Hey folks…so, it’s quite apparent that patrick and raquel dot com has become stagnant. I’m trying to think of what to do so that it serves a bit of a better purpose. For now, head over to my site for regular musings on the goings on of our life together.
So, I am going on a mission trip. I, along with 15 or so others from my church, Genesis Metro Church in Frisco, am going to Nicaragua. We are departing on August 11 and returning August 18. We will be traveling by bus to a remote village several hours outside of the capital city of Managua. The work of the mission, in addition to spiritual ministry, will be provision of medial aid and supplies for the village. We will be accompanied by several doctors and nurses and providing dental care, vision exams, makeshift pharmacies, and even veterinary care for the men, women, children, and animals of the village.
There will be worship services and bible studies each day for the adults, and VBS-style day camps for the kids and I may have the opportunity to assist in the musical portion of the worship services.
In order to make this happen, I need to raise $1500. I have been raising my own money but have been encouraged to send support letters to friends and family. In addition, Genesis Metro Church is hosting a benefit golf tournament on June 23 to go towards the funding of all of us going on the trip. I would imagine that it goes without saying that prayer support will be required as well.
I guess I’m writing about this here, not only to make you folks aware, but just to kind of process my thoughts out loud. This is a first for me. I’ve never been on a mission trip where I am required to raise my own funding. I’ve been on 3-day house-building trips to Tijuana before when I was in Southern California…many years ago, but those were seemingly insignificant in comparison to what I am about to embark on. I wouldn’t have ever considered those true “missions” (although the I guess the folks that were blessed by a new house did). I have never traveled out of this country (unless you count Tijuana…I don’t), much less to a place where the sentiment towards American missionaries is less than fully cordial.
I have no idea what to expect. I am very excited about this opportunity but also very anxious…which I think is the prevailing feeling. As I prepare over the next few months, I am considering what I need to be thinking about, preparing myself spiritually and mentally, and getting the practical things taken care of.
For now, here’s some information for you:
If you are interested in reading my support letter and would like to considering supporting me, you can look at that here.
If you are interested in playing in the golf tournament, check out some more info about that here. Let me know if you will be signing up.
Thanks for reading this. I will post more thoughts, I’m sure, as the trip nears.
Well, it’s been about six months. I thought I’d put something over here. But it doesn’t look as if we’ve been missed…much. The lack of updates can be attributed mostly to a lack of direction on what to do with this site. I guess I can blame a small part of it on laziness too. But that’s that.
What’s up with Patrick and Raquel?
Raquel: Busy as ever, still working at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. She’s got a new boss whom she adores and thinks the world of. For that reason alone, I like her a lot too. Raquel enjoys her work. She’s also giving a lot of time to our church, Genesis Metro, down the street in Frisco, helping with the marketing needs there and this is going quite well.
Patrick: After nearly six years, I am no longer employed at Insight for Living. You can read a bit more about that here if you’re interested. My time is now occupied by working contract jobs when I get them, looking for permanent work, assisting our friend Erin with her pet sitting business, entertaining the idea of starting up my own home computer care business, and working on small projects around the house. In that order. Yesterday I completed a project I started over the weekend that took much longer than I anticipated it would. Of course, my time spent on it each day was slightly abbreviated, no thanks to the busyness of the other stuff I mentioned above. You can see a picture of the fruit of my labor at the top of this post. I enjoyed working on that.
A couple weeks ago, Raquel and I began coleading a Lifegroup with our church, much akin to what most churches would refer to as a “small group”. We’ve enjoyed the opportunity to make some new friends, further cultivate existing friendships, and enjoy the place in life that God has us. We’re doing pretty well, I think.
Even though we haven’t written much, the photo pages here have been quite lively. Recently added are some more pics of my recent work in the garden and a fun album of pictures from our trip to Utah last month with our dear friends Tim, Carrie, and Sonya. I wrote about that here. Anyhow…to view the pictures, click on the link to the right under the search field.
Thanks for reading. Speaking of which, we like to know who’s visiting the site. Leave a comment for us.
