A New Camera, A New Photographer, A Not-so-New Model!

BIG NEWS!

It has come - the time to upgrade to a new camera. It is an exciting time! There is some more news that will be coming along with it (good news of course), but it's not quite at sharable status yet. So stay tuned! But in the meantime, I enjoyed taking my Canon 7D out for a "get to know you date" with my lifetime date (aka wife) to get to know how to use the 7D a little better - and of course enjoy time with my wife. Having my Rebel XTi for 4 1/2 years had me so used to the settings, how to change things quickly and make them the way I wanted, I was so used to the weight and size, and everything changes with the 7D. In order to do the very same things, I had to read the owner's manual...the OWNER'S MANUAL! You think, "Who even reads those anymore??" Well, I read a lot of it. It's very informative and a good reminder of settings, but more importantly I needed to actually LEARN how to change the settings quickly, rather than the slow way which I had figured out easily.

Short story long, here are some photos I took of my beautiful wife Christina - we went down to South Beach Miami (look for my next post) and walked around for the day. It was 95 degrees...and humid of course. So it's not a photographer's dream to be sweaty and trying not to drip all over his camera, nor is it fun for a model who is also sweating. These shots were taken after cooling down for a good half hour or so in a coffee shop, enjoying cold drinks and VERY cold a/c (Florida knows how to keep things cool!), so we weren't too bad by now!

Since we were both pretty unfamiliar with South Beach - as far as finding cool spots to take photos - I tried to keep my eyes peeled for some good ones. I definitely like this one we found (above). This is along the sidewalk that follows the beach - I wouldn't really classify it as a boardwalk. But this short wall added some cool dimension to the photo and elevated my beautiful subject, which also helped remove the people walking and cars behind her.

Here's my new photographer! Christina now tells me this is her camera (the XTi). It mostly is, unless I need a backup! I'm so excited to help teach her how to use it at a more advanced level, since she already knows the basics. She'll be a pro in no time.

I don't think I can pick a favorite between this photo and the first on this post. She is SO beautiful! Stay tuned for a post about South Beach!

Transition Time

The Offer
I wanted to update you that Christina has accepted a Child Life Specialist position in Hollywood, FL at a children's hospital. Originally the position was for a 3:30pm-12midnight shift, but God had a good hand in this one and she was offered a choice of that shift or a day shift, 9am-5:30pm - so she chose the day shift! This will be much better for Christina and I especially once we are married (meaning if God provides a ministry job for me, she can be fully part of that, and if not we can at least be involved together at church) and also we will actually be able to see each other each day! My excitement for that area in Florida is the strong Haitian population - since I have continually been wondering and searching out how God is going to further my call to Haiti and the Haitian people.

Our "Trial Run"
We flew down to the Florida thanks to my parents blessing us with a TON of their skymiles to practically fly for free. We arrived on a Friday morning and drove up from Miami. We were a little discouraged because the areas surrounding Miami are not super nice, so we started to wonder what we were even doing. But the scenery changed and the hospital looked like it was in a good area and had some nice communities around it. We grabbed lunch at a nice cafe and she then had her meetings with HR and her supervisor - both went very well and she got a tour of the hospital. She said it was quite a place! They told her they were flexible on a start date, so that was good, and we have since decided that she is going to start March 31st. I scoped out the surrounding communities a bit while she was there, some good areas and some fancy ones as well. We checked out the beach and waterfront areas, and then went to Boca Raton to meet up with my parents and grandparents. Day 2 we were set out to explore downtown Hollywood and also check into apartments and such, to see what was around. Downtown Hollywood was great and seems like a fun place with plenty of restaurants (and some good NY style pizza - that is very important to me by the way). We stopped by ReMax and got a card of the rental agent but had another place we wanted to check out first. It seemed rundown at first, so we called the ReMax agent and got mostly blown off by him. So we went with the "rundown" place called Rent 1 Sale 1!

We ended up getting a very nice female agent named Anna who decided she wanted to get out of the office and show us around. She showed us one place and again...we were discouraged! But then we saw 3 other places that we quite nice, and we started leaning towards one of them. So yes, at this point we were feeling more and more like God was allowing us to have moments of discouragement followed closely by very encouraging ones! So we went back to Boca again to talk things over and think about places and all that. Day 3 we went to a church that was recommended to me by my professor and it also went very well. Got to meet the senior pastor and talk about who we were and what we were doing, but he didn't mention any positions or anything at that time. We went back to the place that both of us felt very comfortable with (both the price, the location - around the corner from the church we went to, and the grounds/safety) and decided to go for it. So we have now officially reserved a place for Christina to live in and as such had to decide when to move her in...and we decided on March 19th since the apartment was available starting the 12th of March. This way she can be down there for about a week and a half before the start date of March 31st. WOW! God provided a much more productive and decision-making weekend than we could have even imagined. Again, we just felt things falling more and more into place...very crazy.

Also, I ended up getting a call from the senior pastor I met that morning and he left a message since we were flying back that he wanted to speak with me about potential job opportunities. I was able to talk to him and they don't have openings at the church, but they are revamping and re-emphasizing discipleship and biblical teaching in the Christian school attached to their church and will be hiring probably 2 young male Bible teachers for the next school year. So we'll see what comes of that, but I would not be able to look more into that until moving down there and being able to meet with him again to discuss the possibilities. Again, another moment of thinking "okay, maybe this isn't the church we are supposed to go to, but God will provide" and then I received that call.

All in all, this is all pretty crazy and quick but God is definitely in it and we both strongly feel that. My grandparents are letting me stay in their place in Boca, which is going to be a huge blessing. So wow. Answer to many prayers for sure.





My Position
My official last day with the Gathering will be on Monday, March 14th.

Obviously this is very exciting and also sad at the same time. God has provided so many great relationships here and has blessed both Christina and I immensely. If we hadn't felt God so strongly pulling us, we would have stayed put! But we are trying our best to be obedient to God's calling on our lives and know God has something planned for us there.

I will certainly miss everyone from the Gathering (especially my Mason Gathering people!), the Gathering Staff, and MBC staff. It has been an amazing place to serve and I am grateful for God's provision of my position. I can still say that working for the Gathering is a sweet job - hanging out with students and talking about the Gospel working in their lives is great - and that won't change! I would love to keep in touch, so feel free to initiate!

Please be praying for us during this time of transition, our continued preparation for our marriage (which will begin June 18th!), and also for my job situation - which God has yet to reveal to me. I am hoping to find a ministry position working with youth, but have also been looking into working with the Haitian population stateside in the Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, and North Miami areas.


Christina and I are planning on leaving Northern Virginia (the land of yellow taxi's that are orange)...


That is NOT yellow, Virginia.


...on March 17 to start the long drive down to Hollywood Florida (where old people drive on the street in their Jazzy)

He was also trying to light his cigar - shouldn't smoke and drive man!


But regardless, I will most certainly miss Virginia and all my friends and family here.


Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

Praying for wisdom,
-Brett