re: Life-Changing

This year has flown and a lot of things have happened over the past year. Here are a few highlights…

-The biggest change for me this year was becoming a father! God blessed us with our sweet Nora born in May. I’ll never forget seeing her being delivered - the legs flailing about and listening to her letting us all know she wasn’t a happy camper those first few minutes of her life :)

- Really realizing that family comes first. It’s easy to be just out of college, work hard, give it all you’ve got, etc. Once you get married it’s easy to want to prove that you are a providing husband. It’s easy to get wrapped up in those things and to lose yourself and who you are. I first experienced that this year, or was on the brink of it. Having a baby really made me realize that my family is my first and most important ministry that I have. Never lose your priorities and never let people set your priorities for you.

- Debt paid off. Kara and I are big into Dave Ramsey. We’ve taught the class at our church twice now after taking the course. It’s changed our lives forever. We now have two cars paid off, our second mortgage paid off, and are working on my grad school student loan. I never thought we’d get that thing paid off, but we’re starting to see it dwindle away in larger amounts! We also were able to refinance our house at a great rate recently (under 4%). So now we are also seeing the principle on our house going down more and more as well. 

-Back in August of 2009 I started a job at MAP International. MAP sends medicines and medical supplies to countries all over the world to those who need it most. Switching over to MAP allowed me to work for a larger organization that does great things while learning new IT skills at the same time. It’s been a great experience for me over the past year and a half. I recently decided to make another switch to the Southeast Georgia Health System. I will be a Network Analyst working for all of the campuses of SGHS in southeast/coastal Georgia. One thing is for sure, I will never forget my time at MAP and the impact the organization makes on lives all over the world. 

-I’m an MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer). It took months, lots of reading of thick books, a two-week ‘boot camp’ in Atlanta with a great instructor and lots of late nights studying to pass this thing. It showed me how much I didn’t know, but also how much I DID know. I was surprised that a few people had not even cracked open a book to study for the first exam - or had hardly any experience in networking before coming to the class. It humbled me, allowed me to meet some great people and challenged me to get other certifications in the future (CCNA, MCITP). 

- I got an iPad thanks to my lovely wife. You know, I really haven’t been all that thrilled about any Apple product since the iPhone was introduced. They are all GREAT products, but iPhone really changed everything. Everything is mobile now. Everybody is mobile now. When iPad was introduced, I wasn’t shocked at it’s design or form factor. If a phone can be as thin as an iPhone, then why couldn’t a device that does the same thing minus the phone part be just as thin? iPad just seemed like a big iPhone without the phone, which it essentially is. But as portable as my MacBook Pro is, iPad really is awesome when I just want to check my email, Facebook, or Twitter if Kara has the laptop - and I don’t kill my eyes anymore reading text on my phone. I can even use it to login remotely to do work stuff when needed and tons of other things I’ve found over the past few days of having it. Kara loves it for cooking. She can keep it next to her in the kitchen to look up recipes, etc. Portable just got more portable. This will definitely now be our travel/vacation computer too - no more lugging around a laptop bag and case with chargers. 

Those were a few highlights from 2010. Lots of big things happened and 2011 will bring more changes to our lives. I’m looking forward to seeing the adventure God has for us this upcoming year.