Pretty Exciting News for the Curry's!!!

Ok, well the last blog shared how our life may of had a few bumps in the road. Through all the bumps, God has still been there. These past couple of weeks we have been overwhelmed. As I've told you before Jason's resume has been out since August 2008. There were times we've been discouraged but we knew God had something in store. Well what has happened these past few weeks, have been a whirwind!

Jason has had a couple of interviews with Search Committees from about 3 churches. (1 in Louisiana, 2 in Texas) We were excited about these and Jason felt good about each of them. Our prayer was to go where God wanted us. A church in Irving, called and asked for a third interview (Jason had two prior interviews with them, one phone, the other in person with just him, this third interview, included me), we were pretty excited, and the search committee team we met were great, including the Pastor and Executive Pastor. We were not sure how it went, until..........

June 23, Jason called me and said "How are you?", I said "Good, how are you?", his response "I'm on cloud 9, Irving offered me the job." My response "Seriously?!?!". We were overwhelmed and excited. The next steps would be prayer and asking a few more questions. Jason wanted to talk to Keith (chairman of the search committee), and ask a few questions. He called him on Wednesday and they spoke, after prayer and talking with each other, we thought "God, this is too much, is this where you want us?" We knew it was. Jason called on Thursday to say "I am humbled and honored to accept." From then on, confirmation after confirmation, told us this was where we were suppose to be.

The next step was to be prepared for a place a live. I say, prepared, because we still had a meet and greet with the church, and they had to vote on us. So we decided to go Apartment Hunting, not fun! We then, for entertainment applied for a house loan to see if we were approved, and we were.Which then started a new phase.........housing hunting.

Through the house hunting process, we found an amazing lady who is a member of the church, Linda Stone. Such a wonderful lady, who has made this process so easy. We could not imagine doing this with anyone else! She has helped us with every step of the way, including helping us meet another great lady, Jeanette, who has been working on our loan. We plan to use Linda each time we move, regardless where! :) After a couple weekends and many phone calls and emails, I am happy to say we have found a house and are under contract. And as long as all goes well, we hope to sign papers end of August.

So, to conclude this story, Keith came and brought us info on the church, it was good to start to see what and who the church was. Next we met with Larry the executive Pastor and his wife, Carrie, we went to Pf Changs (very good!) and had a great tme. We had a meet and greet, where we met with the church family this past Saturday, such a precious/loving/fun group. Had a tour of the church, signed a contract for the house and then went to relax!The church gave us a great weekend with putting us up in a room at the Embassy Suites, such a relaxing and fun time. We really needed it! Then on Sunday, we met with more workers and volunteers and Jason got voted as the new Minister of Young Families for Plymouth Park Baptist Church!

We are so excited and scared at the same time. Jason has already worked two days and is blown away at how blessed he is, we hope to move in about two weeks to temporary housing and then in September move into our house! In the meantime I am finishing up my job at SWBTS, my last day being July 22. I am asked if I'm going to find a job, currently not right now, going to focus on the move and my RA, as well as getting involved and knowing my new church family. I hope also to blog a little more with recipes and life!

We right now want to pinch ourselves, because life is pretty amazing. Thank you all for your continued words of encouragement and prayer! (felt those prayers all the time!) Please don't stop praying though, please continue praying for us as we enter this next step in this thing called life.....

Here is our future home

Blessings,

The Curry's :)

Since the Great Smoke of '08!

Well J and I have officially named this incident as the Great Smoke of '08. :) This past month has been a whirlwind. It has not been a lot of fun, but we have survived. Lynn (J's mom)has been down quite a few times to help, I know we would not have got as much done as we did without her. She came pre-clean with Rodney (J's dad :) ) and they helped us pack up the house. She then came after the company cleaned the place with a chemical and wiped down our kitchen, then put my kitchen back in order. So thank you Lynn!

