Not Yet

Christiana today - taking a much-needed break from my online workspace. I'm a huge fan of websites & so-forth, but it's a whole new ballgame when I'm the one trying to get the information out there. I want to make sure all of my data is accurate. And I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my writing. (Just ask my husband. :)

So what am I doing to unwind from my last two days of web-design? I'm blogging. Online. Which requires multiple edits & rewrites before posting. I really know how to relax, don't I?

We've been very blessed by the positive replies we've received from our latest newsletter. We've also been asked numerous times, "Why aren't you telling us where you *might* be going??" and "Why can't you tell us the names of the schools?"

Blame me. Phil would have told y'all everything; I'm the one that asked him to keep it quiet for just a little longer.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had the unfortunate experience of sharing an idea/dream/design/desire, and then endured an onslaught of unsolicited advice.
Yes?
No?
This is not to say that all advice is negative, or that we're not supposed to seek wise counsel from those around us. There is a time & a place for that, but I'd like to hold off from the public opinion polls for a bit longer.

Right now, we don't have any official invitations, so it seems a bit premature to say,"We're going to ________," or "We'd like to be in ________," when perhaps that's not where we're supposed to go. While we do sense that it's between two specific schools, neither of us as a strong sign that the school in _______ is "the one".

Truthfully, I think my biggest reason for this self-imposed silence is that I want us to know that we're allowing God to lead us in the right direction, and that we're really listening to His cues. This is a major life-decision for us, second only to picking out a mattress. There are so many positives about either - and BOTH- possibilities!

Suppose it should be one of those scenarios in which the Lord is leaving us with two open doors? Well, then, my prayer is that we'll be able to make a wise & informed decision based on our gifts & strengths, not on the feelings of a mother's brother's sister's cousin's auntie's Uncle Barney's father.

If you really fear that you'll expire unless you've been clued in to our schools of consideration, please feel free to shoot us an e-mail. Otherwise, sit back & enjoy the wait with us.

Post-Thanksgiving Excitement

Our latest newsletter is out & circulating! This feels like a major accomplishment to us, for several reasons:

1. It's our first official newsletter as a couple!
2. We've spent almost a month trying to consolidate our individual contact lists into a single document, sent from ONE e-mail account. 
3. Although we are writers, we labored over what we should share, and how long we should allow our letter to be. 
4. We signed up to use an e-mail distribution site called MailChimp. It's fun, it's eye-catching, and if you've never used it before, it really throws a monkey-wrench into your plans for getting a newsletter out in a day.

We finally hit "send" about 11 p.m. last night, and we've been checking the distribution report to see just how many times that letter has been opened. Are you ready for this? 199. 

199 people have actually received and opened our newsletter. Wow.

We can't speak for every missionary everywhere, but for us, we've sometimes questioned if the time & effort poured into each newsletter was worth it. We've both had the experience of writing up what we felt was a really poignant post, only to catch silence on the other end of cyberspace. And we would wonder, "Did anybody stop and read what was written?" 

For all of the headaches we endured in formatting, exporting & importing contacts, we're pleased with the final product, and we're pretty pumped that MailChimp will tell us exactly how many times someone opens our letter. It's not about the compliments on our writing style, or the commentaries on events in our lives. It's just having the awareness that we're not alone in the work we are doing. It's the knowledge that someone took the time to read an e-mail. It's the hope that our readers are also prayer partners, who will join with us in lifting up our needs & requests. 

Resumes, Essays, and Apps...Oh My!

Phil here...Christiana has been writing our blog posts up till now, but considering that I am also a writer, we figured I should take a turn every now and then.

The process of choosing a school has not been an overnight process.  We have been thinking and praying about this for almost 9 months.  In February, we took the list of RCE partner schools and chose places where we felt our individual gifts could be most effective. Initially we had about 6-7 schools that we were considering.  Since then we have taken schools off the list and added more to it.  As we have been narrowing the list, and then expanding, and then narrowing, we arrived at a "Top 5."

I already had a resume written up from last year (the first resume I had ever had to write), so a few weeks ago, Christiana tweaked it (she is an excellent tweaker), and we sent off 5 copies.  Almost immediately 4 of the 5 schools responded.  The 5th never acknowledged our contact, so we took it off the list.  Over the past 2 weeks we have had conversations with the 4 remaining schools. We've been quite busy trying to get applications filled out, essays written, and names and addresses together for reference forms. And through this process we have narrowed our list once again and have sent in applications to 2 specific schools.  

And now... we wait.  Again.  And you are probably on the edge of your seat waiting for us to tell you which schools we have applied to.

Please don't hate us, but we are going to make you wait a bit longer.  When we have been offered jobs officially, we will post again. In the mean time, please pray for us as we continue to seek wisdom in making our final decision.

E-Mail - Worth the Investment?

Friends...Readers...Counterparts... Here's a question (or three) for you:

Who is still using e-mail as a means of communication? Would you eagerly subscribe to our next mailing list once we actually get it together? Does anyone have any insights regarding the e-mail services that are out there?

We've been investigating a couple of different sites which would help us streamline the distribution of our newsletter, but it seems to be a great deal more involved - and quite a bit pricier - than either of us thought.

What do you recommend? What sort of newsletter experiences have you had? If you were going to start over, would you stick with the same service, or would you go for something else?

Please feel free to comment...or, you know, send us an e-mail.

Positive Feedback

It's fun to log on and see that we have more than 199 pageviews in the last week! Even more fun are the comments left for us to read. We greatly appreciate the encouragement!

We've received a lot of positive feedback this week - 4 out of the 5 schools we contacted have asked for more information! Three of those schools want phone interviews, starting tomorrow.

Ready or not, here we go...

Destination TBA

Operation "Terminal Velocity" has commenced! Ah, you may have thought it started last week when we kick-started our blog or our Facebook group - nope. It really gets going when we send out letters of inquiry, resumes & references.

Guess what we just did????

Yep, out they went! Five letters...to five different schools...in five different countries.

And now? We wait.

And we pray.

Feel free to pray along with us.