Genesis of an Exodus

Last time Sarah and I had a substantial break was probably our honeymoon and shortly after. That was nearly two years ago. Since then, our lives have been stuffed full with activity. Please don't take this as compaining, because our involvement in ministries, work, school, and the lives of amazing individuals merely displays God's blessing on us. But we are ready for another break.

I'll be graduating from Multnomah in one month from today. Originally, we planned to take a year off before devoting ourselves to grad school and a big move to the east coast. I began tentatively investigating grad schools, having had recently decided to pursue a Master's in Education (as opposed to an mDiv). By January of this year, I had two institutions in mind: Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which offers a Master's in Educational Ministry and NYU, offering a Master's in Educational Psychology. We had no plans to pursue these with any haste. Yet one night we had a long discussion and realized a few things:

• Why spend time planting ourselves deeper in our community, if we know that in a year we'll need to uproot ourselves? That would make the process all the more difficult, and would be unfair to ourselves and those with whom we are in relationship.
• We want to have kids. The sooner we start on grad school, the sooner this can become a reality.
• Educationally, it's probably wisest to reduce the amount of time off as possible.

We decided this on a Saturday. That Monday I contacted all my references, began filling out applications to the two schools and by the end of that week I had my application out to Gordon-Conwell, and the following week my application to NYU was completed. We visited both schools and I received my acceptance letters to both within a few weeks after visitng. Although NYU was tempting to me educationally, we decided to move to South Hamilton, Massachusetts (I think that was the first time I spelled Massachusetts right on the first try!).

So here we are finishing up our responsibilities here in Portland, meeting with as many of the countless incredible people we've been blessed enough to come to know while here. This will definately be hard for us, but we are also excited for the new chapter as well. God's people are everywhere, and we are comforted by this. People in need of encountering Jesus are also everywhere, and we are challenged by this. God will meet us on the east coast (perhaps in different ways than here), and we are strengthened by this.

Here is a brief list of things we must accomplish before the big departure:

• Brief trip to Colorado to cease some legal obligations.
• Graduation.
• Get out Sarah's résumé.
• Housing and jobbing settled.
• Finish Prokope curriculum and passing-off.
• Plan trek across the country.
• Buy digital camera and sell things on Craigslist.
• Sell trucky.
• Pack.
• Be in Mike and Hannah's wedding.
• Absorb Portland (McMennamins! Stumptown! Hiking! No sales tax!).
• Absorb friends.