Love to all…
So, thought I’d throw a bone with an update. August has been a whirlwind of a month. We’re still getting settled in the new casa, but enjoying it immensely. Our furniture from Ashley Furniture arrives tomorrow about which we are pretty stoked. It’ll be nice to have a place to put the TV and stereo, and some decent looking couches in the living room.
I have put up a bunch of pictures from our moving experience into the new house. See the link just to the right of this post for our pictures. We had quite a few people show up on the last two afternoons in July to help us pack some final boxes, load up the truck at the old apartment, and to unload at the new house. Our most humble thanks go out to Tim and Cari Harris, Tim Bourne, Jamie Bourne, Lee and Lydia Teague, Chris and Angela Siegl, Paul Leonard, Alex Jelke, Drew Mitchell, Michael Gladwin, Timmy Evy, Michael Purdum, Joe Tassani, and Heather Tozzi. In my lifetime, I have never experienced goodness from a group of people like we did across the two days we moved.
On the Monday night we moved in, Tim Bourne came over to the new house to bring us some drinking water and ended up sitting in our barren living room with us until about 5AM on Tuesday. It was such a relief to not have to deal with making sure things get done anymore, and to just sit around and talk about things other than the progress of the house and closing escrow. The last week before we moved in was quite possibly the most haranguing week ever. I don’t think our sales office and title company could have made things any more difficult for us and I’m sure I acquired many new gray hairs over the period of the five days before we closed escrow. Tim’s being here late that night into the wee hours of the following morning was a peaceful time for us and I don’t think I would have had things any other way.
Later that day, Carrie Bourne, Michelle Lance, and Lydia Teague all came by to help Raquel unpack the kitchen and get things straightened up. I am blown away by the level of kindness and the way it is displayed in the quality people we have chosen to surround ourselves with and the week we moved was a testimony to how God uses his people to show us who he is.
Let me pause here to say that U-Haul sucks and they will never again receive our business. Moving on now.
In other news, between the job at Prestonwood, getting the Arbonne business off the ground, and her contributions to marketing at Genesis Metro, Raquel has been pretty busy. Being the supportive husband I am, I have managed to stay busy helping her out with what I can and just being the laid back counterpart to her driving personality. We are in a great spot in life and we tremendously enjoy our parts, regardless of how almost overwhelming the busyness can be at times.
A week from Tuesday we will be celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary. I am puzzled as to how a full year has already gone by since we spent our first anniversary in New York City, but this year has brought with it some amazing times. I am a lucky man to have the pleasure of being married to Raquel. She is a special lady.
To celebrate, we are taking a long weekend and heading down to San Antonio. Raquel’s long-time friend, Chris Warrington is getting married and we will be attending that wedding. We also plan make a pit stop in the Austin area to hang out with Kyle and Erika Sears and partake of some Wahoo’s Fish Tacos, among other things I am sure. I am looking forward to not having anything to do for a few days, other than just lounging around away from the life and times of our busy surroundings. A quick refresher will be nice.
So, now that you’re done reading this, go check out the pictures. Thanks for stopping by. Leave us a note.
I am writing this blog entry from our new house. We’re home.
Lot’s of packing and cleaning up to do, but this is all very good. Bring it on!
Maybe someday we will share the tales of the aboslutely horrific customer service we received throughout the last week from our sales office. But for now, we clean (well, Raquel and her friends), organize, unpack, and live well.
Be good.
For all who are interested, there’s been a ton of progress on the house and pictures have been posted. See the link just to the right of this post. The interior is all but completely finished, the landscaping and sprinklers are complete, our appliances have been delivered (not necessarily installed yet).
Tomorrow we have our first walk-through with our builder and a roll of blue tape, Sunday we pack the moving truck, and Monday, we do the final walk through, sign the papers, close escrow, get the keys to the house, unload the truck, have some pizza and lots of beer, and enjoy the new abode. Sounds like a plan to me.
I was going to blog more about the house and other stuff tonight, but I’m just exhuasted, so I’m off to bed. Good night, all.
