Life in Louisville

(Matt Studying his Greek)

As you can see from this picture we're  settled enough in to Kentucky for Matt to begin studying for his fall classes.  I am actually pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to settle in so far.  Now it's time to look for jobs.  I have been looking for teaching positions, and applying to many of the Christian and private schools in Louisville.  People tell me that it is still a little bit early to be hearing back from any of these schools about their open positions, but I just keep applying in the meantime.  Matt had his interview with UPS and that went well, now they told him that he has to wait at least a month before they tell him yes or no.  This will definitely be a lesson in patience for him.  This morning (6/26) Matt went for another interview at a family owned Christian bakery.  This job looks pretty promising and the owner said that he would call Matt back by this Friday to let him know about the position.  It's funny as I'm writing this, Matt just got a phone call from a perspective employer.  I believe that it is Chick-fil-a that is calling him.  Sounds like they just gave him an interview for tomorrow morning.  Praise the Lord!!

Well, besides job hunting, we have also been church hunting.  This is quite a difficult task because there is so many Southern Baptist Churchs in Louisville.  (This is a good problem though.)  We visited a new church this Sunday called 9th and O Baptist Church.  We went to their morning service at 10:30 and really enjoyed the worship service and the preaching.  I really liked the worship service because they used a lot of hymns (I love hymns).  We met a few people there and decided that we would go back to their Sunday night service at 6:30.  Right now they are going through all of the Old Testament Sunday School stories that you learn when your young on Sunday night.  I really enjoyed the series and the pastor.  After the service we talked with a couple that is at Southern Seminary right not getting their PHd.  We talked to them for about a half an hour.  They were so nice, and invited us to their Sunday School Class, (Actually they are not called Sunday School classes any more in the Southern Baptist Churches they are called Bible Fellowship Groups or BFGs).  Right now the church is going to be starting on a new 3-year long series for their BFGs called the Gospel Project.  They will be starting this in August and it sounds like they will be really good lessons.  Matt and I decided to commit to this church for a month and then decide if this is the church where God would have us serve Him while we are here in Louisville.  It is a little closer than the church we attended last week, about 18 minutes from our home.  Praise God for Him showing us this church fellowship.  

We also added a kitchen table to our home this last week.  I have been serving dinner on this really small rolling hospital bed table that we brought with us, and I was ready for a regular kitchen table.  We purchased one from on overstock warehouse in Louisville, for a good price.  It is a counter height table with four stool chairs.  I really like it, and I love being able to serve Matt dinner on it now.  

The weather here has been amazing.  Matt and I are a little confused about the temperature though.  The signs say that it is 95 degrees during the day, but it doesn't at all feel like 95 degrees, it actually feels cool to us.  We can't figure out why this is.  Another thing that is interesting is that it stays light here until around  9:30 at night.  So, it's kind of hard to tell what time it is at night for us.  I do enjoy the extra daylight though, it's nice.  One thing that I have really enjoyed seeing while we have been here in Louisville is the fireflies.  The first night we were here, I looked out at the lawn and wondered to myself "why has the campus put little sparkling lights all over their lawn?  It's pretty but that probably costs them a lot of money."  I showed Matt the lights, and he said, those are bugs!  Immediately we went out to look at them.  They are amazing, and the most beautiful sight to see.  I love watching the fireflies light up the lawns on campus each night.  I need to learn more about these curious little bugs to see what makes them glow.  God truly has blessed us with an amazing place to live and we are really enjoying it here.  

I just wanted to take a moment to brag about Matt here for a moment.  I have been really looking forward to seeing the new Disney movie Brave, and last Friday, Matt arranged a whole date day which included going to see Brave.  First we went down Bardstown Road and went to a little coffee shop called Quills Coffee.  There coffee is absolutely amazing, and I loved their decor of owls.  Sorry Starbucks, but your carmel frap. doesn't even compare to Quill's.  After sitting at the window counter drinking our coffee and people watching we went to see Brave.  I really enjoyed the movie, but what I enjoyed most was just spending some relaxing time with my husband.  After the movie, Matt took me to a local restaurant called Lynn's Paradise Cafe.  This was quite an interesting experience as we walked into the brightly decorated dining room.  Matt decided to order a local favorite called Hot Browns.  What a strange dish this was as you can tell by the look on Matt's face in this picture.  

Well, Hot Browns is a piece of white bread, with sliced turkey on top of it smothered, (actually smothered is an understatement) in a white cheese sauce topped with crispy bacon.  I was actually quite surprised that Matt ordered it being that he is not a supper big cheese fan.  He didn't like it at all, he might still be having nightmares about this dish.  Oh well, it was fun trying a local food.  Maybe we'll learn to like it, but I doubt it.  I had an amazing date day with the world's best husband.  I praise the Lord that he gave Matt to me as my husband, I had to wait a long time, but he is more than worth the wait.

