Sunshine Days

Yesterday was quite possibly the first day we have had since we have been here that I have felt most completely myself. I imagine that it was due, in large part, to the weather. We finally had a lapse in the winter front that brought sunshine and temperatures in the high 50s/low 60s. It was brilliant. Joseph had a meeting with a friend with whom he played back in the late 90s who also happens to be a bass player. He was very encouraging about the possibility of making a living here playing music. We have found that the music scene here, especially the Christian one, is very different from Los Angeles. It seems that there are many church players who do quite well for themselves. As well, there is a thriving teaching scene. Currently, Joseph has between 3-6 students a week but he also often subs for other teachers since he is able to teach both bass and guitar. He found out yesterday that there is a local Catholic school that is looking for someone to head up their music education program so I think Joseph is going to throw his name in the hat for that job. His friend Pat is in a small group with the school's principal who has told Pat about the job. Hopefully, that will be a good lead.
I, unfortunately, did not hear back from Interactive College where I applied to teach ESL. I was pretty ego bruised for about a week and then when the snow came, forcing me to stay inside last weekend, I was so homesick that I started crying over everything from missing friends and family to missing my favorite burrito place in Pasadena. I got over it after a good conversation with Natalie and Mom as well as some encouragement from Joseph. As well, I figure that if a job doesn't happen it is more about God's protection than it is about a lost opportunity. For the time being, I have decided to continue to look for jobs but, instead, focus on other things that I want to be doing. Thus, I am getting to bed early (about 9 pm) and getting up in the mornings sometime between 5 am and 7 am and writing. There isn't really any huge goal in the writing other than pleasure. It is the one thing in life that gives me huge personal satisfaction with a sense of catharsis and rehabilitation. I love it! I have been writing journals, children's stories, memories, blogs; really, I have been writing anything and everything. Joseph and I have gotten into a pretty good rhythm whereby he stays up late and practices bass while I go to bed with Mercy. In the morning, he stays in bed with Mercy while I get up and write. The only flaw in the system is that he has a tendency to lost track of time and not come to bed until anywhere from 2 am - 6 am. I am really glad that he loves to practice so much and I pray that it pays off in some fun and well-paying gigs. It's just amazing that God has put us in a place right now where we are able to pursue some of the things we love while being in a somewhat stressful financial situation and personal transition. I felt absolutely led to be here and I thought that it was because of Passion City Church but the longer we are here, the more I get the sense that it was more about us as individuals and as a family. I think God allowed us to make the choice to move so that we could get out of our rut and into something new. I am praying that the job search becomes highly fruitful soon or our new adventure will be cut short when we have to move in with our parents. We aren't there yet, though, so we'll just keep plugging away. If anyone keeps up with us in prayer, we are still asking God for financial provisions through jobs and it would be great if those jobs could connect with our passions.
We had a really nice day on Thursday in downtown Atlanta. We headed out to a place called little five points which is the sort of hipster side of downtown. It also happens to be the homeless side of downtown but it was a funky little area with some weird little independent stores. The only mainstream store there was American Apparel. How do they do that? They always seem to be the only large retail chain amongst little mom and pop shops, like in Los Feliz. We didn't spend any time in little five points; we just drove around. The drive there took us through a really posh neighborhood with sprawling mansions and greenways. After driving around for about an hour or so, we stopped by the Atlanta Bass Gallery, which is a really cool bass store opened by a man who had settlement money from a crazy lawsuit. Apparently, he had gone sky diving and neither his primary nor his secondary parachute opened and he landed on a plum tree breaking most of the bones in his body. He sued the sky diving company, won lots of good money and opened up a Bass store in Atlanta. It was a great store and Joseph was trying not to drool. We have to go back there after the jobs come so that he can get something. After he got his Bass fix, we stopped off at Octane, which is an amazing coffee house in downtown. It has really good coffee which is roasted by Counter Culture, I believe, and it was so nice to be amongst a good mix of people. Where we are currently living seems to all white, all the time. Uck! At Octane there were people of every color and I felt like I could breath again. Living out in the country is really beautiful but I got an energy from being downtown that totally revives my spirit. After spending about an hour at Octane, we headed over to Taqueria del Sol and got some amazing brisket and vegetarian tacos. The place was packed out! Mercy's new favorite food is avocado so we fed her pieces from our guacamole. We headed back home after a full and wonderful day in downtown Atlanta. I hope that we can find a place to live that is somewhat close to downtown or, at least, a place with a bit more diversity.
On the Mercy front, life is absolutely sensational. She now has her bottom two teeth with another coming in from the front. We thought the upper tooth that is coming in was her front tooth but, oddly enough, it is her I tooth. As it comes in she is starting to look like a baby vampire. The I tooth on the other side is starting to break through too. It is hilarious! She is such a doll and is talking up a storm. Here words include Dada, Mama, Duck and Book. It also sounded like she told Dianne (the lady with whom we live) "thank you" last night. She usually wakes up in the morning having conversations with herself and she laughs a lot. She is getting altogether too big for my liking but I am enjoying every phase of her growth. Her hair is still more full in the front than in the back, giving her a nice little mohawk that stands straight up on these dry winter days. We can't believe that she is already eight months old! One year will be here before we know it.
As usual, thank you to all of our family and friends for your calls and prayers. We miss everyone so much and if everyone needs a break from the West, come visit us here in Hotlanta. We would love to see you!

