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Michael's Posts, Travel & Exploring, USA 2 Responses »

Sep 142010

Well it looks as if this past summer vacation is our worst to-date in terms of keeping the posts flowing here on the blog. Since arriving in Taiwan three years ago we’ve had at least one post every month. But now that has all changed with the gaping hole known as August, 2010. Oh well.

Since the last post there has been way to many happenings to document them all so I guess I’ll just hit the high points.

Owensboro was a great experience. Columbia Sportswear Company turned out to be nice job. Our boss, Janice, in the Quality Assurance department was a wonderful lady who kept us busy inspecting products and weeding out bad ones. I even got trained on operating a cherry-picker and spent many hours zipping around the warehouse, retrieving boxes from up and down the thirty foot high shelves…it was pretty fun! Janice really befriended us and even had us over to her house one night for dinner along with her adult children.

Janet, our hostess in Owensboro, became a dear friend as well. She and her daughter were so kind to us throughout our stay. They talked with us about our days, cooked dinner for us several times, and even took us out to Red Lobster one night. They exemplified, in every way, southern hospitality. Janet’s other daughter who is now married with children was also very kind. She had us come to her birthday/house party and we all enjoyed some camaraderie with people our age.

Our visits with the grandparents and Aunt Winnie were exactly what we hoped for. We were able to get past the three-day vacation-mode conversation style that we normally get into when visiting and just had good times sitting together and eating together and running errands together and the whole bit of every day life. Thank You Jesus for such a precious opportunity.

After a trip down to Chattanooga, TN, to visit the other side of Emily’s extended family, an awesome time with just too much to talk about, we headed back to Michigan. In Indiana the unfortunate reality that many older car owners face came knocking at our door as well. Our ’95 Oldsmobile’s engine, with over 230,000 miles logged on her odometer, seized and died. My kind, sweet, merciful father drove the two and a half hours, one-way, in the middle of the night to retrieve us and a few days later I went back, cleaned out the car, and sold her down the river to a junker. Goodbye old friend, goodbye.

We had a few more good weeks with the families and friends in Michigan and then flew out to SoCal to visit our friends there. We rented a car in LA and drove down to San Diego for a night with my buddy Marty. He then let us use his car to drive down to Ensenada, Mexico for a few days with our friends Tammy and Eddie and their daughter Esthela. Too much to talk about happened and it was wonderful.

Back up in San Diego Marty gave us a tour of his Naval Base and took us hiking and fishing and cooked for us and all kinds of good things…along with meeting his girlfriend Mel, whom Emily and I both find to be a great addition to our list of people to see and visit with…way to go Marty!

Then we drove back up to LA, visited a little with Gen and Kevin over dinner and returned the rental car and got on our plane.

Now we are back in Taiwan and classes have started. I for one was aching for Taiwan at the end of the summer and I am so happy to be back in my house, on my island, with my wife, living the life God has put before me.

Summer break in Kentucky

Employment, Michael's Posts, Travel & Exploring, USA 1 Response »

Jul 262010

A lot has happened since the last post. Since then Emily and I have traveled back to Michigan for summer break, spent a few wonderful weeks with family and friends, and now are in Owensboro, Kentucky for a 4 and 1/2 week long visit with Emily’s grandparents and aunt.

God did provide a place for Emily and I to stay here in Kentucky. Janet, Emily’s grandparents’ former cleaning lady, generously offered to let us stay in the spare room of her house. She and her daughter are two of the sweetest, kindest people you’d ever want to meet and have been making us feel right at home.

Last week, on Sunday, Emily and I attended the First Presbyterian Church of Owensboro’s service. We had sent an email to a bunch of pastors here in Owensboro a few weeks before arriving asking for help in finding housing. The presbyterian pastor, Eric, had emailed us back and we wanted to go catch up with him. The congregants were extremely welcoming and it was really great to get a chance to find out that the pastor recognized us right when we walked in because he had seen pictures of us here on our blog.

Today, Emily and I went with her grandfather to his church, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Owensboro. It was very interesting and definitely got me thinking about stuff. It was quite different from any service I had ever been to before. One thing I really liked was that there was time for members of the congregation to get up and share their joys and struggles with everyone.

On the jobs front Jesus has provided as well. The first few days Emily and I were here in Owensboro we drove around and stopped in everywhere there was a currently hiring sign to fill out applications. We also went to the temporary employment agencies. After doing the latter we have both become huge fans of temp agencies. Tomorrow we both start work at Columbia Sportwear Company’s midwest distribution center, jobs we obtained from Jeff at Spartan Staffing…thank you Jeff! The other temp agency that found us work but that we ended up not taking was Peoplemark. Both agencies were great. There are definitely jobs to be had as we have only been here a week and a half and already are turning down jobs and interviews.

Last week we both got a workout at Packaging Unlimited. It’s one of those places that is a day-to-day thing. If you get there early enough you have a job that day. We arrived at 5:30am, got our names added to the list, and began our shift at 7:30am. Emily spent the day making boxes for peanut butter jars and I was stacking packages of Ragu onto pallets. No air conditioning and minimum wage made it a little different from the jobs we are accustomed to but I have to say I really enjoyed it. Working there forever would have been horrible but doing really hard work every so often is something I really get a lot out of. I liked it so much I went back for seconds the next day.

This new job has pretty good pay and is air conditioned as well. We are both very grateful and excited for tomorrow morning at 6am when we begin our first shift at Columbia!

Other than that we have been having a great time with Scott and Ruth, Emily’s grandparents, and Winnie, Emily’s Aunt. They have been wining and dining us at some of Owensboro’s best eateries. That reminds me, anyone in Owensboro, Kentucky should definitely give The Famous Bistro a try. Excellent food and great service.

Well I guess that’ll do it for now.