Changing Everything Over to Kentucky

We have been very busy since my last post on Sunday.  It was my goal to get everything switched over to Kentucky as soon as possible.  On Monday morning, Matt went over to speak with his counselor at Southern Seminary, while I stayed in our apartment and searched for all the necessary information and forms for getting our lives switched over to Kentucky.  Matt had a very good experience with his counselor and was able to get signed up for the correct classes with the best professors and get a book list for his classes so he can get a head start on all of his reading.  One of his first classes will be Elementary Greek--this sounds like a hard class to me.  Matt is excited about being able to be registered for all of his first classes now.  When he came back to the apartment, we both headed over to campus security to receive our Southern Seminary ID cards.  After this we headed off to the Kentucky DMV to change our California driver's licenses into Kentucky driver's licenses.  The DMV was actually not a bad experience.  We waited in line for about 20 minutes and the clerk who helped us was actually nice. We registered to vote, paid $20.00 each for our new driver's licenses, and headed over to have our pictures taken.  After having our pictures taken, they handed us our Kentucky driver's licenses right then.  It was kind of strange to receive our driver's licenses right away, but it was real nice.  After the DMV we headed over to our local public library and received our Kentucky library cards.  That afternoon we went and bought our new mattress.  I was pretty tired of sleeping on the camping pads on the floor.  It's a really nice mattress, and we got a great deal on it.  Wow, we had a very full and productive Monday.  Praise God for giving us the strength to accomplish all that He allowed us to do.

Tuesday was "get cars' registration, title, and plates switched over to Kentucky day."  We had a little bit of trouble finding the county clerk's office in order to get everything switched over for our cars.  We ended up at some kind of Muslim retreat, but there was a really nice lady who told us where to go.  If she had not helped us, we might still be driving around in circles looking for the mysterious county clerk's office.  Once we arrived at the county clerk's office we had to have a sheriff's inspection performed on both of our cars first.  All that they check is to see that the lights, horn, tires, and windshield wipers work.  After we both passed the inspection, we headed into the county clerk's office and waited for about 30 minutes to see a clerk.  Once we saw the clerk, she spent about 15 minutes changing our title, registration and plates over to Kentucky for both of our cars.  It was a very good experience, and once again, they handed us our license plates right away.  In Kentucky, you only need to place a license plate on the back of your car.  After our great experience at the county clerk's office, we headed over to St. Matthew's Mall where we purchased all of our bedding supplies for our new mattress.  We also ate at an amazing place called Jason's Deli.  Once again, we had a very productive day, and we constantly feel so blessed by the many blessings that God is showering on us.  We serve an amazing God!

Right now, Matt just left to go to his interview with UPS at their Worldport center at the Louisville, Airport.  Pray for him as he really wants to get this job.  I will begin seriously looking for work next week, once I get our apartment completely settled in.  Until next time, we miss you all, and we pray that God will bless you all as much as He has blessed us. 

Our First Sunday in Kentucky

(Here we are eating our first home-cooked meal in our new apartment)

Today we went and visited a church about 40 minutes outside of Louisville, in a town named Campbellsburg.  It is an interesting story how we ended up visiting Campbellsburg Baptist Church. Our last Sunday at Anza Baptist Church we were sitting with Pastor Bob and Bertha at our going away lunch.  While we were talking with them, we were sharing our concern with them about finding a good small church to go to while we are here at Southern Seminary.  During our conversation, Sue Chilton came up and told us that she grew up in Campbellsburg, Kentucky, and that her two brothers still attended the Baptist Church there.  We told her that we would go and visit the church, and she said that she would notify her brothers.  Both Matt and I thought that it was pretty amazing that right when we were talking about where to go to church, Sue came up and suggested Cambellsburg Baptist Church.  We went there this morning, and felt right at home.  The church congregation is about the size of our home church in Anza, but there are more children.  We were immediately welcomed by many of the church members.  The church meets in its original historic brick church building, and seems to have its original avocado green carpet and pews.  The people there were so amazing, one elderly lady even came up and gave me a gold cross that she had crocheted.  After the service, the pastor and his wife took time to talk with Matt and I.  We found out that he is going to Southern Seminary right now too.  It was a joy to talk with them and pray with them before we left.  It truly was an amazing experience.  We are still praying that this is the church that God is calling us to attend while we are here in Kentucky.

Tonight, I cooked our first real meal in my miniature kitchen.  It was actually kind of fun cooking in such a small kitchen.  We only have one chair, and one small rolling hospital bed table, but we made due for our dinner.  Matt sat on the seat of his rowing machine, and I sat on the chair.  We had a great meal together for the first time in our new home.

