(not-so) Little Update

Alan sent off some resumes and cover letters this week. Both churches he sent resumes to on Sunday called and/or emailed him back on Monday wanting more information from him. This was AMAZING and a complete God-send. If any of you have ever been in a process like this with a church you know that the last thing most churches do is move swiftly. Whether or not either of those churches works out it was so reassuring to hear back so quickly. Alan and I agreed it gave us hope to move on as we begin this process all over again.

He sent off another couple of resumes and cover letters on Monday and received a phone call today from the head pastor of one of those churches. Not recognizing the number or area code on his caller ID, Alan went ahead and answered wondering who it was. 20 minutes later(!) he got off the phone to tell me that he basically had an impromptu phone interview right then and there! The guy wanted to know a little more about Alan - his experience, what he's doing right now, why this church in this particular state (I'm being ambiguous on purpose...) - and the overwhelming feeling Alan got from the conversation was positive. When he mentioned that he was currently serving and worshiping at an Anglican church (a real point of contention when Alan was interviewing with the church in Virginia), the pastor (a Gordon-Conwell grad with a son currently at GCTS) asked about one of our priests. It turns out he knows him from years ago when they both lived in Wisconsin! He seemed really excited about Alan. As it turns out this church is actually pretty far along in the process with "a couple of candidates" - we're not sure how many - but Alan piqued their interest enough that they were willing to risk the possibility of the process taking a bit longer in order to pursue Alan a little more. Alan hopes to receive a questionnaire from them and complete it before we head to California next week.

All in all, whatever comes from any of these churches and/or any of the few others to which Alan has sent his information, we have hope and encouragement again as we face this process. We also have additional confirmation in multiple forms at this point that the Virginia church really wasn't for us. I am so thankful that God has already revealed at least a little bit of his working in this situation. It makes this waiting time so much more manageable.

So keep us and the job search in your prayers - and pray especially for these three churches that we are moving ahead with. One is in North Carolina, one in California and one in Michigan. Any of those locations would place us closer to family in one form or another and we're excited about that prospect too. Also pray for the living situation as we are looking for a new place - still in the GCTS area. We're basically planning on being here till Christmas, although if that third church is really serious about Alan and having someone hired by the time school starts (or within a week or two of the beginning of the school year) it's quite possible we might just get that miracle that we asked for and really be out of New England by the end of August... although I'm not holding my breath for that one ;-).

For all you Californians, Michiganders, Texans and Hong-Kong-ians (whatever you call people from Hong Kong ;-) we'll be seeing next week, we can't wait!!!


Much love,
Meredith, for Team Conrow :)

First Communion

On Sunday at church all three of us went to the altar rail for the Eucharist as we usually do. This week, however, instead of the priest simply giving Adeline a blessing, he asked Alan and me if she could receive. In the Anglican church, once a person has been baptized, no matter how young, they may receive the Eucharist. Alan and I agreed and Fr. Bart handed us a wafer for her. When the attendant with the wine came by we dipped her wafer in the cup, broke it in half and gave it to her to eat. She made a little bit of a funny face - my guess is that was the tang of the wine :) - but she did indeed take "the most precious body and blood" of Jesus Christ.

Praise the Lord!

Update on Bottles...

I just heard from Lillian's mom :) that when she called her local BRU in Michigan they said they were participating until August 10th. So if you have bottles to exchange, get on it! :)

Bottles

So when I was registering at BRU for baby stuff galore I put Avent baby bottles on my list. Mind you I have been waiting years knowing I wanted those bottles for my babies because, honestly, I liked the way they looked, and I knew they were high-quality. Well, my first exposure to the BPA controversy wasn't until about, oh, I don't know, maybe 3-5 weeks into little Adeline's life when I'd already opened all of my packages of bottles, washed them and prepped them for Adeline's use. I thought, "Well, things are still uncertain, and if it really was that dangerous they wouldn't be on the market, right?" I even emailed Steve somebody-or-another who is the head of the BPA-producing world (sorry for the terrible explanation there...) and even got a personal email back from him. (I was amazed when I learned who this BPA Big Wig was given that he personally responded to my specific questions in my email. It turns out he's the one who's quoted in the all the reports and magazine articles on this stuff.)

Anywho, I ended up using Avent bottles for the majority of Adeline's liquid diet praying daily that it wasn't harming my little girl. Once she was done bottle-feeding, I bagged up the Avents and they've just been sitting around. I didn't really know why I was hanging onto them UNTIL...

Yesterday at church my friend Sarah told me that Babies-R-Us is doing a bottle exchange right now. You can take in any and all of your BPA bottles - as long as you have all the pieces - and exchange them straight up for BRAND NEW BPA-free bottles. This includes Dr. Brown's and Born Free glass bottles as well as Born Free BPA-free plastic bottles. They basically give you a credit for your used bottles as though they were brand new and you have that much money to pick out the BPA-free bottles of your choice.

I was really wanting to do glass bottles for baby #2 (which, in case anyone is wondering, is not on the way and we don't know when he/she will be) so I was able to pick up 3 2-packs of Dr. Brown's 7 oz. glass baby bottles for FREE!! I was really excited about that. Obviously that's not enough bottles so I will eventually need more and I'm really interested in the new wee-go glass bottles - the down side is that they're $18 a piece... So I think I'll start saving my pennies :).

I just thought I'd share this great thing. So if you have any BPA bottles (Dr. Brown's, Avent, there might be others) gather them together and head to Babies-R-Us!!

Pictures!

I've uploaded all of the pictures from May 31, 2008 - the day the Wrights left - and June 22, 2008 - Adeline's First Birthday Party - to Snapfish. You should be able to click here to see all of them. If it doesn't work, let me know and I'll email the link to you.

The files are pretty large and should print well if you decide you want to order any :).

Love,
Meredith

Virginia News

On Wed. the head of the elders called me and let me know they would not be endorsing me as a candidate for the church. This sadly means that the process with the church is finished. The news came as a shock, but after the meeting on Sun. I knew it was a possibility, given that some of my theological views were in contrast to beliefs held by particular elders.

Although we are sad, Meredith and I know more and more that the church would not have been a good fit for us. We are confident that God has led us through this process for a reason and we are waiting upon Him to show us our next step.

We thank you in advance for your prayers and look forward to sharing with you when God begins to open the next door.

Brief Update

Alan's trip to Virginia went well yesterday. The travel was exhausting, but smooth. So smooth in fact that I was 30 minutes late picking him up from the airport because his flight got in 23 minutes early!!

Alan had his meeting with the elders of the church while he was down in Fairfax. They will hold a meeting on Wednesday to vote on Alan and we should hear back either Wednesday or Thursday about whether Alan will continue in the process of candidating.

More soon...