Update

We love Flagstaff. Imagine a mountain town where the air is crystal clear, the sun almost always shines, the water is tasteless and cold, and the air is filled with the smell of warming pine trees - it's really that good. We live on a hill (Cherry Hill) which is within walking distance of downtown Flagstaff. The town is similar to Bend, OR with lots to do both indoors and out. Although Flagstaff is fairly large, it has the feel of a small town. We have a fox visit our back yard on occasion, and can hear our neighbor, a great horned owl across the street every morning.

We found a church! Its called Christ's Church of Flagstaff, and is full of people who have a vision to reach this city for the Lord. The church building is rather small, so to accommodate their many members, the church has 4 services each weekend. Sara and I are going to work with the children's ministry. This seems to be a primary focus for CCOF, and one close to our hearts.

I've finished my MBA degree, and Sara has decided to train to be a CNA, possibly a first step to her becoming a RN (nurse). We found a program here which will pay for her to receive training. How we found this program, and how she can attend is a series of crazy events too complicated for us to have thought through ourselves - it seems to be clearly led from the Lord. If you don't know, Sara comes from a long line of nurses. Her mom, 2 aunts, grandma and brother have taken this path, so she has a lot of wisdom to pull from. I (mike) think it fits her personality rather well.

We'll, that's all for now. We miss everyone back in Portland. Please keep us updated.

The Hughes 5

Arizona

Arizona is a beautiful, unique state. The picture to the left was taken during one of my flights over Sedona, and you can see the wonderful colors God placed into the earth when he made it (click on the picture for more detail). Flagstaff is very similar to Bend, OR and will be a great place for us to live.

Training is progressing quickly, I should be done by this Saturday, and Sara is quickly getting things done in Portland with the help of many friends. We are still looking for a place to live in Flagstaff, but that will come in God's timing. Thanks for all your support!

How to Move?

When we first started down this road (2 months ago), the plan was to rent a U-Haul truck, pack everything, and spend a couple of days driving down to Flagstaff, AZ. With the recent snow experience, and reliving memories from our many winter drives to Ontario, OR and up from Fresno, CA, we have changed plans and will be hiring a mover. Finding the right mover is also proving to be a stressful event, as we read many horror stories concerning most movers on the web, and recover after getting the expensive bids from those we think will be honest. This is probably our largest hurdle to date, the next will be finding a place to live in our meager budget, in a resort town. Again, your prayers are greatly appreciated.

Enough Already!

We'll, after many years (15) of hoping, our family has finally experienced what a white Christmas in Portland is like - horrible! Just so all of you can relate, we have made a short video of me (Mike) hard at work shoveling snow... so I could get to work.
Really, it has been fun. We had somewhere around 24 inches in the last two weeks. There is still about a foot in our yard, a foot of slush on our neighborhood roads. This will be a great memory for us as we leave this beautiful city behind, at least for the short-term.

When are we moving?

Finally received a call from work informing me that I (mike) will be starting training on Jan. 5th. I should be in Burbank, CA for one week, then shipped over to Phoenix, AZ for two weeks. Once training is complete, work is giving me a week off to move the family down to Flagstaff. This means I will have about 2 weeks to find a place for us to live, train, and keep up with school - whew! Please pray for us as there are many details we just have no idea about. God has taken us through this before, we just need to relax and trust.

"This is Dangerous!"

While on vacation in Eastern Oregon, my family and I decided to take a canoe ride down the Deschutes river. After putting on life vests, and getting a brief set of instructions about the trip, we shoved off into the slow, smooth water and headed downstream behind a host of other canoers.

I did not realize how tippy a canoe can be until I started rocking the boat for fun, which immediately freaked out my entire family. My three year old son was in the front with my wife, and although I thought he would get the most fun out of the trip (he's crazy!), he ended up being the most frightened, and declared with unwavering confidence, "This is Dangerous!"

As the trip progressed, my son's fear gradually moved into the uncontrollable world of panic, evidenced by his shrieks of fear and screams of "No, No, NO" every time the boat rocked from the unstoppable side affects of paddling. At one point we were going through a beautiful canyon with shear cliffs on one side of the river and grass choked beaches on the other. Ahead of us we could see two canoes, one occupied by an elderly couple, and the other by what appeared to be their grown children. I felt sorry for them because although the scenery was breathtaking, and promised peace, the noises coming from my boat, and which were ricocheting off the cliffs sounded more like the sound track from "The Shinning." I'm surprised the local police were not waiting for us we climbed out of the canoe with our whimpering 3 year old son.

By the way my son had screamed, you would have thought that he was traumatized for life. His soul was surely permanently seared by the rocking of the boat, and his dreams would forever be haunted by the sound of lapping water and the feeling of a rocking boat, but as soon as his feet touched land, he was a changed little boy. The screaming stopped immediately, and by the time we were on the bus headed home, he was talking as if nothing had happened. I think he was a little embarrassed over the whole thing. In an effort to forget the incident (something I will never do) my son looked up into my face, smiled a wonderfully sweet smile, and said, "That was fun."

A Father

Last night my youngest son woke me at around 3:30 a.m., he had to go to the bathroom...again. He's in the midst of learning how to use the toilet, and he had an accident, his whole bed was soaked, pillow, comforter, sheets, everything. I have not been sleeping well lately, but last night, I was sleeping better than I had in a long time. I did not want to get up.

My son usually wakes me at around 3:30 a.m., he needs help going to the bathroom still. His nightly entrance consists of turning the hallway light on, slamming my bedroom door open, and shouting,"Dad, I have to go." Sometimes I get up, and sometimes my wife gets up, but last night I knew it would be me.

As I lumbered out of bed and stomped to the bathroom, I tried to suppress my frustration. When would this end? When would I be able to sleep through the night without interruption? It felt like never, and the eternal task of cleaning up fed my distaste for the moment. After ripping the soaked sheets off the bed, and grabbing new jammies, I met my son in the bathroom. "I hate this," I thought to myself as I pulled his little shirt off.

It was then, in the midst of my sleepy frustration, halfway through redressing my small son that the words penetrated my thoughts as if they were whispered by unseen lips directly into my ears, "Whatever you do unto the least of these..."

Immediately, in an instant, I felt my selfish wants and desires leave as new energy and compassion filled me, filled me so completely that I saw, more clearly than ever before the implications of my action on my son, and on how my son would see his God; his Spiritual Father.

As his earthly father, I am the most powerful being my son knows. I am in essence, an image of God to my son, and what I do every day, what I would do in that situation would help to form how he looked at his spiritual Father. Would I represent a God who loved the fact that he came to me for help in the midst of a small meaningless mistake, or would I represent a god who resented the interruption, a god who would have preferred that he lay silently in his urine until morning?

This time...I chose the former; to represent the God who was glad to see this little man in the middle of the night, happy at the chance to spend time with him, delighted that he chose to seek my help rather than trying to fix his problem alone.