Tuba Warrior

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

Trusting God isn't the easiest task. So often we want our way and try to take things into control on our own. Tonight we were watching Veggie Tales: Gideon Tuba Warrior with Gunnar and when Proverbs 3:5-6 came up on the screen Kyle said "that is just what I needed to hear tonight," and I must admit I needed to hear it too.

 In the Army life can be VERY uncertain. That is why we have been very hesitant to share this news with many people. In all honesty we are still not 100% certain this will be happening, but are at the point where we feel we can openly share that we were presented with an opportunity to head back to the states sooner than we thought. 

Kyle is currently in a Warrior Transition Unit here in Schweinfurt. The top priority of his job in this special unit is to get medical care. All soldiers in this unit (15 total soldiers here in Schweinfurt) have complex medical cases and have many doctor appointments. Currently Kyle is getting ready to go into the Medical Evaluation Board (MEB). Here they will decide if he can return to work with limitation, return without limitations, or if he can be medically retired from the Army. They had actually just started the MEB process when his doctor suggested that we try to get a medical transfer to the United States. We contacted some people and were told this wasn't possible because Kyle's MEB process that already been started. This was after we had already told some people of the possibility then had to go back and tell them it wasn't happening.

However, we were told that if this was something we wanted to go ahead and contact the people who processes the medical transfers personally. So Kyle got the phone number and gave the them a call (instead of just settling for the initial "no" that we were told). She listened to his case and decided that we could be approved, this was on August 24th my birthday. However, they did not want to start the transfer process until we received Ryker's passport because they didn't want to chance us getting a date to leave before his passport had arrived. We (meaning Kyle) pestered a lot of people and went through a lot of hassle to get his birth certificate and passport quickly. We received his passport earlier this week...which means the transfer process has started.

I don't want to get to excited because until we have official orders in our hands nothing is 100%, but in less than two months, more likely by the end of October we will be headed back to the US. Better than just heading back to the states, we got to choose where we were heading and are able to go to Fort Lewis!!! Which of course is the closest Army Post to both of our families. 

While I am ecstatic to be thinking about leaving the states it is really bitter-sweet. We have lived here for four and a half years. This has become home. We were blessed with two sweet little boys while we were here, have many great friends, have had awesome opportunities for traveling when work allowed, and have so many great memories.

Going back to the states is going to be a huge transition for us. Once Kyle's MEB is done, he will be getting out of the military. He will then be deciding if he is college bound, work bound, etc. I should be finishing my master's in June or July of 2011, and we will also be deciding if I need to return to work or can continue to stay home with the kids. Not only that but we have to figure out where we are going (location, location, location)...which will largely depend on what Kyle decides to do.

Now, back to Veggie Tales or even better Proverbs 3:5-6. Kyle and I are really trying to stay focused on God's plan for us. We know that He brought us to Schweinfurt, Germany for a purpose, and we know He has a purpose for us at Fort Lewis, and the future. The future is what worries me the most. For the last five and a half years we have known where every pay-check was coming from and had a lot of security in our lives, although we have also spent a HUGE part of our marriage away from each other due to deployments and time in the field. It is very scary to think that will be gone. But we can be at peace with this transition knowing that if we trust in God He will direct our paths and everything will be okay. However, for this to happen we have to stop doing what we want and think is best and spend time praying and listening to God. So Bob and Larry, thanks for this great reminder! We pray that we can trust as well as Gideon.