Army: Afghanistan number 6

Lewis doing his silly run (Kevin sent me this pic today. I miss them)

So hello everybody.  I have officially been in Afghanistan for 7 weeks and it has actually been flying.  We have about 31 weeks left to go though, so I still have a ton of time left.   Not much interesting has happened this week and all has been relatively quite for  my unit.  My biggest frustration is not being able to cook.  As people most yummy looking recipes to Facebook (you know who you people are), I have taken to emailing them to myself and labeling them in recipes I want to try.  I miss having my fully stocked kitchen to go home too. 

So here is my weekly update, broken down in my usual style, but I am adding a new category:

Financial: Yes! You read that right, but probably not the way you think.  Kevin and I are the most financially stable we have ever been.  We have only a loan for the house, an emergency fund (but we are constantly putting more towards that), some sort term savings (a savings account through the Army that accrues 10% on up to $10,000) and all of our long term investments covered (stock in his company, 401k, Wroth IRA).  So, as we continue trying to multiply what God has given us, I am trying my hand at trading stocks.  I won't be putting any real money in until mid-April, but we have set aside $2,000 to get me started.  I have already started tracking some since Mar 19th and am not doing too bad.  I don't really plan on day trading or anything like that, but I want to get it started.  I have a good mentor in my unit that has been doing this for awhile and made a lot of money over the passed few years.  He also challenges me to learn about different types of investing (yes, I know what short selling is and how it is one way to make money in a bearish market!) and I am learning a lot.  I am not sure how I will continue to provide updates on this new goal of mine (which is why I haven't written about it before) but I find find a way. 

The only piece of advice/ caveat I can say is this, only put in what you are completely willing to use.  Kevin and I have decided on $2,000 because we won't miss it (in generic terms).  We are already counting it as a loss and plan to never see it again.  I sincerely hope that won't be the case, but if we treat it like it is, even if all of our stock prices drop, we will have the time to hold out and wait for the market to improve.   

Emotional:  To be honest, I don't know that I am doing any better on the wifely front.  This week, I have definitely spent more time talking to Kevin and intentionally setting more time aside for him.  I have been praying for him more specifically and intentionally.  And I have been spending more time each day just reveling in the wonderful husband that I have, but I hardly feel like it is enough.  I know that it is really hard for Kevin when I am gone. And even though this has already turned into a period of growth for both of us, it is very hard to feel like a good wife when I am so far away and very wrapped up in my mission here.  Sometimes, I really wonder if it is possible to be a good wife when I am so far away and I wonder how women in business that involves frequent travel do it.  (Please keep in mind, my definition of a good wife is not just based on fidelity or something based on culture.  My definition can be found in Proverbs 31, Ephesians 5, etc. etc.)

Mental: So, lean six sigma projects are well kicked off and I am already working on my problem statement.  My project is focused on the way things are moved around Afghanistan.  Basically, a long story short is, everything moves in containers and we don't have a very good grasp of what moves, when and to where.  And since the Lean Six Sigma process is all about reducing waste and increasing efficiency, my job to took get a better picture of how things are moving, and then streamline those processes.  It's kind of sad, but my life currently revolves around metal 20 foot containers.  Heck, I even live in one!

Physical:  Alright, so my goal here is a pretty simple one, I have decided that first and foremost, I want to get back to a 300 on my P.T. test.  That means 45 pushups, 78 situps (I think, I always go over in this category), and run 2 miles in under 15:36.  I am pretty close on my pushups, way over on situps (I normally do over 95) and I think I am close on my run.  I think I am going to start doing P.T. tests every couple of weeks to track my progress.  Once I get back to a perfect score (300), then I will focus on strengthening my core and going back to Crossfit.  And, like I have said every week, I really need to get back to my yoga.  I think I am going to try to do yoga every other night or so and do some core and upper body strengthening routines.

