Settled in and we could use you help!

After a long process of settlin in and I am so happy to say that it finally feels like home! Kylee is making friends and Really loving it here. I can't believe my baby is starting kindergarten this year?! Wow! She is going to start ballet soon and she is so very excited. 

My shoulder is not doing any better and I get it checked on Friday. I'm ready to know what's going on and get it better! I am praying for no surgery but due to the increase of pain and swelling I am thinking surgery might be the only option.  

Ministry is going great here Praise The Lord!! We are so excited about all the opportunities God is opening up. Joey and I are working towards raising support for our family. We want to be able to stay on the field full time and to do that we need to be able to support our family. We would like to ask all of our friends, family, all our brothers and sisters out there to prayerfully consider supporting us financially. We need to reach the goal of $1,000 a month. Any amount of monthly support you can help us with would be greatly appreciated!  Without the prayers and support of you guys we could not keep going. We know that God has put each one of you in our lives for a reason and we are so thankful for that. So please pass this on, share it with your friends, Church, Sunday school class, and anyone else you can think of :) 

We know that this is where God wants us an we are trusting in Him, knowing that He will provide! 

Thank you again for all your support and encouragement!!!

Love

Joey, Jordan, and Kylee

Ps if you would like to financially support our family we would love for you to email your commitment amount to us at schools.family@yahoo.com  so that we can keep track of our goal. Money can be sent to PO Box 1331 Athens TN 37371 (please add a note that it is for "schools support")

A little (well a lot) of transparency

As pretty much everyone knows by now I was supposed to be competing in my first ever half ironman this September. Well after my shoulder injury it's for sure I will not be able to do it, even if I don't have to have surgery I have lost so much training time that I would not be ready. I understand that to most this doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but to me this was my dream. I have invested so much thought, money, and most importantly time into this, and unfortunately I cannot get any of it back. I can not explain to you how frustrating and disappointing this is to me. I can't help but feel like a failure even though there was nothing I could have done to stop it. 

Needless to say With all of this going on I have been a downer to be around, I feel helpless, useless, and just plain grumpy. I HATE having my arm in a sling it makes me so mad to not be able to do the things that I usually do to help the family and just to live normally. All of this has made me extremely home sick....which is funny because I actually love mexico. I love the people here, I love the smile they get when we say we live here, and I love a good taco on the square on friday night. But I miss family and friends from home, and the ease of knowing that a doctor who speaks English is around every corner. And this shoulder thing has made me miss all that a little more, and not have the attitude I should be having. I want to take a minute to say I'm sorry to my family for the moody-ness, I love you all so very much and I am so thankful that God has given us the opportunity to work together here.......I mean wow! 

Dad- I I love watching you minister to people, it is the most amazing thing I have ever seen, you truly are a blessing to this country and to me, one day I will be just like you!

Mom- I am in awe of how you can fix a meatloaf and make me feel like I am back at home, you are the best friend I could ever have, and you work so very hard, we would not survive without you.

Joey- I have no clue how you put up with me, I am so thankful for the love you have for my family and this ministry, I could not imagine someone better out there for me...and us!

Kylee- sweet girl you are simply amazing, you never complain and always smile, how do you do that? You are the greatest helper that any of us could have ever asked for, thank you for choosing everyday to serve God with all your heart......you are the biggest asset to this ministry!

So here is my promise....I am going to stay positive! God is in control not me, He has a perfect reason for everything and I know His plan will be better than I could ever imagine. I am so excited that God chose us to be here and to serve here and I am ready and willing to do just that. 

I ask that you will continue to keep our family in your prayers, we cherish those prayers so very much. I am in the process of finding a place to have an MRI done on my shoulder to find out if its torn. You would be surprised to at how hard it is to find that stinking machine lol. Once we know what the damage is then we can assess what I need to do next. Please pray we can find somewhere that I can get it done and that the cost is not to much. 

Love 

Jordan

One proud mama!