So if you ever have a "Great Smoke" here is how the process works. J and I first tried to clean the house ourselves with vinager and a carpet cleaner. Give up now, do not try, it will not get the smell out. Call the company to come clean your house. There is no use in you wasting your time cleaning and having no results. (FYI :) )The seminary brought the company in for us, at their own expense, and we are so grateful. There are two options with this company, 1. they come in, pack up your house, and take your items to be cleaned at their warehouse and then clean your house or 2. you pack up and then they will clean the walls and carpet and get the smoke out of that. Choose option 1 if it is up to you, we were fine with packing, we're not complaining, but we pray this doesn't happen again, but if it does, we will choose 1. So they come in and do one round of cleaning, then they do another round that is a therma fog that will "kill" the previous chemical smell. This chemical they use. It does not go away, you have to wipe down everything, like a deep deep spring cleaning. So that was our Thanksgiving break. We cleaned every item we own, with concentrated Lysol. And we slowly moved back into our house after living at J's sis apartment for 3 weeks. We were happy to be home. The smell is still there, but we are thankful for hazelnut candles and apple cinnamon, they make the house smell like home again. I'm told the smell never goes away (unless a new paint job is done I assume). So as long as we live there it'll be there, but we're happy to be home.

It was a long process, imagine deep cleaning everything you own. The baseboards to every dish you own. Some things still smell, so we'll see how it goes. We are so thankful that we were cleaning items and not sweeping them up. We were very lucky. We also had a company come in and clean our carpets and furniture.

We are thankful for the prayers and support from friends and family. Our parents have been willing to help us with anything and everything we need. We are blessed with great parents ;). And family that lets us stay with them (thanks Amy (and Allegro :) )) and store stuff in their homes. A great "landlord" that has helped us to the end (Housing Director and Associate Director of the Physical Plant at SWBTS.

Like I've said, it has not been fun. But we have survived. We are now waiting on what God has for us next. Jason graduates this Friday with his Master of Arts in Christian Education (emphasis: Teaching). He has worked extremely hard and I am so proud of him!!! We are still all packed up, waiting to unpack until after Christmas, so we'll see what God has in store!

We will be seeing J's family during the week of Christmas and mine the week after! We are both excited to be seeing family and relaxing. And J will be singing "No more papers no more books, no more teachers dirty looks!" (he has a revised version, but I can't remember it :) ) Thank you again for all the prayers and we have a few blogs to post that were "Pre-Great Smoke of '08" :)

Merry Christmas and enjoy and savor the time with your family!!!

Blessings,

Curry's :)

A message from the Smokies...........

As some of you already know, last Monday an accident occurred at the Curry’s residents. I (Tonya), went home on a break to start boiling chicken, Jason was home, so he would be able to turn it on low, well he left for class and forgot to turn the burner down (not putting blame on J, it was a joint effort :) ), we came home at 1:00 p.m. to a house full of smoke.

Since then, we have had to pack up about ¾ of our house, and prepare for a company to come in a and clean. The smoke was in everything, not one thing did not smell as smoke. We had begun that Monday night working until Tuesday morning at 4:30 a.m., cleaning ourselves. My boss (aka: Housing Director) on Tuesday , learned of the events, spoke with the physical plant, and they graciously brought in this company to clean out our house of smoke smell.

On Wednesday, Jason’s parents came and helped us pack up our house from 9am to 8 pm that night. Having to clean every single item, sort out food, and etc. The prior night, Amy came and helped. Also our friends the Ericksons, took us out to Souper Salad and then today her David brought us soup that Amanda had made :). Amy Welker, my co-worker, has offered to come over tomorrow night to help with the putting the house back together. We were very grateful to all of them.

This past weekend we went to Jacksonville to do laundry, Jason’s family all lives on the same land (aunts, grandmother, and his parents) We had 3 washer and dryers this way. We did a total of an estimate of 20 loads of laundry, this was from every sock to the curtains on the wall, the bath rugs and etc. We got home this morning at 1:00 a.m., well to our temporary home, Jason’s sister Amy’s apartment. She has let us live w/her this past week now. Along with her puppy Allegro,which if you see us, ask Jason how he likes his "nephew", Allegro and Uncle Jason have a special bond... hehe.

