Beginning Our Adventure

A little over six weeks ago, Chris came home from his weekend serving in the Army Reserves with the sobering news that he is being deployed to Afghanistan for fourteen months beginning in September. We always knew that deployment was a possibility when he enlisted over three years ago, but the reality was still surprising. We had no inclination this was coming; he simply got pulled aside in the course of his day and told that his name showed up on the list of people to go.

I can only imagine what Chris’ drive home that night must have been like, thinking through every possible scenario of how to break the news to me. The poor guy must have been a bit of a wreck! So, he sat me down and told me as gently as he could that he was being deployed. In that moment, I said the first thing that my heart felt which was that I still believed in the cause of our country and I still believed in his role within the army and his heart for service. It was a surprisingly short and calm conversation. It wasn’t until Chris started calling some of his family and co-workers that I thought “Wow, he’s not kidding. He is really, truly going and this is actually happening.” There was a part of me that thought later that night, Chris would look at me with his funny little I’m-up-to-no-good grin and tell me that he was just kidding (at which point, he would have slept on the couch for playing such a cruel joke on me), but that moment didn’t come.

Since that time, we have been processing little by little. We allow each other a lot of freedom to feel whatever comes at any given time. There are moments for each of us where we are handling it well – Chris is learning the ENTIRE history of Afghanistan so that he will be the local expert when he gets on the ground there. There are also moments of sadness and feeling overwhelmed – those days for me are usually when I am tired, the boys are grumpy and the moment when my teammate walks through the door for back-up is a beautiful sight, just to realize that I won’t have that when he is gone.

In the midst of processing, we are just waiting. Chris and I are both the type of people that get information and just go, so waiting another 5 months seems tedious these days. If this is the next adventure that God has us on, let’s get to it! I guess God must have something for us in the waiting as much as in the journey.

So, all of this to say…here is our blog leading up to and through our time of deployment. I hope to be able to post updates about Chris’ time away, the fun adventures that Brody, Caleb and I will have together, glimpses into our journey and prayer requests for our family.

Preparing for Adventure,
Chris, Alissa, Brody and Caleb