We met a man not to long ago and his 4 year old son is in the hospital here with leukemia, they also have a 2 year old little girl who spends most of her time sitting at the hospital waiting. We had talked to the family today and they told us their son, Erik was going back for new treatment tomorrow. Kylee heard us talking to them and decided she wanted to give him a gift. So shortly after she came down stairs with a basket full of toys. I thought most of these toys would be things she didn't want or what have you, but I was very wrong. My daughter came to us with a basket of her most prized possession, a batman costume that she puts on daily, her favorite Christmas present a remote control helicopter from her uncle Justin and aunt Jecka (Jessica), a rapunzel baby doll (for the sister who is bored at the hospital), and much much more. I was in awe to see her wanting to give this stuff away, and thinking that she might not realize that if she gave it to him she wouldn't get it back I explained to her what she was talking about doing, but still she insisted. My dad begin to say "it's ok Kylee we can get him something you don't have to give your stuff we know its your favorite", and in the sweetest voice you could imagine she begin to explain to us "guys he has to sit in a hospital bed all day and can't get up so he can fly the helicopter, and batman is so tough I bet he loves super heroes, and his sister is very bored sitting there all day so she will need toys". By now we were all in tears, how could someone so young be so giving? I can tell you right now I have never in my life been so proud! God most certainly blessed us with a little girl who has a servants heart!

Shoulder news

Well I got to talk to my Dr today and as of right now I'm in a sling for most of the day. I am no longer going to be taking the ibuprofen because its not working so I'm not interested in taking it for no reason. My dr says that most likely it is re-torn so for right now the only thing I can do is make it comfortable. Please keep me in your prayers as we figure out what's the best thing to do!

Jordan 

A little update on my shoulder

I've had a few people ask about what's going on with my shoulder so I thought I would update everyone. Over 3 years ago I had surgery to repair my torn rotator cuff it took me months to recover from the surgery but I haven't had any real pain since. I occasionally have some aches in it but nothing that a couple ibuprofen can't handle. Well almost a week ago I started having intense piercing pain in my shoulder which took me by surprise. I started ibuprofen and icing it and it didn't seem to help, so I called my physical therapist to see if they had the name of the surgical group who did my surgery (cut me some slack it's been over 3 years and have slept a few times since then). Well they had switched to a new filing system so they didn't have a clue, but I talked to the PT there who said it didn't seem normal, but could be a flare up and to try ice and ibuprofen (been there done that). He told me to do some PT exercises and give it a few days and if it wasn't better I was going to have to call the Dr and get advice, which would be great if I knew who the Dr was. The PT also told me that while the Dr here in Mexico might be fine they will almost certainly try to get me to have surgery wether needed or not, sad but VERY true fact. You see surgeries bring more money, and if a "clean up" surgery won't hurt me why not get me to do it (even if it won't help). 

Anyways, it's been almost a week and I haven't seen any improvement, thankfully today I found a file box with the MRI results of my surgery which had the name of my Dr on it.....Score! So tomorrow morning I am calling to see what they say....of course it will take me 15 min to explain that I am in Mexico and I can't just swing by to talk and that's why my phone reception isn't great. Hopefully they can give me some advice on what to do next, cause this ain't no fun, and ain't nobody got time for that!

I'll let y'all know what I find out but keep me in your prayers!

Much Love 

Jordan

How big is your brave?

Have you ever been different from who you really are because you aren't brave enough to be yourself? Have you ever done less than your full potential or worse- less than God's potential because you weren't brave enough to just go for it? 

I have been thinking a lot about this, about how many times I back away from something because of fear. How many times I don't just jump at the opportunity to share the Gospel, to speak up. 

Why do I do that? 

Unfortunately our world is driven by fear. We are afraid to be ourselves, afraid of what others think, afraid of how everything will turn out, and the list goes on and on. This is simply ridiculous, who wants to live a life of fear? And what's worse is we fear nonsense things! I don't know about you but I'M DONE WITH IT!! I am made by the perfect creator, how can I fear being imperfect? I was created to share what I know about God, how can I keep it in? It's ok if I'm a little (or a lot) crazy, I am loved by my Heavenly Father. 

I love the song "Brave" by Sara Bareilles! In the video everyone is dancing enjoying life with no fear of how they look. I especially love the line "show me how big your brave is". What if we all did that, what if we showed the world how big our brave is! What if we were brave enough to be confident, happy, and most importantly brave enough to tell everyone we met about our Savior. 

We are called to be courageous, bold, BRAVE! 

So here's to dancing like there's no one watching, signing at the top of our lungs, being a little silly, and proclaiming the name of Jesus from top of every mountain! 

I wanna see you be brave!

Here is a link to the video :)

http://youtu.be/QUQsqBqxoR4

Home sweet chetumal!

Well let me just tell you it feels great to be here! We are getting ready to head to our house which is only about a 15 min dive from here. This town already feels like home and the people are awesome! I want to thank you again from the bottom of my heart for all the prayers and encouragement. I will continue to keep everyone up to date on life here and can't wait to show y'all some pictures o out new home!

Love 

Jordan

P.S. Kylee is doing awesome and already love it!