2009 Maxwell ASBC Training with the love of my life

Well, day 2 and 3 in ASBC Maxwell has been filled with more adventures, awesome people and lots of God’s grace and love in Andrew and I’s lives. Every morning starts out pretty early, but as you know, that’s no problem with me. I enjoy getting up and getting Andrew started. After his breakfast and lunch is all accounted for, we scoot his booty off to work and I start my day with some time for the word of God. The past couple of mornings, I’ve had some time to do some running—and with my running sheet, it’s easy to get motivated! However, we think the scale’s mileage is not marked properly and the mile markers are badly marked. I thought I was the only one that thought that, but it seems the other wives complain about it too. Oh yeah, and that’s another great thing! Almost every wife I have gotten to know either runs or are very physically fit. I actually got to go workout with one named Emmy today and tomorrow another girl, Emily, and I are taking her GPS to go see REALLY how long the trails are and do some adjusting to the running map! Haha—we have a mission of our own at Maxwell: to ensure that the map truly reads face value so other wives don’t suffer as our own classes’ spouses have! No more injustices here! Watch out, Maxwell, because the military wives are on the job!! Haha—I’ll let you know how that goes after we get finish with our first attempt tomorrow.

And it was totally the Lord’s grace that I have made friends here that are either strong Christians or are very willing to hang out with us anyways (my hopes are that through our testimony they might too come to know Christ as their Savior!). One of my better friends here is Emmy. She runs a lot, loves the Lord and has a very sweet heart which is always so warm towards everyone she meets (including the housekeepers! It was fun to sit around and talk with them today—who knew we’d have such a good time with the cleaning staff!). Her sweet spirit allowed us both to become fast friends. Some of her friends live around this area and have told her where some good churches are here. That was so encouraging to me—so pray we find a good one to attend while we’re here for a while! It’s important we find out because all training is always in Maxwell--thus, the odds are very high that we will be living here again during Andrew’s career. It’s also good that the chapelins here are so good about introducing themselves and inviting you to bible studies, which we are going to this Monday. Super exciting! SO BE PRAYING FOR US! God has been so faithful to us by spending us friends and good fellowship, but pray we are aware to the many blessings He is going to shower down on us—including finding a church!

What I like most about Maxwell so far is everybody is really friendly here—that’s God’s grace. It’s also a lot bigger on this base (it’s easy to get lost) and its usually pretty warm (today was a challenge because it had a touch of chill in the wind and spit rain at times). It’s been really nice. I’ve also really enjoyed having everything you need in the proximity of a short drive or possibly a nice walk. Besides the 6:00am wake up trumpet calls, the 9:00am Taps loudspeakers melody, the 5:00pm pausing for the ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬_____, the listing of times and dates (all in military standard), grocery shopping is also a very unique experience. Yesterday, I did our grocery shopping at the Commissary, with my objectives to shop smart and healthy, but staying in our fixed budget as well. (And Mom, you were the greatest example of that, so thank you for your example!) It was actually a lot of fun to grocery shop! All the people there are very diverse, ranging from older individuals (which had trouble remembering who they were, making remembering what they came to get also troubling!) to prison inmates who took your groceries to your car (that’s another large difference here: even if you can handle your groceries without need for assistance, the bagboys and women depend on your tip, so you have to let them take your groceries… I’ve been told its unspoken policy). The women are very sweet here too (I actually ran to get some forgotten items for this one woman with coupons that stated BUY ONE GET ONE FREE and another I helped her with a toilet paper avalanche! It’s never a dull day in Maxwell’s commissary—I laughed all the way through my shopping experience!) I took two trips because Andrew got off for his lunch half way through my shopping and so I went with him and his buddies and came back later to finish the job. I had to make another trip later to pick up his new running shoes, a notebook and some more plastic baggies at the BX, so I pretty much spent the whole day shopping and carrying groceries up to the forth floor! Ha! But, the good news is we got a ton of food for the next two and a half weeks…. However, I did go over our food budget by $14. Yet, for the amount we got and the tax break, we actually got a sweet deal! And mom, you would appreciate this one: all the reduced fat or healthier foods they usually charge you more for (because they know they can charge people who care about their diets more than people who don’t) are all the same price as the regular or fatty foods! And since Andrew is in training, I took advantage of this great opportunity!! It is really awesome!

But, yes, my life does have more to it than just shopping and running-- I have been doing financial balancing, studying the word, making sure our new home is fully supplied (another cool thing is the Loaner’s Locker at the Family Center, where you can borrow almost anything you need for no cost), doing needed errands for my husband, getting to know the women better, participating in the spouse activities/bible studies/social events, planning our trip to Hawaii… etc, etc. I plan on doing my online class sign up tonight… so with all of that, I seem to keep myself busy, no matter where we are! No boredom here =) I’m excited about the days to come, because they have all been planned by the Lord (and if I keep asking for his eyes on every aspect of my day, they will be like today: completely surrendered to the Lord and filled with hope and inspiration to share with others about him!)I’m not sure if Emily is a Christian or not, but be praying I will have the courage to share the gospel with her. She loves German Shepherds—and her puppy was just born today!!—so I know there’s hope, right?? Haha!).

I got to talk to Eva today too, which was exciting! She was so glad to see you guys at church. Emily and matt also text me yesterday-I enjoyed talking to them! (And Matt would be proud: I’ve taken up listening to more country since our honeymoon- it seems like the only channel on the radio dial to listen to here and it makes me think of home when I do—I’ve grown very fond of it) And after talking to both Mom and Eva, plus hearing from Emmie and Mattie, I don’t feel that far away from home! Praise the Lord for technology and ways to communicate, right?!

Anyways, I miss you all and can’t wait to hear what’s going on in Knoxville. I have another early day ahead of me again tomorrow, so I’m going to go spend some time with Andrew before we head to bed! I love you all and am praying for you daily (btw, this is so random, but Dad, I’m so glad you choose to get Andrew the Oswald Chambers devotional—that has been so helpful in keeping me in the word while I’ve been here, just like it does when I’m at home! So thanks, you’ve really blessed my spiritual life tremendously!! Like so many other ways you have blessed my life!). Call when you can!