A life transformed....blooming and growing in Christ: Learning to Fly.....

Living out your faith is hard....this is a post about some faith steps our family has taken recently and the ups and downs they have brought....

We downsized by over 50% about two years

and moved to Little Blue (April 2012)

....leaving behind our Woodland Palace

and the love of our earthly stuff...

With this change, we have all learned contentment, patience and humility. Our kids have experienced what it is like to follow God's dream for our family instead of living the American "dream" and how the world defines "success" (living in a big house, owning nice cars, have a high-paying job, etc).

Do I miss our old house? Yes, sometimes I miss the "creature features" and level of comfort that we had there but I don't miss the financial burden it was and the constant desire I always seemed to have to keep improving it (adding granite countertops and tile to the kitchen and all the bathrooms, buying new landscaping, redecorating and reorganizing spaces again and again, finishing the basement so it was as nice as the neighbors, etc).

Then in July 2013, Bryan was laid off from his engineering job. This would have been a HUGE issue if we were still at the Woodland house. But with a nice severance package and the minimal financial debt we have living at Little Blue, fear and worry didn't come crashing in. Instead, we turned to prayer and the Bible and found amazing comfort, guidance and wisdom.

August 2013 brought a month of time and money for Bryan to help build Freshwater Waconia and transform the new campus into a beautiful place of worship where many people have come to better know Christ! Praise God!

Then Bryan began a new job in early September as a Field Application Engineer at Arrow. Our kids learned what it was like to trust God to provide and not fear when there was an unknown. After 3 months however, there were some things about the new job that didn't line up with Bryan's integrity as well as a hard question from the heart.....

"Why are you an FAE (Field Application Engineer)?"

Is it because it makes alot of money?.....Is it because others respect the engineering discipline?....Is it because God led you to do it?

Many nights of prayers and tears brought us both to a very difficult decision.

We were standing at the edge of the cliff....this current career path didn't seem right anymore, our hearts were crying out to us to make a change....would we both be brave enough to take a leap of faith and trust God completely?

12/31/2013 was Bryan's last day as an FAE.

He is currently on a sabbatical from engineering and is learning

perseverance and endurance as he discovers what God has next for his life.

This is one of the most courageous decisions I've ever seen him make.

God has been completely faithful and has provided for us in so many little ways over the past 10 weeks! Here is just one example:

12 days after Bryan's last day, we got an unexpected medical bill in the mail.

$1122 from Occupational Therapy sessions back in August!!!!

Why didn't we get this bill back then? Because we would have had

money to pay for it then.

So we get the bill in mid-January and we pray instead. Bryan goes into the OT office and talks with the financial staff. They agree to resubmit the bill to insurance and we wait. Bryan decides to puts his snowmobile up for sale on Swap-n-Shop and it sells in one day which covers the bill amount!

Two weeks later, we get a call from the OT office. The insurance has denied the claim BUT since they made a mistake and

didn't document that insurance would only cover 20 sessions,

they are going to take care of the bill!!! Praise the LORD!

With the change in our finances, Krista's dream for

teaching music classes became a reality.

In February 2014, Joyful Noise was born!

Krista has been blessed to be able to sing, dance and play instruments with many young children & their mommies each week as they experience the joy of music!