Burt and Annie still manage to keep us on our toes :-) Do not know what I would have done without these two crazy critters during deployment. They make our life interesting. They have both successfully learned to consistently use the toilet so that is an awesome accomplishment. They complete our family perfectly for the time being. My heart has worked through a lot on the area of family. Through conversations with Thomas and just coming to a place of peace and contentment with my condition of Endometriosis. Realizing that God is really in control. That it is ok and just as admirable to seek after a career that honors and glorifies God. He has given me an special heart of compassion and understanding for the women out there who are wives who do not have children yet or in the future. My personal note out there to you women who do have children, remember to be sensitive and compassionate to those women out there who do not have children, and who choose to seek a career. You do not know there story so be slow to make a judgement or make them feel insignificant.
So what is up with Thomas and I now. A year ago if you asked me what I would be doing this Spring I would easily have said Nursing School. Well God sure had a different idea :-) When I finally was still and listened to him through ways of my husband and other people in my life he showed me something different. And that was becoming an EMT. Who would have thought? Not me. When I finally stopped pitching my hissy fit I was able to see just how amazing becoming an EMT would be. So starting March 29th I will begin the EMT program at Everett Community College. I am excited and extremely nervous. I am doing my best to get physically stronger and bring to God my anxious, stress filled heart. Learning to deal with my anxiety and how I respond to stress has always been a struggle for me. This gives me the great opportunity to see just how God can give me a peace that transcends all understanding. That when I am weak he is strong. When I was in the Fire Science office at school turning in my application for the program, another girl walked in ,and commented after seeing me, how she had better confidence after seeing me there because I was so small. Let's just say that was not the greatest confidence booster. Especially after sitting across the desk from a huge, buff tower of a man. This opportunity just allows me to put my money where my mouth is, and show just how much God can do. I hope to be a testament to that. This does not mean that I am completely giving up on Nursing school. Just giving God a chance to work in my life and show me all that he has in store for me. And I am excited to say that in June I will finally have an Associates Degree. Took some hard work and patience but it is finally paying off.
For a year Thomas and I have wrestled and stumbled though trying to figure out where to go next. Thomas gets out of the Navy November 23, 2013. Yep, 9ish months from now we will be saying goodbye to the Navy. We have been seeking and searching all the many options. Trying not to give into fear and just go with the safest option available, but allowing God to work. Thomas has been praying and seeking out what would be the best way he can honor and glorify God. At first my expectation was that he find a career that would provide everything we needed. My fears and expectations got the best of me. We had lots of "fun".....debates on the subject. God's patience and grace has shown through Thomas in a great and powerful way since he has been home. He is not Mr. perfect and I am not Mrs. perfect but God is working through our imperfections. I am so incredibly thankful God has blessed us with family who love us so much. It was such a blessing to know if we could not put things together in time, especially with the extended deployment, that we had plenty of places available to go to help us bridge the gap between the Navy and civilian life.
So then what is the direction Thomas is heading you may ask? :-) Well......after going down to Tukwila yesterday and finally talking with a Coast Guard recruiter, Thomas has decided to follow that direction. He finally got to ask all the questions he had, and see what the reality of what that option would look like. He wants to become an Aviation Survival Technician. If any of you have seen the movie The Guardian, then you would know that, that is the person who jumps out of the helicopters to rescue people stuck in the water. So what does that timeline look like then? First Thomas has to fax in just some initial paperwork. He has to take the ASVAB again over different sections that are specific to this rate. He has to send in the paperwork to show his end date in the Navy. 3 months out he has to turn in paperwork showing that he is indeed getting out of the Navy. Some information we were not aware of was how it would look getting into the Coast Guard and then into the specific rate Thomas wants. How long would he have to wait to get into the Coast Guard, what would the boot camp and training schools look like, etc. Thomas biggest concerns were that it would be a very long wait time and that if for some reason things did not work out with his school then what? So the basic ideas that I understand. are as follows.
Once released from the Navy and everything checks out with medical and his paperwork he would have about a month to wait to go to their around 18 day boot camp. Going into the Coast Guard everyone enters in on the same playing field. No special contract for a certain rate. So that means that unlike when he was going into the Navy where he signed a piece of paper saying his track in the Navy would be special forces, it is not until you are fully in after boot camp do you put in for a specific school. That is good because the waiting time to get into a specific school is not waited out outside of the Coast Guard. So Thomas would get through boot camp, put in his packet for the school for AST and then wait his turn for school on a cutter ship somewhere in the U.S. The length of time is 6 months- 1 year. So during that waiting time Thomas would be getting paid and all the benefits of the Coast Guard. That is the case for Thomas because of his prior service time in the Navy. He will enter in the Coast Guard as an E-3 and will only have to wait until the next available spot in a class. I was so thankful that the recruiter Thomas talked with was a guy who works closely with ASTs. He was able to give Thomas an idea of what life looks like in that rate. It was encouraging to hear the over all mood of people in that line of work loved what they did. Just an overall more relaxed feel and that they love what they do. There are only about 300 ASTs in the United States. So it is a very small community of people. The best way to describe it is just thinking about the Navy and what it is, and then thinking of the exact opposite and that is what life would be like working in the Coast Guard. :-)
After Thomas came out of the recruiter and we talked about everything, just a feeling of peace about the situation just came over me. Thomas is excited. It would be a job he would love. It is a job where he could stay physically active and make a difference. And I would actually see him every now and then.
;-) The specifics and timing on everything is still pretty vague, but we know the general main ideas on things. And we also know that at any moment life events can happen and change everything in a moment, but we are so thankful for the peace of what we do know and what is coming next. :-) We just have to continue to be faithful and obedient to what God has in store for us.
