Surprise Orders!

If you’re military you know what that means!

It means that while we were under the impression we’d be here until June 2021, God knew otherwise.

10 days ago Matt received a phone call that would take our well-laid out plans and twist them around. Click through the slideshow below to find out where we’re going!

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Yes, there is a duty station in New York City! It’s pretty small and we are thrilled to be going there, yet our excitement at going there is matched by the disappointment of leaving a place we’ve grown to love:

1. Our ChapelNext family has grown both in size and in the quality of community. Leaving the people we’ve done life and worshipped Christ with is going to be heartbreaking.
2. The city of Stuttgart is really lovely and we’ve become very fond of taking the train from home downtown. Just Friday I took a mom-break and went to the Stadtbibliothek and then to lunch with a dear friend… whom I am going to miss!
3. Our stairwell friends have become like family. I love the ability to run up/down a flight to borrow an egg, a cup of milk, or an Instant Pot. (MINE DIED! Can you believe that?!?)

I’ll create a more detailed blog post later about what we will miss like the one I wrote when we left Wiesbaden. I don’t think I wrote one about what we would miss before we left Texas because I totally didn’t expect to miss Texas, but I most certainly did grieve once we got here to Stuttgart.

For now, please know that if you see me with a big grin on my face there are two main reasons:

1. Matt’s getting an opportunity that is out of the blue, out of the ordinary, and something that he’s really excited about doing. Anytime I can watch him excel at his job and find joy and a challenge in his work I am happy for him and happy for our family. God has called our whole family to this Army journey and where he goes, we follow. Sometimes we do so with better attitudes than at others… this time, I just so happen to have had a good attitude about it from the start (see number 2).
2. We have kept this fairly private because it’s not really our news to tell, but Anna’s first-mom is having a new baby and this puts us about six hours away from her! We are very excited to be able to visit more often and to meet Anna’s newest sibling! Being this close means that these sisters will be able to see each other way more often than if we were to stay here in Germany. (Oh, and it’s a baby girl!)

There you go! Are you as surprised as we are?