Another Update

Well, after 2 weeks at Walmart, things are going pretty well.  Surprisingly, working at Walmart is saving money in more ways that one.  First (after 6 months) I get 10-15% off pretty much everything.  Since I pretty much buy everything at Walmart, it adds up.  Second, Walmart has partnered with tons of different companies to provide a discount.  The one I already took advantage of is my 20% discount at Verizon.  Pretty awesome. 

Those are just a couple of cool benefits.

Nicole got a job at Doane in food services.  She will probably start next week.  Sweet!  I'm really excited for her.  As of now, she's in the marketing department in food services.  She'll also be a "checker" to let people into the caf...kind of like a bouncer...but less intimidating.

Hopefully we'll get our own internet here in a week or so.  Hopefully.  That means we'll be able to update with pictures.  I like to see pictures of what everyone is up to, so I'm just assuming people like the same of us.

Gibson, our cat, has fleas.  Everytime I feel an itch anywhere I just assume I have fleas too.  I bought some flea stuff, but it was for cats under 5 pounds.  Stupid me.  Last time we weighed him, he weighed 17 pounds.  What a fatty. 

Things at the church are going really well.  Wednesday nights are going a lot more smoothly.  Sunday mornings are starting to get into a groove.  There's always some hick-ups, but we're starting to get into a routine.  But if there's one thing I learned, it's that once you get into a routine when working with people (especially children) it's time to change things up. 

A Long Awaited Post

Life has been super crazy lately.  After we moved in, we left for the holidays to go to Des Moines/Pella and Wahpeton, ND to visit family.  That went really well.  Then we came back to Crete.  We hit the job hunt and all of the places we applied to are either not hiring, or closing.  Seriously.  It's crazy.  I had been hounding Wal-Mart for about a month and the finally told me, "Hey, stop calling.  If we have a job open, we'll call you."  I thought that was a clear, "we don't want you" until 2 weeks ago.  That's when I got the call from the lady I annoyed asking me for an interview.  I, of course, took the interview and next thing you know, I become a deli sales associate.  

The job is pretty easy.  It's not stressful, it's not challenging, and I get to be bored most of the day.  That's when I let my mind wander to Children's Church and how to make it better.  But the definite bonus of the job is the ministry to the employees.  They remind me of when I worked at DQ.  They come in, talking about the party they were at the night before.  But honestly, that is the only job open here in Crete.  They job I talked about in the last post is still open, but it'll take another 2 weeks to open up.  Nicole is hoping to take that job.  I think it'll open up a lot of ministry at the college.

Things at the church are starting to take off.  We're already seeing growth.  We started with 6 boys and we just grew to 7 boys and 1 girl.  So that's cool.  The visitor that came last week, came again this week, and is planning on coming again next week.  Please pray for this family because you can just feel the rough times they're going through.  

Last week we went to a Minister's Retreat.  Basically all the AG pastors met in North Platte (don't worry, I still don't know where it's at) and had an inspirational time.  Mark Batterson was the guest speaker.  He's a cool guy.  He started a church in Union Station (DC) that just exploded in growth.  

Well, I think that's enough updating for now.  Nothing really is going on.  We're still using our neighbor's internet, and it's not always the fastest, so uploading pictures and videos will have to wait until we can get internet ourselves.  The first day we get it though, you can bet there'll be pics and videos up.

So Far, So Good

We made it.  Everything with the move went semi-eventless.  I'll start from the beginning.

For the past 2 weeks, we've been packing up everything when we've had the time.  After finals we kicked it into gear and started working hard.  Fast forward to Tuesday.  The temperature -15 (for a high!).  The windchill -40.  What better day to load the Uhaul?  We wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of Trevor and Amber.  If you're reading this, THANK YOU!  Trevor is a human tetris machine.  Anyways, the next day we go to leave, and the Uhaul has a flat tire on the rear passenger side.  It wasn't completely flat, but it was getting there.  So we take it down to Aberdeen and it hadn't lost anymore air, so I thought we'd be all right.