The next few weeks will be long, we have to wipe down furniture, clean the pots and dishes that were left in the house, and unpack and put our house back together. Unfortunately, we will no longer be going to Kansas to see my family for Thanksgiving, we are going to spend the week putting the house back together and organizing. We are grateful that we only had to wipe down our belongings, and not have to sweep them up. We feel blessed that the situation could of been worse and it was not.

We would appreciate your prayers, as this is going to be hard with final projects for school to be completed and in general for our health, as well as for our sanity and just to bring peace. The moving and bending hurts Jason’s back and the packing and wiping things down flares up the Rheumatoid in my wrists. Many thoughts go through our minds like "are we moving" , "what does God have in store for us?". We really do not know why this happened, but we are getting through with a lot of help from prayer. We are tired and worn down, but are doing good! We thank you again for those who have been praying for us and we want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! (We will be celebrating with my co-worker Norita and her husband Earl. And Norita has graciously offered for me to help w/decorating for Christmas :) )

I will end with a quote from Jason, as we are sorting laundry, he says "Well, that was that was the most expensive pot of soup we've ever made, and we didn't even get to eat it! :)"

From the one and only.....JASON!

Ok, My first try at this blob, I mean blog thing.

I hope all know that I am finishing up my Seminary Masters degree this December, Very important for everyone to know this. I hope to be serving in a church soon, in the capacity of Minister of… have absolutely no clue. God has always called me in steps, never revealing what is next until His perfect timing comes about. I pray that He moves in our life in this manner soon. I am looking forward to serving the Lord doing what I hope He has been preparing me for.

Tonya’s Work, I think, is going great. I do have to continually remind her that she is talented, capable of making good grades, the best cook a man could have, good looking woman. She also as if that was not enough has a great deal of potential to serve God in ministry. I would not have made it where I am without her, God planned her to work in my life the way she has. She is my help mate. So it has now passed to me to be her help mate. So her studying habits still need working on. The one thing about trying to get her to study, I love her cleaning the house, love it, love it. (this means I do not have to clean) But she has been cleaning the house to “get out” of doing school work, see my problem. On the one hand: I am a selfish man, I don’t want to clean the house. On the other hand: I know she needs to study so I want her to leave it to me. So if you see her, tell her “read every chance you get, let the Husband do the cleaning”.
Glad that was said.

Well in other news. My Bro. in-law has mono, if anyone remembers or cared I had mono last year and I felt for the guy. He had a chance to possibly get a job but he had conflicts getting to the interviews because of… you guessed it mono. God must have something better for him because he has not been able to get back with them and they essentially have moved on. We talked on the phone for about 15-20min I shared some groans and moans of my experience with mono. And tried to encourage him with wise words like: “don’t worry you’ll feel better in 2 or 3 weeks.” “Only exhaustion awaits you after the aches and pains go away.” Make sure you spray disinfectant after you’ve used something.” “Hand sanitizer will help people not fear your disease.” Get the idea, the guy still said thanks like I had actually given him hope that this will go away. I still get exhausted abnormally after a days work. I wish that could improve, but it seems that I must feel tired more than usual a bit longer.

My sister Amy got a job this week after visiting with one of my teacher, Dr. Marcia McQuitty, about Amy looking into children’s ministry studies. I had no idea of what would happen for Amy this week but Monday morning she met with Dr. McQuitty, I took her over to the Day Care center on campus, and left her getting an interview with the boss. She got a job that day, on the spot, and started the next day. All on a Monday. God does some things when we least expect and most of the time when we quit looking for it to happen. This was an answered prayer. She is applying for seminary now and we hope that she will get in with no problems or hold ups. She going to pursue a Masters in Christian Education in Children’s ministry.