Spiritual: First, a praise.  I prayed every night of March without missing!  I am very proud of myself for that.  It is an accomplishment for me, and even more so in that I journaled all of them.  I look forward to reading in the future and seeing all the answered prayers.   Kevin and I have also started a new reading program together.  We are reading through the bible chronologically and I am actually really enjoying it (not something I usually feel in the old testament).  We are about 8 days in, but I think this is something I will have no problem continuing.  It is set up so that we will read through the whole bible in a year, but I am guessing at some point, we will double up so that we will be done before I come home.

Army: Afghanistan number 5

Wow, so 5 post later and it almost feels like it is flying.... until I think of how much time I have left until I am back in my own bed next to my husband and surrounded by my puppies safe from the world. Sigh. But, while I am here, I might as well make the best of it and that is what I am doing.

Altogether, things have slowed down nicely for us.  We aren't in the same rush to catch up phase we were when we first got here and now the hours are more manageable. I don't work past 8 nearly so often, so that is a good thing.  So here are my four updates:

Physical: So, not so much Crossfit and much more running.  I run about every other night and never less than 3.5 miles.  I enjoy being able to run at night and I can usually find someone to run with (we aren't allowed to go by ourselves).  But with my recent running came another revelation.  After running 4 miles at an 8 minute mile pace, I realized I can probably max my run (which means getting a perfect score on my Army physical fitness test) again.  I need to run faster than a 15:36 in two miles, which I am really close.  So I am focusing on that since I haven't been able to do it since moving to Colorado.  Plus, I am not a huge fan of the Crossfit hours.  I like working out at the end of the day here and the last class I can go to starts at 1900 (7:00).  I am not normally off by then, so to go to that class, I would need to go and then go back to work.  I am hoping to do that eventually, but not right now. For now, running is my goal.

Mental: So the lean six sigma projects are kicking off this week.  I am still signed up to get my black belt but my project is still up in the air.  Right now, it looks like I might be dealing with contractors and the like (making sure the contracts we have fit our requirements and so on), but it is not definitive so we shall see.  Not much development in the real estate classes though.  I figure I have plenty of time to knock them out after I spend the next six months doing my lean six sigma classes that are worth about $10,000 and I am getting for free.  I am also challenging myself in learning about trading stocks and such.  I feel like I am learning a lot and am excited to get our tax refund so I can try my hand at the game.

Emotional: I have spent more time trying to be a good and supportive wife this week.  I have been spending more time connecting with Kevin and we are even reading through the bible together.  Honestly, this almost makes me more sad.  I miss him very much and though most of the day I am distracted from thinking about sad things, sometimes when I am talking to Kevin and realizing how badly I want to be back at home cooking dinner or getting ready for bed with him and the puppies, it makes me really sad.  And I know it makes him sad too.  I am not sure that will ever get any easier.

Spiritual: Another great week or praying and reading the bible.  I feel like I am connecting with God in new ways, but at the same time, I am not feeling challenged at all here in growth.  I go to church Sunday mornings but the services are usually about 15 minutes of a different chaplain each week doing their own thing and not going deep or connecting the text to real life decisions we need to make here.  Bible study is not a discussion, it's basically a better version of the church service since our battalion's chaplain really knows his stuff.  But some of the people that attend probably aren't Christians, with many of them even joking about not knowing how to figure out where verses are because they have never opened their bibles before.  It is a great chance to help witness to my unit and I think our chaplain is doing great with where the unit is at, but I am also used to feeling very personally and intentionally challenged in my small group back home.  I rarely find someone here with which to discuss controversial theological topics as I come across them or who can answer my questions when I don't understand something.  So I know I need to find some other Christians to connect with and rely on as this deployment goes on... but where to find them?

Deployment: Afghanistan number 4

Me with my combat patch on!

Alright everyone, so it's that time of week again.  Not too much happened this week except we finally did our patch ceremony, indicating we have all been deployed over a month now.  The combat patch is worn on the right arm to indicate that you were deployed before and with which unit.  So walking around daily it is very easy to tell who hasn't deployed before.  And, regardless of what unit you are in (changing what patch you have to wear on the left shoulder), you can always wear your combat patch on the right.  So that was a good experience.

