15 – Good News in a Costco

I will take 3 Polish and a chicken bake and 4 sodas please.

Taking the food back to the table where my family are waiting I take the drink orders and go fill up our cups.

Costco is crazy.

It is huge. It has everything you probably want for your home.

And it has great chicken bakes.

So we sit in the food court area in the Costco near Salem Oregon, we are still on our way back to Belingham but decide to take a major detour to go visit some friends.

It is the end of August.

We sit reflecting on the summer we have had.

My phone starts to ring.. Rachel’s Mum has received some important mail with my name on it.

We beg her to open it.

It has arrived.

I can now work legally.

The emotion overwhelms. I cry.

In the middle of Costco food court.

With a chicken bake in hand. I cry.

Now this seems a strange thing to be happy to get… Now I get to work but really what this means is that I am here legally for 10 years. And I don’t have to worry about being split up for 10 years.

It is a fear you see. Seperation has taken an affect on me.

We go back to our friends house and that afternoon I secure my first job interview in America.
I will be interviewing at a door manufactoring plant. Something I have never ever done before.

Do I understand the American version of measurements? NO.

Have I ever worked in a mill before? NO.

Will that stop me? No.

I can smile easy again.

14 – House Sitting Like a Boss

It came to the end of the Summer.

I was fed up with waiting… When was my Green Card going to come?

I received my Visa in my passport in June and I was aware that it could take up to 3-6 months.

I was praying everyday for the chance that it could be the day that it would come and our life here could start.

So we made a decision as a family to go and house/dog sit at my father in laws home whilst he was away for the majority of August Elk hunting.

We were aware that it would be taking us away from the community that we were starting to form and putting us in a place where we would have to entertain ourselves…

Key factor in this decision…

Bleed out our savings whilst staying with the community we were with… or save what we have and enjoy August next to the Columbia River…

We chose to Dog sit.

It was a good month.

It was tiring. But good.

It taught us a lot about what we can do for each other and our patience levels.

Each evening we would take a walk along the rivers edge, we would go “treasure hunting” finding washed up fishing gear, collecting it and cleaning it.

We found a lot.

I took time to explore my ambitions with wood working, using driftwood and experimenting with the skills (I think) I have.

Truth is… that month it brought us closer. We laughed together, cried together, relaxed together.

It was a month that has been pretty significant in our journey in the States.

13 – The Summer of Fun

Our first summer was insane.

It was an incredible welcoming to an area of the world that we were new to.

BBQ’s, Church get togethers, board game evenings, meals together… People knew how to make us feel welcome and loved. We needed it.

Daniel took me up to Yellow Aster Butte, it was crazy.

There were hundreds of flies… that was the negative.

We camped out on a night where the skies were so clear.

The was a meteor shower that night… I was sat on what it seemed to be the top of the world with a friend I had known for about a decade.

It was again a great intro to the area and what was available.

Snowboarding, skiing in the winter, summers by lakes and up mountains.

What else could we want?

The biggest issue in my mind throughout all of this was that I still didn’t have my green-card.. And I hated not providing or my family.

We were house sharing with an incredibly generous and loving couple.

The sharing wasn’t hard. The dependance on others who had earned the right to have their house was the issue to me. I felt like I was robbing them of their earned privacy and home life.

One of the hardest things I have learnt is to allow people to bless us as a family. To give them the opportunity to bless and give to us.

And for me to be thankful for it.

That is still something that I am learning to this day.