The Start of Something New

Hello, friends and family! I know that this post has probably been long awaited, and we are thankful for your patience. :-) Needless to say, lots and lots of big and insane changes happening in the last several weeks. I (Linda) graduated form PSU a mere week and one half before our wedding, then had probably a million (not really, but a ton) of friends and family that came into town the next week to participate in the wedding festivities. It was so nice to have everyone there supporting us, praying for us and encouraging us. The wedding was great, and we are so happy to be married and sharing life as one now. After our honeymoon to Mexico, we came home for Christmas (which really means that we packed like crazy), tried to spend as much time with family as possible, and then said goodbye. It really has all been a whirlwind of changes, big and small. God has remained so faithful through it all, though. He is so good, and so gracious. Things have been tough. I am not one that is a huge fan of dramatic change, even when it's great I still have a hard time letting go of the past.
Christian and I left at approximately 8am from my parents house one week ago from today. The morning was more filled with excitement about an adventure than filled with the sadness of leaving home and the shelter of our family and friends. Our first destination: Missoula, Montana to visit my brother and his family on our way to Iowa. On our way out of Hillsboro, we stopped at a traffic light right behind this car. The license plate was pretty ironic, I thought.

We stopped at Multnomah Falls on the way out of Portland (mostly for a potty break... shocking, right?) and caught a few good pics :-)

We arrived in Missoula with no problems whatsoever, and we really enjoyed the drive! It was great to spend time together and just talk and listen to sermons, etc. Spending time with Tim and Jamie (and the rest of the herd) was a blast as always. We loved getting to spend some good time with them before the "great divide". The next morning (or should I say "afternoon" because we were planning on leaving at about 9am, and ended up leaving at 12:45pm), we said even more goodbyes, and made our way to Buffalo, Wyoming for the night. Unfortunately, this is the stop where I officially had my first meltdown. Throughout the entirety of the big changes in my life, the tiredness and the immense stress and craziness, I had yet to let it all out and cry. Poor Christian... I just sobbed and sobbed about how much I missed home, my family, my church, my house... He even tried to turn on the movie Madagascar to help ease my emotional pain. Surprisingly, I cried through that for the most part, too. Since then, I have had my moments of tears, still. It's still a difficult transition.
The next morning we woke up, packed all of our things and went out to the lobby to check out of our motel and hit the road for Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We were both shocked to walk out into the lobby and see pure white... EVERYWHERE. The wind was howling, the snow was blowing, and Christian and I had jaws on the floor. Neither of us have ever experienced anything even near a blizzard... but here we were... smack dab in the middle of one. Most people probably would have groaned and rolled their eyes and seen this as a huge hinderance, but no... not me and Chris. Instead, we both looked at each other and said, "YES! Let's go!" After a few minutes of listening to the weather forecast and discovering that the interstate was "not closed, but no travelling unless it's unavoidable", we got in our car and headed out. We prayed first, and felt like the Lord was telling us that it was ok, we left. The coolest thing about it was that, even though all of these people were warning us to go, we both felt secure that the Lord would take care of us, and as soon as we hit the interstate, the clouds opened up and the road began to clear, and in about 5 minutes, we were free of the scary weather.

My sister-in-law, Amy has a cousin in Sioux Falls, and she arranged for us to get to stay the night with her. That was great. It was really nice to be able to catch up with Joy a little bit, and to spend New Years with her (even though C and I totally flaked out and went to bed at about 11:30... LAME), but it was really great how the Lord provided for us, even on our trip. We were given giftcards for gas as wedding gifts, so that helped us save a ton on gas costs, and then getting to stay with family and friends on our way to Dubuque also was a huge blessing. Not only getting to see people we love, but it was easy on the bank account, too! What a gift!
Finally, on Sunday at about 3:30pm central time, we arrived at our new home in Dubuque, Iowa.
To be honest, the first impressions of the place were not all that spectacular. In fact, they were super disappointing. After travelling for three and a half days, coming "home" to an apartment where the contractor had been smoking (in the apartment!) and left an overwhelming smoke smell, no electricity and super dirty floors was not what anyone would call ideal. In fact, it was ultra discouraging. Since we were not able to go apartment hunting in person, we had to go off of pictures of the place. The house was built in 1929, and is a four-plex, so that limits the people amount, which is nice. Our neighbors are pretty cool. They are very mellow guys, and have not been a problem thus far. Still, since day one Christian and I have been hard at work, cleaning, buying furniture, painting and trying to bring beauty from the ashes, so to speak. It's been a lot of work so far, filled with lots of times of ups and downs, but we finally got the electricity to work, the floors cleaned, and the smell out. Lots of work to be done still, and my attitude to be perfectly honest, has probably had the most dramatic of swings since we moved here. It's been really tough leaving a perfectly amazing home, surrounded by comfort and a secure web of believers and friends and people that support us and love us, and come to a place where we don't know anyone, have no spiritual encouragement (as of yet) (and outside of phone conversations with family back home), no church, and a place that doesn't feel like "home" yet. Granted, it's only been four days, but these four days have already felt like months. Still, we are encouraged by each other, and are finding that even though we are occasionally experiencing some serious lows in this time, we are progressing, and the Lord's goodness is so evident and abounding. We are grateful for each other, for the experience that this is and for what is to come in this time here. We know that the loneliness will pass, and that we will soon have a great group of friends, and that believe it or not, the apartment will become a good home for us. Hopefully the Lord will use us to encourage others, and that we will be used in many ways here. Last night, I was actually able to make our first real meal since we've been here, and it was a crockpot one, too! Yay! It also turned out super good, if I do say so myself ;-) Here's a couple of pics.

I made a chicken pot pie sort of dish with easy drop biscuits. Seriously, when they call them "easy", they are not kidding. That's pretty much the easiest thing I have ever made. I love them! Then boneless, skinless chicken thighs, left to cook with carrots, celery, onion and peas, flour and milk. Yummmmmmm! One of my favorite things to do as a wife is make my husbands tummy happy. :-) We finished the evening with watching The Help on my laptop (which was hooked up to my desktop screen (seen below)). It was lovely. Our first evening of starting to feel like, "Yes, this is good, and this works. It's starting to feel like home." 

We have also been greatly blessed with some great items that we found on craigslist for super cheap, such as a couch/oversized chair and ottoman, and a fabulous table with four matching chairs and chair pads. We are going mattress shopping today, so hopefully we will be able to find something reasonable.
Thank you all so much for your prayers. We have really felt the Lord with us throughout all of the changes. Please continue praying for us, that we would maintain a thankful attitude for all the Lord has done and is doing, and for some close friends for us, and that I (Linda) would find a job. Also, Christian has orientation on Sunday, and school starts on Tuesday. Pray that he will feel at home and welcomed at Emmaus, and that the Lord will give him some strong guy friends that can encourage him and help him.
When we were first driving into Dubuque, this song was on the radio, and I think that I will close with the lyrics.
         "Give thanks to the Lord, our God and King. His love endures forever. For He is good, He is above all things. His love endures forever. Sing praise. Sing praise... Forever God is faithful. Forever God is strong. Forever God is with us. Forever."