Like usual, I will split this into my four categories.  Fair warning, I am leaving the spiritual one for last intentionally.  You can skip it if you wish or if you think it sounds preachy, but I want to share the way God is changing my heart.

Physical:  I completed all 9 beginner CrossFit classes! Now I can transition to the regular classes.  I have every intention of doing that.... just not yet.  There is a large group of people that have started coming to Crossfit too, so I will keep going to the beginner class to be with my battle buddies and will move to the regular classes with them.  I have also added running to my workout regimen.  I ran 5 miles on Thursday and 6 miles on Saturday.  Neither were very fast, but glad to know that I can still just go out and run distance, no problem.  I have every intention of continuing to run.  I am hoping to get to a point of running 2-3 times a week, CrossFit 2 times a week, and one gym/ ab workout a week,  I also need to add yoga back into my workouts and quit being lazy all of the time.

Mental: So, not much to update on this one yet.  I have completed another online lesson in my real estate classes, but I haven't taken the quiz, because I haven't completed all of the reading... which I should really get on.  I also haven't officially begun my lean six sigma class yet, so that's part of the reason I am hesitant to get too far along in my real estate classes.  I also am trying to learn more about trading stocks.  I think that may also be a hobby I take up out here.  I am all about self improvement and learning new things!

Emotional So I am still unsure of what it means to be a good wife while deployed, but I am working on it.  I have tried being more communicative with my husband when we talk.  But I have also decided to send him a quick text message before I go to bed at night saying I hope he has a good day.  It's hard to call people at night because when everyone is using the internet, it starts to go in and out which is really annoying and usually causes more stress than it alleviates.

Spiritual: I have officially made it one full week of reading my bible and praying EVERY night! I feel like this shouldn't be as much of an accomplishment for me as it is, but oh well.  This is where I am in my walk and hopefully I will continue to grow.  Comparing myself to others isn't going to help me at any rate.  But there has been something that God has started to teach me through prayer that I want to share.

Earlier this week, I felt a special pull at my heart to prayer for a fellow officer in my unit.  He is someone I would count as a friend and mentor.  He constantly challenges me to make better products than just what is required and I have learned a lot from him already.  But he is not married and he isn't a Christian.  He actually said he has no faith at all.  So when I felt God calling me to pray for him, I naturally said..... no.  Oh wait, that's probably not the natural response, right? I have been saved by grace through faith and I, knowing what I have been saved from, should want the same for others, right? Well, as I am learning about myself, I find myself generally apathetic towards the salvation of others.  I mean, God predestined us before we were born as to whether or not we would choose hHm, so what good would pray do? But then I thought about what pray is and I remembered that prayer isn't about me changing God's heart, it is about God changing mine.  And I also considered what God was recently teaching me in my marriage.  God can connect us to others through prayer and increase our love for them (similar to how Paul prayed "without ceasing" for churches he had never been to and even said he loved them). But I thought God wanted to only teach me that to love my husband best while in Afghanistan, I should pray for him.  But God wanting to teach me to love others.... not such a terrible idea....

...But God wanting me to express love for a particular individual, HECK NO!  Something about me saying I love him, or that guy or whatever made me almost ill.  I could hardly think it without a shudder.  I not only didn't want to feel that way, I didn't even want to want to feel that way.  I love my husband, my family, my girl friends, my fellow church members, my husbands friends., but when it comes to male type friends that aren't Christian, I have put them in a whole different category.  Unlovable.  And I had easily justified to myself why; I shouldn't love these men because it could easily be misconstrued as a romantic interest and I don't want ANY ONE to get the wrong idea.