I will leave you with a thought I have had for a couple of days now. I wish that ya’ll, could appreciate the art of listening to scripture, or hear it the way I do. Not that I have the marked on it or something like that. Just strictly for conversation reasons. I listened to first and second Samuel. I find myself just amazed by Samuels words to Saul. God will choose for himself one after his own heart. (1 Samuel) when referring to David I know not one man that could say he was better than him. My hope is that just like I did, you could hear that we are all after God’s own heart, adopted children that God chose himself. Listening to David’s life anew and hear all his struggles, victories, sins, joys, and sorrows, this man chosen by God, helps to give me courage, hope, and assurance of his love and power in me to do whatever He has for us in our future. My prayer is that He shows you that you’re His child and if you become president, get a doctorate, become homeless, get it all or lose it all, you still never lose that standing. You’re a child of God that is the least you or I will ever be. You are a child of God that is also the greatest you and I will ever be. No matter what, we are His children.

In Christ,Jason Curry

Look in the sky.....is it a bird, a plane? No...........Its Indiana Jones?

Well this past weekend the Welkers invited us over to play their cool new Wii. Amy and I had planned on going to downtown to Uno's Pizza but the plans changed at last minute when we heard about 5 times each from our husbands, "are you sure that'll give us enough Wii time by going downtown, eating, then getting back that late?" Ok, let me clarify, "that late" is about 7:30 or so. So we get in the car and I look at Amy and say "are you sure we need to go downtown?", she gets the clue, and says "no, lets go to this pizza place that Jason (her Jason) and I love". So we go.

Then we get back in time for the boys to play Wii. The played Indiana Jones, and before we got to the Welkers I asked J if he wanted his Indiana Jones hat, he said, oh yeah! So here is the boy w/his hat playing Wii with his buddy Jason Welker.




Here he is concentrating really hard! (And don't be confused this is Jason not Indiana Jones, for those that may need clarification :) )




You may be thinking, what did Amy and Tonya do? Well we went shopping to Cotsco, Bed Bath and Beyond and Krogers. We got ready for the party the next day at the Welkers. :) When we got back though, it was time for me to try the Wii. I played Tennis, bowling and cow racing! All in all the Wii is a pretty cool little gadget, quite fun. And we enjoyed our night with the Welkers!

Welcome Basket (A Work in Progress).........

Jason worked hard to put together some Welcome to our Neighborhood baskets on Sunday while I read on my Swing may I add :)......

The awesome guy even made cookies and here is the documenation to prove it!

He first tried the bowl (please notice my nice China bowl, but the wife does not complain when the husband makes cookies)......... he then transferred them to the Kitchen Aid Mixer (which helped make the chocolate chip cookies into chocolate cookies :) ).......

The finished Product! Good Job Babe!!

A little Video for your enjoyment!

A good day and night :)

I went to class today and chapel today and both were good! After work today I thought what can I do for dinner? I forgot I had steaks that I bought on quick sale, so we had steak, free wild rice a roni (coupons rock :) ), cheap broccolli and cheese, and free croissants! Thank you grocery game for a cheap and delicous dinner. I keep getting reminded how lucky Jason and I are, to never worry about if there will be food on the table, we are very blessed and God takes care of us everyday, its a good reminder :).

On another good note, I got to talk to an old friend, that I haven't talked to in about 8 years, it was really good!

Hope you all have a great evening and I'm going to go start that thing they call reading.........

"He" works hard for his money.........

Well Jason went to his parents this weekend to start the many phases of remodeling their home. They are doing room by room and the first room was Amys "old" room. Amy just moved out, so it worked out really well.

The whole process took 3 days, that was preppping/kilz/painting walls and doors,pulling up carpet, putting down laminate wood floors and adding white trim. It looks awesome! When the whole house is done, it'll look new! :)

I studied all weekend and read theology books that didn't make a whole lotta sense to me. We stayed at Jason's grandmothers house and it was nice and quiet.

On Labor day, we labored all day and cleaned, put up laundry and washed laundry for about 5 hours. From mopping the floor to my awesome hubby scrubbing the bathroom even using a toothbrush at times! That night we went to Jonny Carinos and got the family platter (half off Monday nights) and got lasagna, pretty good! (had it for lunch the next day too!)

So that was our Labor day, we were pretty pooped from a long weekend of working and studying so we went to bed at 9 and woke up at 7 this morning :).

Hope you had a great day too and got a lot done too!

Yes we are alive....

