So much has been happening in the Schweitzer household that I don't even know where to begin to fill people in. As boring as this post may be, I thought I'd do a mass update, read it if you want, but I don't mind if you fall asleep ;-)
A few weeks ago we heard that Antioch Christian Church in Odessa, Texas was looking for a worship director. As some of you may know, this is the church that our best friend Aaron just started at as the youth minister a few months ago. We had no intention of "following" Aaron and Julie to Texas and it got brought up as a joke but somehow God worked out some details and last week the church flew us down there to interview for the position. The weeks leading up to our trip Tim and I spent much time in prayer and fasting. We were very excited to go, even though the thought of living in Texas wasn't very appealing. God transformed Tim's heart the weeks leading up to this trip, and drew Tim closer to Himself and created a heart of worship in Tim that I had not seen before. I knew God was working, and we were very excited for our trip.
As excited as we were, I don't think Satan was very happy about it. The day we were supposed to fly to Texas, with a 23 month old and a 2 month old, Tim woke up with the flu. He felt horrible and didn't do very well on the flights. Our plane got delayed, but after a very long day of flying, we eventually got to the church for worship practice. The first day in Texas I was struggling. Tim was struggling physically with the flu but I was really struggling emotionally. I didn't know what it was but I knew Satan was attacking me, and I was having a difficult time. After a lot of prayer, and a long talk with my best friend, God drew me near to Him and gave me a peace and excitement for the rest of the trip.
The scenery isn't very awesome in Odessa, and the location isn't ideal but I LOVED it there. I loved the church, the people, and most importantly I loved seeing what God was doing in and through the people at Antioch Christian Church. We had a wonderful trip and we are very excited to see what God will continue to do there, with or without us!
Returning home was nice but overwhelming. We are praying about where God wants us, and for peace in the waiting. On Wednesday, the day after we got home, and the day before Thanksgiving, Tim went into work. Beyond shockingly he was fired from the printing company he worked for. Tim had asked for a few days off for Texas and his boss agreed but asked why. Tim had prayed about what to say and decided to be honest with his boss that we were interviewing for a ministry position. All seemed well when we left, but upon our return, his boss I guess didn't like that Tim had interviewed somewhere else, and "didn't want to be his temp agency". We were shocked because we thought his boss was okay with it, and we still don't even know about the position in Texas or any other positions.
So now I ask for prayer. Prayer for peace and patience on my end, prayer for answers and clarity, prayer for provision. We have decided that we are going to be moving, but we just don't know where that is yet. It may be Texas, it may be Arizona, it may be somewhere in Illinois. We don't have a job offer on the table yet but we do have a few good leads. So in the mean time, while we wait, we are going to move in with my parents to save some money. Since we know we will be moving, we are going to just put our things in storage and stay with my parents for a few weeks until we get more direction on where we are going to go. This is one of the scariest things I have ever done, and pretty overwhelming but God is good, and we know it'll all work out.
If you read through this all I ask that you please be in prayer for us as we pack up our house and move in the next week and a half! If you are in the Bloomington area, come say goodbye to us over some coffee and pack a box while you're at it! ;-)