I can’t believe that we’re down to two weeks on the house. We are scheduled to close on Monday, July 31. It’s a very exciting time for both of us.
Yesterday we headed up there to get a heads up on what had been done during the week and we took a bunch of friends with us. Our dear friends, Ty and Kelly are in town this weekend for Kelly’s birthday and they wanted to see the house. Since we all had plans to hang with the Bournes, Browns, and the Terrell for dinner we all got together and everyone caravanned up to see the house.
Even though we were expecting it, we arrived at the house to find–much to our delight and surprise–that the outside of the house had been painted. I had been somewhat leary of the color scheme we chose…for no good reason…but you just are never sure until you see the final thing. But when we saw it last night, I had a difficult time containing my excitement. I am so pleased with the way it looks! I love it when things go the way they should.
We’re expecting to have countertops and tile flooring put in this week and I guess they’ll start the sprinkler system and sod as well. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it’s looking good for us to be able to close on the 31st still.
A few more pictures from the last couple days–including pics of the house with the chosen colors–have been posted to the album. And then there’s the fine pic to the right of five of the sweetest and lovliest ladies anywhere.
This is a good time.
One of Raquel’s and my favorite things to do when we have downtime on a weekend is to get in the car and drive. Sometimes we’ll go exploring places within a couple hours of here to see new things. But most of the time, we like to drive around the housing subdivisions and communities in the area to get ideas for what we want to buy when it comes time.
Earlier this year, thanks to some end-of-the-year blessings, we came to resolve that 2006 wouldn’t complete without the purchase of a home. So when my mom and dad came to visit for a long Easter weekend, we thought it might be a good idea to take them to see a couple communities we had come to appreciate over the years. Mind you, we had no plans to do anything serious…just casual looking, much like our weekend drives. My dad is a residential developer and architect and has been in the industry for as long as I’ve known him, so his opinion on the things we like was valuable to us.
Well, it was more like this: Mom and Dad flew in on the Thursday before Easter. They left on the Tuesday after. Just hours after we signed the contract.
On that Friday morning, Raquel went to work and I met the folks at the hotel. After a leisure breakfast, we headed downtown to do some tourist-type stuff. We went to Old City Park, had lunch at Farmer’s Market and walked around the shops. We still had a little bit of time before Raquel got out of work so I suggested we go check out some things in the Savannah neighborhood. It was my intention to drive around the neighborhood, show Dad the neat look of the houses…full of southern colonial charm…and head on down the road to a similar development and see more of the same.
However, as we drove through the neighborhood in Savannah, we stopped at a couple homes for sale and took the info sheets from the “info tubes” (or the take-ones, as Raquel and I like to call them), the prices on them were such that Dad wanted to stop by the sales office. We ended up being there for almost two hours, walking through the models, being blown away by the prices and the incentives, and even being very drawn-in by a house that we all liked. Mom and Dad were blown away by what was available to buyers there and almost bought a house of their own.
Raquel, though, wasn’t there and didn’t have a chance to see what we had seen yet. So we left, and took our excitement home, eager to share with her. It was a great night, sharing with Raquel all that we had seen and learned that day, playing some cribbage, having some beer, enjoying some BBQ chicken, and eager to go look at more houses later in the weekend. It was a great day and Raquel and I decided that night that we would no longer be casual about learning the process and what was avaialble to us.
The next day, Saturday, was a play day. Mom and Raquel had a Peg O’ My Heart jewelry party hosted by our dear friend and realtor, Sonya, so Dad and I hopped the train to Fort Worth and spend the day out there.
After church on Easter Sunday, we had a forgettable lunch at the Prairie House and we resumed the housing search.
To be continued.
After several weeks of seemingly no progress (apparently there were some delays with some inspections), last week we finally got sheetrock and cabinetry. Some new pics have been uploaded to the Flickr album. Go check ‘em out.
I went up to the house yesterday to install the wiring for surround sound and was pleased to find that the exterior is pretty much complete. It amazes me how quickly they’re moving on this thing. The electrical work is completed now and and the drywall phase is next. I think. Anyhow…exciting stuff.