Wow, it’s been a while since the last blog update! Quite a bit has happened since then – I’ll concentrate mainly on what’s happened since this time last year.
The first piece of news – we moved to North Dakota! Yes, the land of frigid winter and wood chippers, so the story goes. North Dakota is a wonderful state, with wonderful people and gorgeous scenery. The sky is wide open and seems to stretch forever, and the sunrises and sunsets are breathtakingly beautiful. And yes, the winters are cold. Dress warm, however, and you’re fine. I love snow, so winter was like six months of wonderland for me.
At this point last year we were feverishly packing, getting ready for a move of over 800 miles to a city we had never been to before. The first time we went to Fargo was in a moving truck, heading to a home we had never seen in a city we had never visited. The Lord had worked out all the details, and I had a new job lined up with Microsoft in Fargo. We were saying sad goodbyes to friends and family, people we wouldn’t see for several months.
I left the job I had worked for 16 years, System Administrator at Union Bible College. Getting a new job and moving on top of that was definitely something that was outside of my comfort zone, but the job the Lord provided was a perfect fit for my temperament and abilities – Support Engineer for Azure Networking. I had never worked with a team of people doing the same thing I was doing, and here I was doing it with one of the largest, most successful companies in the world! My new coworkers turned out to be amazing, and I have learned and grown tremendously in my career. I was hired directly by Microsoft after a few months working in a contractor role, and in June of this year got promoted to Support Escalation Engineer.
Cindy is no longer working as a nurse even on a part-time basis, and is now only working from home doing home health coding. She has enjoyed being a stay at home mom, and has quickly developed a circle of friends from our local church.
Reece is growing like crazy and loving life in the North. He loves traveling, going out to eat, shopping, sledding, and visiting parks and playgrounds. He has made a close friend, Ethan, whose mom is also one of Cindy’s friends here. He loves spending time at Ethan’s house.
Covid-19 has made things interesting this spring. We have spent way more time at home than we ever expected. I have been working from home since Covid season started, and probably will continue to be working for Microsoft from home until at least this fall.
One of the big concerns we had when moving was a church. We loved Noblesville Pilgrim Holiness Church, and hated the thought of leaving it behind. I had gone there since 1998 (22 years!) and Cindy had gone there since we got married in 2010. However, the Lord came through there too! We found a wonderful church, Calvary United Methodist Church. It’s a conservative congregation with a strong conservative leadership. The people there love the Lord whole-heartedly, and do all they can to serve Him. We are singing in the choir and going to Bible studies and kid’s activities, and generally enjoying the fellowship of people that love the Lord.
God has greatly blessed our family here in the north, and we love our new life here. We feel closer to the Lord than ever before, and greatly fulfilled here in our corner of the world where God has placed us.