We weren't.

As I was filling up on gas (which would be a usual occurrence) I saw a guy looking at his tires.  Just out of the blue, I asked him if he could look at our tire as well.  Long story short, he's a tire salesman and he was shocked we hadn't already shredded the tire.  So we took the truck to the Uhaul place, got it filled up, and an hour later, hit the road.

I miss cruise control and being able to go over hills at more than 60 MPH.

The truck sucked gas like nothing I've ever seen.  in 550 miles, we had to stop 4 times to fill it up.  That's crazy!  Granted, we had the back completely full and it was towing our car.  I'm just extremely happy gas is 1.59 instead of 3.59!  What a difference!

So we make it to Crete, and I'm figuring with a handful of people, we can unload everything in a couple hours.  Boy, I was wrong.  We had 11 people show up and it took us 45 minutes from start to finish.  And the icing on the cake is that only a couple of our breakables got broken.  They weren't anything special, so that is good.

The next day (Thursday) we go to a couple of interviews that were pretty much guaranteed jobs.  Long story short, the earliest the first job starts is February, and the other job starts in March!  Uh oh.  After we found that out, we went to almost every business in town, picked up applications, and are turning them in today (Friday).

So, please pray that these jobs work out because we know that this is the right place for us.

If you are wondering about the house, we are unpacking our last boxes today and I will give the grand tour.  I'll post it on here once I get it finished.

Well, this is a long post so I should stop it before it gets any longer.

Our Trip to Crete

Over Thanksgiving break, we went to Crete.  While we were there, we looked for jobs and houses.  Long story short, we found a house, but still no jobs.

The house is nice and small.  I would classify it as 1 bedroom with an kitchen, living room, basement, and a tiny bedroom that would be more like an office.  We might be able to fit a bed in there, but more than likely it will become an office.  The floors are all hardwood and the kitchen is linoleum.  The basement has hookups for a washer and dryer.  It also has a room below the basement to use as either a pantry or storm cellar.  I think we should use it as a sweat shop and make some money on the side.  We have a garage, but we won't ever use it because we bottom out every time we pull into the driveway...

The landlord is still working on the house so just ignore all the construction stuff.

Sorry It's Been A While

Life has been pretty crazy.  I'm writing this in a class that is just rehashing everything I've already learned.  Not that it's not important, I just think that the content could be a little better...

Anyways, nothing new has really happened lately.  Tomorrow I go in for my second epidural.  This time it's in Aberdeen (30 min away) instead of Fargo (2 hours and 30 min away).  

Speaking of this topic.  I went through all the medical bills I have had just in the last year.  All of these are just from the problem with my back.  The total was $4,300.  Praise God because not only did the epidural work, but I've only had to pay $145!  This is without insurance as well and no medicaid/medicare.  God has really taken care of me and I believe that God is providing the way to be healed.

Graduation is right around the corner.  I kind of feel at peace with the whole process.  We're both really excited about Crete.  Next week (after Thanksgiving) we are going to check out some houses.  I called the landlord that Brent (the Sr. Pastor) recommended and he has a small house (1 1/2 bedrooms) which is just in our price range...which is next to nothing.  

I've started working out.  Every morning (either before or after my morning classes) I head to the fitness room, jump on the treadmill and get fit.  In the past week, I haven't lost any weight, but I have noticed that I am able to run a little longer every day.  I started running for 20 min, with breaks almost every 7 minutes.  Now I can run for about 20 min straight.  Every day I try to add a minute or so.  I just want to be healthy.  I'm not looking at losing 40 pounds.  That would be nice, but I just don't want to be out of breath from walking up a set of stairs.  Plus I don't want to buy a new set of clothes in the next size up...that's not going to happen!

I quit my job flipping burgers in the coffee closet because I got offered a job doing what I love.  I humbly accepted the position of making promo videos for TBC.  I hesitated saying this on here, because I didn't want to boast about it, but this is a huge step for me.  I say this in a non-boasting way-The administration saw the work that I had done with the promo videos for the missions trips people went on this summer and liked them.  They called a meeting with me and asked if I could do the same thing for the school.  So far, I'm working on the midnight worship we just recently had.  It's time consuming piecing together an hours worth of film!

