Hell No (Part 4 of Our Arctic Adventure)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

That's what I said.

It was a Thursday afternoon when he told me about the job and it's arctic location. I spent that evening researching Kotzebue, Alaska and managed to find just about all the negative things I could about it. Let's see, it's 30 miles NORTH of the arctic circle (and I hate to be cold), mayonnaise costs $16 per jar, gas is $7.50 a gallon, there is 20 days of straight darkness in the winter and there are no restaurants. Yep, that's why I would not be moving to Kotzebue Alaska.

That weekend was a busy one, we were having a bowling/sleepover party for Ben's birthday and my sister Kris came to town to help and hang out. Have I told you that Kris is my best friend? Add that to the list of why I wasn't moving to the arctic. It was bad enough that we already lived a little over two hours apart. That Friday, I started sharing what I thought was the funniest job offer ever with everyone I saw. It went something like this; "Dave got a job offer in a native village 30 miles north of the arctic circle. Isn't that hilarious!"

Kris and I talked about it a lot that weekend; looked online at everything we could find about the village, and laughed at the thought of Dave and I and our boys living in the frozen Tundra.

That whole weekend, while I was laughing at the job offer, something was going on in my heart and mind, something that played over and over in my mind all weekend long..........

"You asked me for an adventure."

That was it. All. Weekend. Long.

"You asked me for an adventure."

I tried to ignore it. Honestly, but it never went away.

I can't say that I heard an audible voice with it, although that would have been cool, but it was just the constant thought in my mind that weekend.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, after my sister had gone home and I had repaired the damage of a weekend of 9 year old boys, I acknowledged the leading of my heart.

"Okay God. You are right. We asked you for an adventure, but can I say wrong adventure God?"

Hmmm, probably not.

So all night Sunday I wavered. I knew I needed to talk to my husband and tell him that I was wrong in my original response, but I was scared. This wasn't the adventure that I had hoped for.
So that evening I prayed.

"okay God. I'll consider this job offer, but if you really want us to go you'll have to clear the way."

Haha, funny when we think WE can put stipulations on GOD!

On Monday morning, before Dave went to work I said to him; "okay, if you want to LOOK into this job, then let's do it. But let's be sure that we ask all the right questions, pray about this and make sure that this is exactly what God wants us to do."

That day Dave called the gal back and told her that we were interested, but could she provide us with the name of someone that lived in this village so that we could ask some questions. No problem, and by the end of the day we had spoken to the guy that would be Dave's boss. He was completely honest with us about life in the village; it was different, and it was tough, but taking the job with this company was the best thing he had ever done for his family (they had moved from the Seattle area four years ago to go to work with this company). We talked a little bit more with the HR gal from the company about the opportunities within the company and the logistics of such a move and everything just seemed right.

After a couple of days of back and forth conversations and e-mails between Vancouver and Alaska, and lots of prayer, Dave and I decided to accept the job offer. We called the company and by Wednesday afternoon the official offer was in our e-mail. We printed it and read it over and over. Dave signed it and I started worrying and asked Dave to hold on to the offer and not fax it back until Monday. I mean, we needed to be sure that this is what we were supposed to do and the company was wanting Dave to start on March 30th which meant being in Anchorage for orientation on March 30th and being in Kotzebue to start at the store on April 1st. It all seemed impossible

Apparently, I had yet to figure out that I wasn't in control of this.

Again we were heading in to another weekend and I had lots of fear. I was scared, but Dave and I talked alot about it, and again after much prayer, we decided that this was the adventure that God had for us and so we decided that we just needed to take the step of faith and send the offer back.

We then needed to formulate our plan.

TO BE CONTINUED.................