Introduction

I wanted to start a blog for friends and family to be able to hear more about what's going on in my family's lives, specifically because we are expecting to have huge changes in the next several months - you'll hear about those later.  I also wanted to use this as somewhat of a journal for myself.  I've never been great at keeping a journal, but lately I've felt more and more like I should be writing about my life in some form or another.  I'm hoping this blog will help (force) me to do that to some extent and also provide some insight into my life to others.

Before you read my blog, you also need to know that I'm an Engineering Major, not an English Major.  In other words, while my explanation of events, feelings, experiences etc may not make sense to you as you read, they make complete and perfect sense to me.  Going along with that, my punctuation, vocabulary, and other writing skills are less than par, so bear with me.

A little about me:
As you've already read, I received my college degree in Engineering from OSU about 3.5 years ago.  But before that I grew up the oldest of 4 siblings, 2 brothers and 1 princess.  We had a lot of fun times when we all lived at home, including the time I pushed my brother into the sliding glass door to the back patio. The door popped off the track and began to fall to the concrete.  And as I watched like a deer in the highlight stance, I remember thinking my dad is not going to be happy when I have to tell him what happened.  By the grace of God, the window somehow did not get damaged.  This experience actually taught me a very important lesson; a couch is a much better place to beat up your little brother.  Less risk in breaking things.

In high school, I met one of my good friends, Greg Oltmann.  He invited me to church and youth group where I built a lot of good relationships with other high schoolers as well as other older..err wiser men and women that I am still friends with today.  After a few months I made the most important decision in my life.  I gave my life Christ.  This decision has been central to the rest of my life and the way I have lived it.  Saying that, I know many people are able to point one or many more of my flaws and/or times I've made poor judgement calls.  I'm sure my wife has a running list somewhere in the house, unless she's run out of paper already.  Speaking of my wife she is an amazing woman, who loves me no matter what!

When my wife and I were dating we always talked about our desires to travel overseas and serve other people.  In fact, we met because my college roomate's girlfriend (now wife) went on a missions trip to Malawi, Africa with a group of girls from around the US.  Sarah was one of those girls.  Sarah was going to school in Boston at the time, but after Malawi made it out to the northwest for one of the other girl's wedding. We met then and started talking online and on the phone.  She made it out Oregon a couple more times before I finally convinced her to move across the country to finish school and be closer to me...and the rest is history.  Anyways, I was talking about our desire to help others overseas...We have both visited and volunteered in others countries before we met and have also traveled together to Rwanda, Africa a couple summers ago to serve homeless kids.

These desires have led us to wanting to do something more long term, which is why I traveled to Comayagua, Honduras in November.