But that isn't what Jesus said.  He didn't say that the second greatest commandment has caveats.  He just said to love your neighbor, the same way he would.  Just because the world says that the only love that can occur is a romantic one doesn't mean it's true.  Jesus has taught me a love far greater than any other love that exists in this world apart from Him.  And being one of the few devote believers in my unit, I realized that I have the potential for great influence.  If I fail to love him, or even avoid him because of what others might think (which was my initial thought when I first heard God's call to pray for him; turns out I am a lot like Jonah.  God tells me one thing and I tried to run in the exact opposite direction), then I have given him a warped view of Christ's love and potentially set him back.

As I talked through this with Kevin this week, I realized more and more that it is not about whether or not this guy comes to know the Lord, it's about God challenging me.  Challenging me to love the way I am called to love, with pure grace, pure mercy and pure forgiveness; and to step out in faith, that he will guard my reputation if I trust in him.

That being said, I now pray for this guy every night.  I pray that through our daily interactions that I might be able to share my faith with him in ways that stick with him and cause him to thirst for more.  That he would want to know more and more about the God I love and His Son who saved me.  I pray that eventually he will go to church and bible study with me and that he will come to know the Lord and that I will come to call him a brother in Christ.  I also pray daily that God would guard my heart against all external influences that could get in the way of doing as the Lord has called me.  Hopefully, I can give an update someday that all of this has come true!

Army: From Afghanistan, Update Number 3

Alright, I am going to try to keep this short since I need to go to bed.  But since I am due for another update, here it is.  I have been in Afghanistan almost a month now, and I am honestly enjoying it.  As much as I worried about not being able to (or maybe just not wanting to) find joy and peace away from my husband, I can honestly say that I have.  I love Kevin as much now as I ever have and I hope that we can continue to find ways to connect.

A lot of people have been asking how they can pray for me while I am here and I guess the biggest things to pray about are: that God would bless my marriage over the distance, and for safety as I should start traveling out on missions very soon.  But don't worry too much, my commander is only allowing me to go out on the ones that he deems as safe. But, by the end of the month, I should have already traveled at least once to a closing base.

So here are my updates in my four goals format:

Physical- I have continued doing Crossfit 3 nights a week and I really have been enjoying it.  This week will be my last week of beginners classes and once I am done, I intend to diversify my workouts with cross fit, gym time, running and yoga.  I am actually hoping to suppliment my Crossfit workouts this week with some yoga too.  The biggest challenge for me doing crossfit right now is my lack of flexibility, especially when it comes to my hamstrings and quadriceps.  And if I can work on stretching more and increasing my flexibility, it should make my form better, and the workouts more beneficial.

Spiritual-  I have had a solid week of prayer journaling! I feel bad that this is the accomplishment it is, but prayer is definitely something I have a hard time with.  I have also been going to church on Sunday, bible study on Tuesday and tomorrow I will even get to attend a prayer breakfast.  I feel really blessed by the chaplain services here and am grateful for them.  The down side is I am still not in good reading habits.   I wake up intending to read the bible, but once I go to conduct personal hygiene and get back to my room, I have forgotten or just gotten distracted.  This is definitely something I need to work on.  My husband is in the process of getting us a couple of books that we can read through parts of the bible together (my small group back home just did this where we read through the new testament in 8 weeks and I loved the format and was really encouraged to read it without chapters and verses).  So hopefully that will help.  I am also thinking I need to just read at night before praying.  I think the mornings would be more beneficial, but I would get the most benefit out of just reading the bible period, so I need to work on that.

For those of you who aren't on facebook/ didn't see, I had my roommate cut off my pony tail so I can donate my hair to locks of love.

Emotional- I feel like Kevin and I are connecting well and talking frequently, but I am not sure how good of a wife I have been this past week.  It is hard for me to come up with ways to be a better wife to my husband.  I pray for him daily but I want something more.  I want him to feel loved, appreciated, cherished and respected even when I am on the opposite side of the world, and I am honestly not sure how to do that.  I am open to suggestions if anyone has them.  Most people just think of sending gifts home, and though that is nice every now and again, my husband and I tend neither to love nor feel loved by giving gifts and spending money.  And given that Kevin's love languages are probably physical touch and quality time, I am not sure how to love him best from here.  I think I need to find new ways to make him feel loved based on what I can do, like words of affirmation and small gifts, instead of trying to be the same wife I would be back in the U.S.