I wanted to thank everyone for their support in helping us get here.  You are all greatly appreciated.  Words cannot express how thankful we are to all of you.

We're Here at Southern Seminary!!!!

This morning we left from Joplin, Missouri at 3:00 a.m..  I felt very rested because I fell asleep last night when it was still light out.  Matt on the other hand didn't get quite as much sleep.  The first event of the day was me running my car into a cement barrier at the gas station.  I put a big yellow streak down my car and two dents.  I got the yellow streak off, but I'm afraid the two dents will have to stay.  Oh well, it will be a reminder of our long journey out to Kentucky, and the dents really aren't that bad.  I guess you shouldn't drive that early if your brain isn't awake yet. :)  We drove until 6:00 when we stopped and ate breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, and yes I had grits, and I like them.  After leaving the restaurant we had a very easy drive through the states of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky.  We arrived at the Seminary at exactly 4:00 p.m.  This gave us just enough time to check in with student housing.  We signed our housing contract, received our keys, and received our parking permits.  Everyone here is so helpful.  We both absolutely love our little apartment.  Matt was really praying for a corner apartment, and that's just what we got.  It's small, but amazing.  I know some say that bigger is better, but I would have to disagree, smaller is better when you have to clean it.  All praise goes to God for giving us a safe journey here, and providing us with a wonderful place to live.  God is good all the time.

I hope you all enjoy the little video of our apartment here at Southern Theological Seminary.

Early Morning Start = Great Travel Day

Click here to view a short video of today's pictures. 

This morning at 12:30 a.m. we were woken be strong winds blowing our tent so hard that we couldn't sleep any longer.  We decided to pack everything up and hit the road.  We left New Mexico at 1:30 a.m. headed for our final  destination of Joplin, Missouri.   At first we felt, fine, but as the early  morning hours drug on, it seemed like the sun would never come up, but it did, and we pulled in to a truck stop and took a little cat nap at 6:30 a.m.  We thought we were still in Texas, but  when we went inside the truck stop we soon discovered that we had driven all the way to Oklahoma without realizing it.  Well, I'm not quite sure what Texas really looks like, because I only saw it in its pitch black form.  One thing that struck me though was how beautiful the moon was this morning.  It was a perfect sliver. After leaving the truck stop, our next stop was at a Cherokee trading post where we saw some Texas longhorns and some Oklahoma Buffalo.  We continued on through Oklahoma and stopped to eat at a Burger King where we just had to try their new bacon sundae.  It was very interesting, but I don't think that we will be ordering it again.  We arrived in Joplin, Missouri, at about 2:30  after traveling 577 miles from New Mexico to Missouri.  We had a great trip with no mishaps.  Once we arrived at our camp site and set up we decided to go and see the damage from last year's tornado that came through Joplin.  It was so sad to see so many empty lots where the tornado had torn buildings from their foundations.  Still, it was good to see much rebuilding taking place as well.  Right now we are pretty tired and we're back at our campsite.  We will probably fall asleep pretty early tonight, and then it's up again at 3:00 a.m. to head for Louisville, Kentucky our final destination.  Thank you so much to all of you have been praying that we will have a safe journey, your prayers have been greatly appreciated.

It Was a Long Day

This morning we woke up to a beautiful sunrise at our KOA campground in Williams, AZ.  We had a good night's sleep on our new mattress that doesn't have air; so therefore, it cannot go flat.  We packed up everything and headed out to our final destination of Tucumcari, New Mexico, which was 534 miles away.  We knew we would not be able to make near as many stops today as we did yesterday, but that was okay.  Everything was going fine until we reached the Arizona, New Mexico, border.  While I was driving I ran over a big piece of some type of sheet metal.  It really scared me as it made some horrific sounding noises under my car.  Matt and I stopped in Gallup, New Mexico to get a Subway sandwich as well as to see what damage had been done to the car.  At first glance it seemed that the exterior of the car was just fine, but when we came out from Subway I noticed something hanging underneath my car.  Matt got down to investigate what it was and found out that the piece of metal that I had run over had torn apart the undercarriage of my car, particularly the part that protects the gas tank.  There was not much he could do, but get a hammer and hammer the thin metal covering back into place as best as he could.  We were both thanking the Lord that the piece of metal that I ran over did not puncture the gas tank.  I guess the undercarriage covering of my car served its purpose today as it protected my gas tank.  The rest of our journey was long and quite uneventful.  We made it to Tucumcari at around 5:30.  We checked in, set up or tent, and then headed out to find dinner.  Tucumcari is along old Route 66, and I was curious to see what it looked like.  Well, it looked like a dying town, it was quite sad to see.  We finally found a Sonic to eat at, and then headed back to our campsite.  I have been working on this blog and my Facebook posts forever because the internet connection is so slow, but at least there is Internet. It reminds me of the good old dial up days.  I am so thankful that God gave us a safe journey today and that He has protected both of our cars.  Tomorrow it's off to Joplin Missouri--I already checked the weather, it says it will be clear with no tornadoes expected.

