Reporting from Oregon: Candidate School

It's been awhile since we've posted, I guess. It's amazing how quickly life gets busy and time just keeps passing! I know that Allen and Diane had told us several times in the beginning of our internship that time would fly by the time we got to Candidate School , and in the past month we've begun to realize how right they were.

Spring Candidate School: April 27 - May 1, 2015
Village Missions hosts a week-long Candidate School twice annually at their headquarters in Dallas, OR. The week serves as a training period and clarification period for those who are pursuing becoming Village Missionaries and have completed the initial application and interview processes. Some who attend are also in or will complete internships (like us as we are nearing the end of ours), usually due to youth or lack of pastoral experience (or both!), but many who attend Candidate School have already been in pastoral service for a number of years and are able to go right into Village Missionary life after attending Candidate School and completing their support raising.

We are excited to begin this week of intensive training, at the end of which I believe we will have an official assigned placement as Village Missionaries! We are looking forward to getting to know other couples who will decide to serve with VM and developing relationships that will serve as wonderful support and encouragement in the years to come. I believe that 9 couples will be attending this round.

Since this week is an intensive training time, we decided to leave Josiah in Fort Wayne with some of his grandparents. (We decided to take Charis, though, as she is still nursing and still not sleeping through the night.) He'll spend a couple days with my mom/stepdad, then Chris' mom/stepdad, then finish up the week with my dad/stepmom. As my mom reminded me when she met us Saturday to get him, he won't be lacking for hugs and kisses this week! I'm sure we'll miss him more this week than he will miss us, haha.

Park playdate followed by ice cream... I'd say Josiah is pretty happy where he's at!

Exhausted after a long, fun day with Grandparents (Gideon) and a visit with his Great Grandma Grove!

We left Crawfordsville after church and lunch with our mentors yesterday. Our four-hour flight left from Chicago around 9:30pm, but we gained a couple hours and so arrived in Portland, Oregon, around 11 last night. We had gotten a hotel for the night (as it was cheaper to arrive on Sun and get a hotel than it would have been to arrive today), and will be meeting with a couple other VM candidates back at the airport after lunch for our ride to Dallas (Oregon). So exciting!

At O'Hare! As you can see, Charis was pretty amazed by the lights...

On the plane! Again, she was pretty enthralled with the lights....

Sleeping like a baby! She slept almost the entire flight!

Made it to Oregon! Again with the amazing lights... I promise we DO have lights at our house, guys.
Not sure why she's so impressed with them all, haha. Silly girl!

Well, it sounds like our shuttle back to the airport will be here soon, so I've gotta go. I hope to be able to update again either later today or tomorrow!