After pic of me with my new hair cut.

Mental-  So, I have been listening a little bit to my real estate lectures (law and practice- blech!) but I haven't written it into my schedule very much.  I am still kind of waiting to find out if I will get to do a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt project, because I want to do that and it might be better for me in the long run.  And if I take up what is left of my free time doing that, then I am going to have a huge break in my real estate classes and I will probably want to start over from the beginning since I haven't gotten that far anyway.  That way, the material is also the freshest in my mind when I get home and want to take the exam.  

Army: About Time I Posted Again

Alright, so here is my second update from Afghanistan.  Life is going pretty good and I am finally getting into the swing of things.  The work isn't as hard as it was when I first got here and the hours aren't as long.  Starting next week, I should get a couple of mornings off a week, which is great, because I love to sleep!!!!

But I want to keep my update in terms of my goals so whoever is reading this (and my counter keeps going up, so I know you are out there!) can help keep me on track.  I'll consider it my online accountability.

Emotional- So, my emotional goal really ties in with my spiritual one.  This week, I have really tried to be a good wife by praying for my husband every day and spending the time to reflect on him.  For his birthday, even though even when I am stateside we don't normally do much, I decided to surprise him by ordering cupcakes to be delivered to his work.  It doesn't seem like much to me, but I want to continue to try and find ways to love my husband better when I don't have a lot of time to do it.  And I also don't want to get into a habit of trying to compensate my time with money spent on him (afterall, it is OUR money anyway, so spending it on him doesn't make a lot of sense). 

Spiritual- I have reached my goal this week of praying every night.  I have said I want to journal, but I didn't expect I would turn to e-journaling.  I want to get back to putting my prayers on paper, so I need to set aside time coming up to copy my old ones down from my tablet and writing them in the beautiful leather bound journal my Dad gave me for Christmas.  I have also been working on reading my bible every morning, which I have to admit, I am not very good at.  After our small group just finished reading through the new testament, I am just not sure what to do next.  I have been trying to focus on Galatians since that is what our bible study (our Chaplain just started it this past Tuesday!) is going through. 

Physical-  So this week, I have started doing CrossFit and I love it! I love the intensity and our beginners classes are great.  The instructors are volunteers who all instruct at gyms back in the U.S. who love what they do and want to share it with others.  They take the time to explain what right looks like, what wrong looks like, what muscles you should feel movements in, and which muscles you shouldn't.  I do an hour every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and my boss has been really supportive (so long as I have my work done, of course!).  I have completed 3 out of the 9 beginner classes.  Once I finish with these, I think I will do CrossFit Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Monday and Friday run 3+ miles, Wednesday hit the gym for a core workout, and keep Saturday as an open workout for whatever I feel like doing.  Sunday is my day of rest of course.  I am intrigued to see what CrossFit will do for my P.T. test score.

Mental- So my mental goal has shifted a bit.  I still want to get my real estate classes done (which I haven't had much movement on this week), but I have found I have an amazing opportunity here.  I have the opportunity to become a Lean Six Sigma black belt.  The jist is, I will be working on a project for the next 6 months that measures efficiency in some part of the Army system and I will get to mathematically find a way to fix it and potentially truly change it.  For a Lieutenant, this is my best dream.  I love the possibility of influencing the Army in a postive way and truly changing things.  I am sure as I get into, I will slowly become more  negative as it takes more time away.  But, I should come out on the other side which will give me a certification I can use in the civilian world.  I haven't had a black belt project approved, but if I do, that average salary on the outside is somewhere around $120,000.  If I get bumped down to a step below or a green belt project (which I don't think will happen, but it definitely could), the average salary goes down to about $90,000 in the civilian world.  And I really think it could help me start my own business.  So I am excited about that and will be putting a lot of my effort towards it.  Once it is finished, I will hit my real estate classes hardcore.