Arizona Travels

Click here to view a short video of our Arizona Travels.

When we left my brother's house in Gilbert, Arizona, our Arizona travels officially began.  We officially "hit the road" at around 12:00 noon.  As we traveled north on the 17, we decided to stop at the Montezuma Castle in Verde Valley, AZ.  It was pretty amazing to see this adobe style house built into the cliff.  The structure itself was 5-stories tall, and could house up to 50 people.  It was nice being able to stop and enjoy this national monument.  We continued our journeys on the 17 and came to the 40 west where we headed to our KOA campground near the Grand Canyon.  We reached our campground at around 5:30 p.m. and were very happy with the service we received from the front desk.  After setting up our tent (the one my parents let me borrow from when we used to go family camping when I was a teen), we headed off to the Grand Canyon.  It took us about an hour of driving to reach the Grand Canyon, but what an amazing site once we got there.  Pictures truly don't do it justice.  We enjoyed walking around the South Rim and taking in the breathtaking sites.  We even went to Mather Point and watched the sunset, it was simply breathtaking.  We left the park at around 8:30 p.m. and had a very "healthy" dinner at McDonalds.  We arrived back at our campsite and hit the sack for the night.  What an amazing day.  Yet, the highlight of the day was taking in the beauty and splendor of the Grand Canyon.  We serve such an amazing God who creates such amazing wonders for our "viewing pleasure."

It was a Very Flat Morning

Well, we had an interesting start to our morning as you can tell by these pictures.  We decided we would just call in our "flat" morning.  When we woke up this morning at my brother's house in Arizona, we woke up completely on the floor.  Our new air mattress had lost just about all of its air.  Next, we were getting ready to walk my niece Kris to her preschool when we saw that my car had an extremely flat tire. Needless to say, Matt stayed and worked on getting the tire off while me, my mom and my sister-in-law Tawny walked Kris to school.  When we got back we decided to go to Costco to get both of our "flat" items fixed.  Costco was great, they repaired our tire for free, and we returned the air mattress no questions asked.  We now have two collapsible mattresses (no air required) and a tire with air in it.  Matt's outside right now putting the tire back on, and packing up the cars, soon will be on our way to our next destination--the Grand Canyon.  Praise God for his grace in allowing this little "flat" problem to get quickly fixed at a very minimal cost.  God is good all the time!

Julie & Kris Canchola

We're getting ready to take our niece Kris to school right now in Gilbert, Arizona.  She is three years old, and she loves her school.  After taking her to school, Matt and I will be headed out on our second day of travels as we make our way to Louisville, Kentucky.  Today we will be headed to the Grand Canyon.  It will be both of our first times to see the Grand Canyon, and we are very excited.

Jesse Holds her Bottle for the First Time!

We made it to Gilbert, Arizona, around 2:00 p.m.  Tonight we will be staying at my brother's house, and enjoying spending time with his family.  I just had to include this picture of my 6.5 month-old niece holding her bottle for the first time,  while we were at her home this afternoon.  My two nieces Kris, and Jesse, are the two cutest little girls that you have ever seen.  

Last Time at In-N-Out

One of Matt's favorite fast food restaurants is In-N-Out.  He is always trying to convince me that they have the best hamburgers because every ingredient is a high quality ingredient.  Personally, I am a Five Guys Burgers fan.  Well, we were given an In-N-Out gift card by one of our students, and when Matt saw this In-N-Out in Gilbert, Arizona, he quickly pulled off the freeway in order to enjoy his last lunch at In-N-Out before moving to Kentucky, which unfortunately for Matt, does not have any In-N-Out fast food restaurants.  

Leaving Anza, CA

It seems like just yesterday that Matt and I were taking a walk in Lake Riverside Estates and we decided to go to Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.  Well, the day has finally come for us to head out to Kentucky.  We left my parents house in Anza, CA at 6:15 a.m. this morning, and drove through Anza, for our last time.  This afternoon we will be arriving in Gilbert, Arizona, to stay with my brother and his family for the night.  It has been exciting and sometimes emotional getting ready to move to Kentucky.  We have been so blessed to have such amazing support from both Matt's parents and my parents.  We are also so thankful for all of the support that we have received from Anza Baptist Church and Anza Valley Christian School.  We will greatly miss everyone, but we feel confident that God has called us to this new chapter in our lives.  We know that where God guides, He also provides.  Thank you everyone for your support in finances and prayers.