What shall we do now, sir?

After the disappointing, yet not that surprising, news that Chad was being laid off from his job, we had to ask ourselves; what's next? There wasn't much hope that he would get a call to come back to work. (We would later find out that his whole company was closing) Unemployment benefits only cover so much and our health insurance was terminated the day that he was laid off.

Unfortunately in the area that we were living, the unemployment rate was very high. The job market showed very little hope. Chad was applying to job after job and sending out resume after resume. He had one interview out of at least a hundred or more jobs he applied to.It was daunting to say the least.

That is when I looked at him and asked; what shall we do now, sir? Neither of us had a good answer. He considered going back to school to get into a different line of work. He considered becoming an over the road truck driver and hitting the road. Our biggest and most promising consideration was the United States Air Force. It was something that we really thought about and prayed about. Chad visited with a recruiter and we were ready to sign papers when his Grandma Marj called. 

"Chadwick, I was reading the newspaper when I saw a help wanted ad in Marquette for diesel mechanic." 

Was this God calling? This was a dream come true opportunity for Chad. He grew up traveling to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on family vacations and since I have known him he always talked about moving up there and living in "God's country" or "just south of heaven".  It only took a matter of an hour for him to have the online application done and his resume sent. That was when really hard praying began. 

The next day Chad received a call from Cummins Npower asking him to come in for an interview.  We scraped together what money we could so that we could make the 8 hour trip north. I will admit, I was looking forward to the prospect of living in Marquette, but I had never been more than a half hour from my family. It made me nervous to think of leaving everything I had ever known. Alas, we got in the car and made our way north to see what  God might have in store for us.

The trip itself is kind of a blurry memory. My sister, Holly, and my sister-in-law, Mandy, came with us. We stayed at Chad's family cabin that is about an hour and a half away from Marquette. We made the trek into town on the day of the interview and all I could do was pray that we had clear answers as to what God had planned for us. As my sisters and I sat eating lunch at Hudson's (I love that place) with a clear view of the hotel where Chad's interview was taking place, I remember feeling completely at ease. God was working, I knew that for sure. 

Chad walked out of the interview with a smile on his face. He felt good about how it went and was LOVING being in the Upper Peninsula. We took a trip about 30 minutes from Marquette to check out a rental that we had seen online in the town of Gwinn. When we pulled up, we were not impressed. When we looked at the rental, we were even less impressed. Ok, God, we may be getting ahead of ourselves, but if we get this job, we need a place to live. We drove away feeling slightly beaten down. 

About a half hour later while we were driving around, Chad's phone rings. "Chad, this is Jason from Cummins NPower and I would like to offer you the Field Service Tech job if you are interested." Chad and I had already agreed that if he was offered the job, that we would say yes. The USAF was and still is a great opportunity, but with our new marriage already being put to the test, we both felt that if we could secure a job that didn't require him and I to be separated for months on end, that it would be better. We felt God was telling us that this was what he had for us. 

Now we just needed to find us a place to live. 

We drove around Gwinn for a little bit and found a couple of places with for rent signs. We made a few calls and it wasn't long before we were meeting with a guy about a duplex on an old Air Force base called K.I. Sawyer. The duplex was available immediately and the gentlemen said that if we could put the deposit down, that it was ours. Praise God. Chad and I both felt like God was giving us clear answers.

Not only was he offered a job that was in his field, but was a promotion and a pay raise. We found a house that was available to us immediately and we had the money to secure it. Within a matter of an hour we had a job and a house! Now it was time to tell our family that we would be moving 8 hours north in TWO WEEKS... That's right, they wanted Chad in the Upper Peninsula to start the employment process in two weeks. 

Holy crap! Two weeks.