Any Day Now

Oh, the job search! Or maybe I should say, "woe" the job search. In many ways, we dug right in and got our professional lives moving pretty quickly. Joseph has five bass students on Saturdays and has been working somewhat regularly with David Bell and his company Orchestrate. As well, we were introduced to some wonderful folks at Land of 1000 Hills coffee within our first month here and were offered a job only two days later. While, for a while, that was looking like it was going to be a great fit, we decided to say no on Wednesday after some negotiations about compensation. The company has an amazing vision and they are going to be opening up their third store in Cumming hopefully by the 6th of March. We pitched the idea of Joseph and I managing the store together and we were trying to negotiate for family benefit coverage and/or some sort of commission based on the profit we could turn for the store. Whomever decides to take on the job of management will be involved in everything from design, marketing and layout to hiring, scheduling, working on the bar, doing catering events and anything else involved in making a cafe successful. I believe that Joseph and I would have brought a tremendous amount of experience into the job and really could have made it successful. While they were excited to have us on board, we believe that the expectation and the compensation were not equally yolked. They were absolutely up front from the beginning about the compensation piece, which was wonderful, and we were absolutely up front about what we hoped for beyond what they were offering. All in all, it was a good negotiation process and we are happy with our decision to say no with our blessing on their new store and the company as a whole. We are both praying that they find someone who will love the job, turn a great profit for them and be a team player so they can go on to open many more stores!
So, after saying no to Land of 1000 Hills, I began to look back towards teaching positions. Yesterday I went out with Mercy and took my resume and application to a few local Christian schools in the hopes of finding some substitute work that could possibly turn into part or full-time teaching. While I was busying myself with filling out applications and updating my resume, I also took a look at Craigslist and saw that there is a local technical college hiring for an ESL position. I quickly doctored up my resume and sent it off in an email explaining that I've never taught ESL but have a degree in English and classroom experience teaching Spanish. I really didn't expect to hear back from them but at 3 pm yesterday, I received a call from the assistant to the director asking if I could come in Monday morning for an interview. Yippee! It looks like they are hiring both full and part-time as well as nights and weekends. It also looks as though they provide benefits, which would thin out a heavy bulge in our family's budget. I am a little nervous about the interview but I also realize that every opportunity we have is solely because of God's provision in our lives. If this is the position He has reserved for me, He will help me to interview well. My prayer has been that God would be our advocate and would give us favor. I am on my knees every day, literally, asking God to show me how to be a better wife and mother, how to please Him more and to walk in His will and asking that He would direct our paths. This move has been very hard and has definitely put Joseph and I into a position of growth as a couple. As well, the blessing that we have felt and the support both here and back at home have been overwhelming. I know we haven't moved to a far off place where we are risking our lives for Jesus but it really feels like the step of faith we took to come here has put us in a position to risk our sanity and be stretched for Jesus.
Thank you to all who are reading this for your prayers. We feel lifted up and ask that you would continue to remember us in prayer when you remember us in thought.