Life Continues to Begin

|Originally posted March 31st, 2008 by Rob|

Claire and I continue to get settled in to our little life here in little Boone. Claire just accepted a job with OASIS (Opposing Abuse with Services, Information, and Shelter) as a Shelter Case Manager. She will be working with women and children who have been abused to help them in emotional recovery. She will also be an advocate at the local court and hospital. I am sure Claire will post more on what the position is, exactly, later.

This job has been a huge answer to prayer for us. Claire and I had been struggling with the difficulty of finding a meaningful job for her in Boone. There just aren’t that many non-profits in the area and definitely not many jobs at the non-profits. So, needless to say, Claire and I are pretty excited about her new position and feel very blessed and taken care of.

I just got back from a trip to Dallas, Texas where we held a conference for the Operation Christmas Child long-term volunteers. (The way that OCC works is mainly through thousands of volunteers around the country. The volunteers are the main people who work directly with individuals, churches, schools, colleges, and other groups around the country to make shoe boxes. They also work with local news to help spread the mission of OCC to others. The OCC staff (at least those of us who work on the United States side of OCC) are mostly in supportive roles for the volunteers as they work directly with others.) The conference was pretty fun and also important for me to at tend in order to get a better understanding of what goes on with OCC and our volunteers.

The conference was also the first time that Claire and I had been apart since we got married! It was a little sad, but I think we handled it pretty well. But I am definitely happy to be home! Today is a sort of a role-reversal for Claire and me. I’m the one sitting at home (I get the day off because I was out of town for work this weekend) and Claire is the one at work. I’m taking advantage of this day off to post this blog as well as do a bunch of other things around the house.

Claire and I both really enjoyed Eric and Paula’s visit to Boone! They left on Wednesday and we began missing them dearly right when we dropped them off at the airport… They are special friends of ours and we felt blessed by their visit. After having friends in Boone for a week, it’s a little more difficult to be away from everyone. We hope we get to see them again soon and would also love to host anyone else who would like to visit! I’ve included another few pictures of their visit below.

That’s the update, for now. Thanks for loving us and caring about what is going on in our lives!

Our First Visitors!

|Originally posted March 22nd, 2008 by Rob|

Let’s just start out this post with two obvious-es…

First off, I am pretty stoked to have a Blog. It is going to be fun to be able to update “y’all” (I’m trying to get the southern lingo down) with what is going on in our lives, post some pictures and videos, and give many great examples of how Claire is a way better writer than I am. Which brings me to my second point - while my contributions to our blog may be informative and a hoot to read, I can assure you that next to Claire’s eloquently written monologues I will look like a seventh grader in typing class who is just trying to sneak in some good old Oregon Trail behind the teacher’s back (yes, I would like to ford the river).

Good, I’m glad we got those out of the way. Now, to the topic at hand. One of my Best Men, Eric, and his wife, Paula, are here in Boone visiting us! Woot Woot! The options of things for us to do are endless (unless, of course, we want to go to Target - nearest one is over an hour away…). In the first few days of their visit, we have done a lot of relaxing and talking together, made some good dinners, went shopping, and had some good Marble Slab ice cream. We also made up our own version of the Newlywed Game which was great fun. Eric and Paula made it just in time for the first hints of spring, so we’ve been enjoying the sunny weather together. We even got to eat breakfast on the front porch and listen to the creek/stream/brook/river across the street from our house (we all had our own opinions about what to call it, maybe someone can clarify the differences on the comments page). Today we went for a little drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway and went hiking for about an hour and a half. It was a little 2.5 mile hike at a part of Blue Ridge Parkway system of national parks called Moses Cone Park.

It has been great to have some of our best buds down here to visit us (although it makes me miss home and all of you who are up there in Minnesota!). We have found that we don’t know tons about Boone, so their visit has really been a big exploration of Boone for all four of us. I think it’s actually making us appreciate our new home more and more. After all, we do live in a popular tourist destination, and we’re starting to understand why everyone wants to visit the North Carolina mountains. They are beautiful, so we’re looking forward to lots of outdoor fun in the months to come.

That’s all for now. We love you, Eric and Paula! Thanks for making us feel special enough to deserve a trip down from Minnesota.

introducing...the Williams Family blog

| Originally posted March 16th, 2008 by Claire |

The Williams Family…is that really what we’re called now? It’s pretty unbelievable that merely a year ago, I was just single Claire Singleton, and Rob had no idea he was about to meet a girl who would soon snag his last name. Since March 29th, 2007, our lives have been a testament to the fact that God loves to bless us in unexpected ways, and that his timing doesn’t necessarily coincide with our views of “normal”. So here we are, 2 months into wonderful married life, less than a year after crossing paths for the first time. WHAT??!! God moves quickly, no?

After our wedding (which we LOVED!), Rob and I spent a fabulously relaxing honeymoon in the beautiful Colorado Mountains (hot tubs, snow-capped mountains, Lord of the Rings marathons - it was very “us”). Then we were able to spend some time in Minneapolis with Rob’s friends and family. Mom W and Nana and Grandad Brown (Mom W.’s parents) threw us an incredible post-wedding reception, and Mom and Dad Singleton were able to come celebrate with us, as well! Then we were on the road again (I think this was something like our 8th road trip together…), this time to pick up a few belongings in Memphis on our way to our new home of Boone, NC.

Ah, Boone: …a delightful little town nestled in the charming Blue Ridge mountains; …..a delightful little town which has made us a bit stir-crazy… Really, though, we do like it so far. Will we want to live in a small town forever? At this point we are thinking no, but we’re definitely open-minded. For now, though, God has us here, and it’s feeling more and more like home every day. Rob is settling in to his job at Samaritan’s Purse (he’s the Operation Christmas Child Prayer Mobilization Coordinator, or “God’s Prayer Guru” as Rob’s co-worker Chuck has deemed him). And I am spending my days job-hunting, agonizing over how many thank you notes I still have to write (it’s in the hundreds…but I really am thankful!!), and trying not to watch too much TLC. The job hunt is coming along; at this point, we are trying to figure out if I should just settle for something that involves income NOW, or keep looking for something a little more career oriented (although there’s not much going on here in the way of international non-profit work). I think I’ll probably be working within the next two weeks. We’re also making friends and trying to establish a social life, which is going encouragingly well so far.

Well, I don’t want to write a novella and scare everyone away from checking our blog again, so with that, we’ll say adios for now. Here are a couple of pictures of our wedding and honeymoon, plus a really lame picture of the house we’re renting - check back for better ones later. We miss you guys!

To see our beautiful wedding pics (taken by my dear friend with mad photography skills, Cayce Harris: www.cayceclaire.com), and even order some if you like, visit: http://web.sendtoprint.net/proofbook/login.asp

Type in “claire and rob williams”, and enjoy!