learning the ins and out of living here on the Ethnos360 Aviation center.
Pray with us!
How can you be praying for us? It sounds trivial, but we would love it if you would pray for Hannah and Grace to sleep through the night. Our kids have done pretty well with transitions so far, they’re great at making new friends and finding fun things to do, but traveling always seem to send us a step backwards on sleeping, especially for Grace. And related to that, please pray that we would use our time wisely and be disciplined to spend time with the Lord and keep up healthy habits especially on days when we don’t get a lot of sleep.
Thanks for standing with us on this journey!
Travis & Becky