Well barely, but we're still kickin. Many people ask us, "how was the cruise?". Well it was amazing, had a great time. Working on a couple blogs to post about it. A lot to write about. After the cruise Jason had wisdom teeth surgery, a couple dry sockets and 3 weeks later, I'm glad to say he is better. I had a root canal, and found out those are not much fun. We have a lot to write about and I will soon. From our 4 year anniversary to going to a drive in and welcoming a new niece! :) Jason is working hard in both school and work, he has a internship w/our church this summer and he's teaching 4-6th grade Sunday school. So we are keeping busy, but I apologize we have not updated much, but believe me its a work in progess... :).

Working Out

My friend Amanda has been an amazing encourager to me! Because of her I have been working out 3-4 times a week now! I am so thankful for her! We are still trying to clean out our pantry to start out healthier diet but right now we are enjoying the leftover cheecake squares from Amy (J's Sister) recital ;).

So tonight I finally kept increasing the speed and increasing, I did really good! (pat on back!) I am really enjoying this and feel really healthy. (only if I can stop those cheesecakes and snickers I share w/Norita)

Then I have Miss. Will Power herself Amy Welker, the diet queen, she has been doing weight watchers and has been doing great. (lost over 20 lbs now!)

So all in all I have two great influences in my life!

Well I'm off to shower and then bed. Night all!

~Tonya

When Life gives you a Lemon.... and you want to throw it back at it instead of make lemonade

Sometimes life can be frustrating. Right now mine is. I found out about 3 weeks ago that I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. Well I started taking a drug called Methotrexate, its a drug that you take once a week in big doses, the first week I took 4 pills and the 2nd I took 5, then the third I was suppose to start taking 6 pills. Well after the dose of 5 the Monday night after I started feeling ill, and then on Tuesday I did a half a day at work and missed a full day on Wednesday. I looked at the side effects of the medicine and it was from it, so I called the doctor and they told me to stop taking it until I could see them. So I went yesterday to see the Physicians Assistant, who sat with me and discussed with me in more detail about the "disease" I now have. I did not know the severity of Rheumatoid, I now know. I did not know the importance of a very strict "keep on the medicine and don't' forget". I didn't know that untreated you can have deformities in your hands and feet which explains why my left pinky doesn't like to bend right. I also found out that the drug I will be taking is basically like taking the "morning after pill", it aborts babies or if I do get pregnant and the baby survives it could seriously harm the baby. In three months I will start taking a new medicine along with the methotrexate. So in 3 months I will be dependent on 4 medications, and that is something I never wanted for myself. The news that made me want to "throw lemons" was that its a severe case, as from what I read and remember from the test a 80 or higher shows you have it, mine was 216. They did another test and it was high as well. So right now you could say I'm pretty down about it, I know I'll get through and there are a lot of people who are in a lot worse situations than me. But you know when you are going through something life changing no matter what its hard. So I ask for your prayers as I go through this, I ask for prayers that the diet I am trying to be on continues and that I have the "will power" I need, also that I continue to work out on the treadmill and begin water aerobics. Pray for Jason as he will be helping me through this, having no clue what I'm going through.

Well that's it, even though I would like to throw lemons...... with God giving me strength and family that loves me, I know that I will make some pretty good tastin Lemonade :).

Going Home! (and other Curry News :) )

On Thursday Jason and I will be flying at 6:55 a.m. to go see my Family for Easter and my Dad's b-day. He will be 57 years old, this shocks me a little. I do call him "Old Man" without realizing he is becoming older :(. We are hoping to get to go see my Grandparents and my new little cousin Ally on this trip, Christmas Break was a true lazy time for Jason and I, we didn't go anywhere, and personally it was wonderful.

Personal news, I went to the Rheumotologist on Tuesday (a week ago) and it is official that I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. It was not the best news of my life, but it has challenged me to change my lifestyle as in Health. We will be starting a new diet this summer, the GI Diet. Why so late and not now? Well with the grocery game we have some food that we need to eat up first. I will still be able to use the GG, but some things like my dear husbands taquitos (Jason dont cry while reading this) will no longer be something we buy or the cheap tostitos pizza rolls. But the doctor put me on meds that I hope will work soon, the only downfall is I have to get bloodwork done every two months to ensure my liver and bloodcount (found out I'm anemic) are ok.