Well that's about it for now.  Class is almost over so I'd better wrap up or I'll never get back to posting.  

Ryan and Nicole are now Employed

Well, we made the call last night to accept the position in Crete, NE.

For those of you who didn't know, we candidated at Radiant Springs Church in Crete, NE last weekend.  As we left, they offered the position to us and we took a couple of days to think and pray about it.  As the pastors there, we would be in charge of the Children's Ministry, help out with worship, and be general associate pastors.  This is a very exciting time because we feel that the Senior Pastor will gel well with us.

Crete is a smaller town just 20 miles outside of Lincoln.  They have a college of about 1,000 there-Doane College.  They offer some Master's level programs so that could be an option later on.  The town has a BK, Subway, Pizza Hut, Wal-Mart (YES!!!!), and just other places like these.  The town population is around 7,000-so it is on the smaller side of things.

We would have to find a full-time job while we're there.  I'm looking at being a bus driver for the school district (I never, ever thought I would be saying that), and Nicole is trying to become what's called a "para".  It's basically a teacher's aid in the Elementary School.

So yeah, those are our plans.  We hope that this will be an exciting time in our life.  If you happen to think of us, shoot off a little prayer.

Apps I Use

As many of you know, I use a mac (Macbook Pro). A lot of us out in blogland use macs and I wanted to list some of my top apps, so here they are:

Microsoft Office 2008-I would be useless without this.

Adobe Photoshop-This is where I get to express my creativity. There's not a lot there, but I try.

Plaxo-This is the best app I have. It automatically syncs my Address Book and iCal to plaxo's site. This way I can have my calendar and contacts wherever I go (because it has a cell friendly website).

The Missing Sync-This app is awesome. It syncs everything on my Q to everything on my mac. My calenday, contacts, notes, call log, texts, etc. Then Plaxo syncs it all online. Pretty awesome system.

iCal, iTunes, and Mail-I love all these apps and use them pretty much every day.

Newsfire-This is the best RSS news reader I've found. This is how I keep up with everyone's blogs because it automatically downloads them when the cmputer is online and I can read them whenever I have time (with or without internet!)

That's about it. Hit up the comments and recommend some apps to me. I always love a fresh new app!

New York

Well, I'm sorry this is a little over due, but I finally had time to catch up on the blogsphere.

New York was incredible.  Nicole and I went to NY for Nicole's Grandma's 80th birthday/family reunion. I met a ton of people there.  There was close to 50 people at the reunion/birthday party!  Surprisingly, I can still remember most of them!  Woot!  Anyways, we had a great time.  90% of our time was spent with family.  We actually had the opportunity of staying with Nicole's Aunt (Eileen) and boyfriend (Jon).  We had such a great time there.  It turns out that Jon is an IT supervisor for a library supply company (plug-www.gaylord.com ) Anyways, he is seriously hooking me up with his old stuff that would sit in his drawers, closets, etc.  What a blessing!!

In the 10% of our time there that was not spent with family, it was spent eating pizza (9%) and apple picking.  I think I ate 6 apples in the 20 minutes of picking.  Then drank an apple cider on the drive home.  I had way too many apples that day...

Here are some pictures of the fam plus other randomness.

A OK

Well my epidural yesterday went pretty good. When I get nervous I start cracking jokes...so the jokes were endless and only got worse. it started with "Wow, this is the first time I've paid someone to see my crack!" We'll stop there...

But really, it went really well. Although I must say that I felt a lot more than they said I would. That aside, I have significantly less pain than yesterday (even with the soreness...) All in all I'm praying that this will be a permanent fix.

My side note for today...the show "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" is by far, my favorite show of all time. It's not meant for kiddies...but the humor is so creative and...humorous! So if you have the courage to watch it, do it!