This is what we woke up to on Thanksgiving morning. Beautiful! (That's the golf-course in the background, Baz). As far as my experience goes, Thanksgiving in America is a day when families get together to eat heaps of turkey and pumpkin pie. In some cases, after all the bellies are full, the awkward family moments are passed and in-law jokes are over... people remember to give thanks...
Nate and I are especially thankful for the joy and fullness of life we have in and through Jesus. It continues to awe us that our Creator would die to pay the penalty for our sin! Now he is risen and ruler!
We're also thankful for the joy God's given us in our marriage. We're still having tons of fun, despite being in 'limbo land'.Here's where we are as of Nov 28, subject to change of course...
Immigration status:
- Approved authorisation for employment. Yay!
- Approved authorisation to return to USA if we leave the country.
Unfortunately, they stop the permanent residency application process if we leave the USA so we've decided to post-pone our visit to sunny, warm, slang-speaking Aus until I'm all approved. That means June-ish 2008-ish? We have an interview with them on Jan 8th so please pray that this will go smoothly. Apparently they drill you to make sure I didn't just marry Nate for the USA residency (they don't realise how funny that is) so we've been practising our synchronised stories. (To all those detectives out there - that was a joke.)
Bible College status:
Nate has been accepted by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. (They're still deciding on me - I'm an international student, apparently with a complicated history:)) We'll be moving into married housing on campus sometime in Jan to start study around Jan 20. We're heaps excited about starting to study God's word and learning from those around us.
Lastly, please don't be fooled by my inherited sarcastic cynicism. I am really loving the snow and the crazy cold (-4C at 5:30pm - and it's not even winter yet!). I am loving spending time getting to know Nate's top, generous, welcoming family and Nate is lapping up being able to see them while we're still here. Just in case you're wondering how we spend our weekdays - we're staying with Nate's folks until Jan and helping them out at their office.
On Sundays we've been having fun helping out at Sunday School. Most other times are still filled with scrabble but occasionally we venture out to eat buffalo wings or bbq ribs with friends:)
...yep... lots of mushy love and loving it!