Good news for Jason. After this summer Jason is done w/classes and he graduates in December!!! I am so incredibly proud of that man, he is working so hard. Currently he is applying for the Ph.D. which your prayers for that are very needed. His health has been so so as well, please just pray for us :).

I am so excited to get to go home so soon again! I will hopefully get to play w/my neice :). I get to watch KU Basketball w/my Dad which I know he is excited about :), and possibly shop with Mom. I will see Lance and Elizabeth Sunday at the Airport when they are getting back from California and I am unsure if I will see my other brother and his wife. And I will let Jason watch History Channel andDiscovery Science--- MythBusters :).

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter celebrating Jesus's Life!

Blessings,

Tonya :)

This will be a challenge....

Ok, so I am awful at keeping things updated like this. But I am going to try to do this weekly!

Here is how life has been since moving to Fort Worth (May be a little bit of a repeater from the past Post's):

When we first moved here Jason and I did not have jobs yet, I was busy applying anywhere and everywhere and Jason wanted to work on campus. I was set on working as an advisor for a university, I was in the process of being interviewed for Texas Wesleyan University when I got a phone call from a person named Norita from the Housing Office at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS), I went in for an interview the next day and the same day they called me back for a second interview. I was pretty excited but confused at the same time, I thought that I would be an advisor, not a secretary! In the 2nd interview they offered me the job, I told them I had to speak w/Jason about it, and the awesome thing is they understood that, any other business would of not understood needing to speak to my husband! After speaking to him, we decided it was the place for me to work. Jason started working for the Physical plant as a carpenter. The jobs have been a huge blessing for us, I have a great office staff of wonderful Christian Believers, I get to go to Chapel once a week, and I get to see Jason every day! For the past 3 years of our marriage we've both been in school, so we never saw eachother, its odd now, b/c we see eachother all the time. Jason has a great group of men he works with, and he has started working one day and three nights a week.

Other than jobs Jason completed his first semester at SWBTS, and did great! He found out that if he pushes himself he can get done in Decemeber '08, and he is in the process of applying for the PhD. I am very proud of him, he is doing wondeful! I took one class "Wife of the Equipping Minister", it was a short 8 week course, part of a certificate program that is offered here at SWBTS. I am not continuing the certificate program, but I did have fun.

We have found a home church! We will be joining this Sunday (February 24), the name of the church is Alsbury Baptist Church. It is such an amazing church, we are so excited to dive in and get involved.

We have a little house here @ SWBTS, it is 650 sqft, but it feels huge compared to our previous home (apartment approx. 450 sq ft?). We have a WASHER and DRYER!! :) The house has a utility room which has the washer and dryer, and we added the deep freeze and fridge to add some room to our kitchen. My mom and dad bought me a dishwasher :), its a portable one, aka LIFESAVER :). My brother gave his wife and I both huge Christmas presents this year! Meagan got new furniture for their home to make room for Baby #2, and I got their old furniture!!! The furniture they gave me is my dream furniture, for about 7 years whenever I visited them sat in their big comfy chair w/the ottoman..... and now that big comfy chair with the ottoman and an added big comfy couch! :) It was an answer to prayer and we are still so thankful for it. All in all we have a great little house that is truly home.

God has blessed us with some amazing friends already, its neat to meet people who are going through the same thing you are... Seminary :). The Ericksons are old friends from Jacksonville that really our friendship started here at SWBTS this past Fall. Amanda and I have really started growing a friendship, especially with the Grocery Game!! (Which I will explain in another post)

Mom has been down since the move to take care of me after I had gallbladder surgery and Dad has come down as well to bring me the furniture :). Maybe next time it will be both of them together!! Jasons parents have come now quite a few times to visit, and its been great to see them as well! We would love for more friends and family to come and say HI!

We are so thankful for the prayers and support for us while we are following God's will! I am going to try to this "blogger" thing weekly, we'll see how it goes!

Blessings,

Jason and Tonya :)