Our three
months of Sabbatical were truly a gift from God. After the emotional and physical stress of
leaving Kenya, transitioning back to America and then 4 months of traveling,
it was important to take a step back for a short time. We were able to
take life at a slower pace and adjust to living in our home culture
again. We spent this time in Longmont, Colorado which is like 'home' for Daneen. Joe has grown to also love this place which has been special to Daneen for so many years. It has been an enormous blessing to stay with friends (who are like family).
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| Longmont, Colorado |
During our sabbatical we have been able to reconnect with
many friends, catch up on some long-term projects, be a blessing to others in
different ways, and do some things we enjoy: skiing/snowboarding, snowshoeing,
hiking, exploring beautiful sites of Colorado and Joe played a lot of basketball.
Daneen has spent a lot of time
going to appointments with doctors, physical therapists and
acupuncturists. Her neck has shown signs of improvement along with her
energy levels, though her back is still troubling her. One of the
highlights of the past few months has been attending Dave Ramsey’s Financial
Peace University. We have enjoyed learning more about finances,
budgeting, insurance, investing and we are on the same page and ready to begin
our next chapter in life.
We were also blessed with a Sabbatical
Retreat. We stayed in a lovely cabin on
the river in Estes Park for a week. There we enjoyed special time with the Lord
and felt Him remind us of his promises. We also enjoyed simply relaxing and
snowshoeing in beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park.
One of the
best parts of being back “home” is Church. We have loved attending church regularly,
worshiping God in a way that is familiar to us, being encouraged and challenged
from His Word and the fellowship with other believers. Through Daneen’s
weekly Bible study at church, our personal quiet times and the books we are
reading, our relationship with God has been strengthened over the past
few months and we are striving to put our hope completely in Him for the
future.
After
finishing our Sabbatical in early April, we are now focusing on what is next
for us. It has
been fun to begin exploring the different opportunities available. We
both left promising careers when we moved to Africa (Joe as a college
basketball coach and Daneen as an aerospace engineer), and we now return after
many years living overseas with pretty unique skill sets and varied
experiences. Since we are hoping to start a family soon, we have mainly
been concentrating on opportunities for Joe. At this point, we are
truly open to anything that God might be leading us to, anywhere in the world,
although we are mostly focused on staying stateside for now.
Everything and anything is on the table and we hope to start narrowing down the
options in the weeks to come.
We are exploring
jobs in 4 main areas: Education, Ministry, Non-profit and the Sports
World. We are trying to see what is out there, what we would be good
at and enjoy, and where God is leading us!
We
would greatly appreciate your prayers during this time and if you
hear of any opportunities which might be a good fit, please let us know!
