Goodbye Denver...for now.

So...the time which had always felt like months away is now only days away; the time for us to leave Denver and beginning our trip to Alaska.  The semester has ended for Luke, and Carrie is in her last few days of work.  We will be spending the next few weeks in Kansas and Oklahoma with family for the Christmas season and on the 14th of January we will board our one way flight to Kodiak.  We plan on updating this blog regularly to keep everyone updated on how we see God at work.  So make sure you check out the blog from time to time...you might see a bear!

A Beautiful Fall

Time continues to fly by as we enjoy the fall, anticipate our next stage of life, and live with our sister! :) Heidi moved in a couple weeks ago for 5 weeks while she is student teaching in the area. Our first order of business - to run a marathon together.

Last weekend we ran the Moab Trail Marathon in Utah. Tim came with us for the weekend - we had a great time! The race was tough - we didn't realize that a trail marathon in the desert would be mostly running on sand, and very rarely running on a flat surface! There was lots of climbing down rocks, a 2 mile hill, even repelling. We made it in about 7.5 hours. Here are a few pictures from the race:

It was actually Luke's birthday (27th!) the day of the race, so we had fun celebrating that as well. We also visited Arches National Park while were there.

That is it for now! Keep us in your prayers as we continue to prepare for our move. My last day of work is December 19th. We are looking for a renter for our apartment to take over our lease. Luke's last day of window cleaning was today - he has surgery on his shoulder tomorrow morning. He is still looking for work he can do with just one arm for a few months.

Alaska

It's been almost a year since we last updated this blog, but we thought it was time. We're going to do our best to keep it up to date! The reason we thought we should start up again is because .... we are moving to Kodiak, Alaska! I will do my best to summarize the last few months leading up to this decision:

Around May last spring, Luke was feeling burnt out with school. He had a lot on his plate - working half time, full time at Seminary, soccer coach. We decided that he should take the summer off from classes. Meanwhile, my work had been going ok, but I was pretty burnt out myself. Tired of the job that had me sitting behind a computer all day every day with a never-ending list of tasks. I love the organization and mission of Youth for Christ, felt very useful and appreciated, but I knew I couldn't last much longer in a job like that. I wanted to be doing something that brought me life. So that is how we went into the summer - unsure about everything and pretty discouraged.

In June we had a Schroeder family reunion. My Aunt and Uncle, Kathy and Ted, told us about this opportunity to volunteer for a year at the Kodiak Baptist Mission in Alaska where they live. At first we thought, that sounds good, but didn't put much serious thought into it. We kept it in the back of our heads, though, and it started to grow on us. I can't say what exactly changed, but we both got really excited about the possibility. We had nothing much that would keep us in Denver and we were definitely looking for a change. After much prayer and conversation, we have decided to go for it!

We will be working with the preschool that the Mission has for the community as well as the after school program. During the summer there are a bunch of summer camps that go on that we look forward to working with. I'm sure there will be many other opportunities that come up as well. We look forward to serving and can't wait to see what God does over the next year.

So Luke is taking a leave of absence from Seminary, I am quitting my job at the end of the year and we will be moving up to Kodiak in January after Heidi and Tim get married.

That's all for now! We will keep you posted!

P.S.

Luke is also having surgery on his shoulder again, which will be his second on the same shoulder.  Tentative surgery date is November 9.  The worst part of the recovery will be over by the time we make the move to AK. Please pray for a quick recovery!