Meet Tucker, our new puppy!

Yup, that is right. The Martins are officially the owners of a brand spanking new puppy. Ok, well maybe not 'brand new,' but she is new to us! We got her from the local Humane league this past Tuesday, and so far have been very happy with her. She is a 4 month old Hound/Labrador mix and about 20 pounds according to the vet check-up today. We decided to name her Tucker (no Sarah Pensyl, we did not name her after Marc's dog) and she is one of the most well-tempered puppies we have ever seen. She is extremely friendly and seems to like companionship; she hates to be alone. This has made the evenings interesting as we are keeping her in the kitchen with a baby gate until she is potty trained. She hates this. The first night she tried to pull the gate down and almost succeeded. Last night she decided to use the floor as the bathroom, but hey, that's why we keep her in the kitchen at night! She seems to be partially potty trained, but has had a few accidents the past few days (we are open to any suggestions/advice from you dog owners out there).   Sarah is in love with her (sorry Putz) and she provides Sarah with a great companion in the apartment during the day while she works.

As far as my Army training, the past few weeks have been going pretty well. We have had two tests in the past two weeks, both of which went very well for me. We have a new class every week, and are tested on that material at the end of the week. The tests are actually fairly difficult, with lots of memorization and wide ranges of concepts covered. Its basically been cram and dump every week, while trying to retain as much information as possible. A large amount of my studying time seems to be just learning what the 10 million different Army acronyms stand for. They have one for everything! Yesterday we learned one acronym, TAMMS - The Army Maintenance Management System. The! A letter in the acronym can stand for THE!?! I didn't think that was even allowed! Sorry, I am obviously tired of those things. But anyways... training is going well!

We have continued to go to the same church, Chester Christian Church (http://www.chesterchristian.org/) and  really enjoy the people we have met there. The first day we went, everyone made us feel very at home and we even got invited to dinner by one guy! It seems to be a great body of believers, and Sarah and I are really thankful for having found the church. We have also joined a small group from the Church, which we enjoy as well. Jehovah jireh (the Lord provides)!

All is peachy in Petersburg

So I am starting to realize that I am not a very disciplined blogger. It has been over a week since the last post, and a lot has happened here in Petersburg with the Martins and God has been showing up in a big way! First, I had my big Physical Fitness (PT) Test last Thursday which I had been worrying about for probably the last 3 months. Physical fitness is a big deal in the Army and especially for Officers, and doing well on this test goes a long way towards making a good first impression and demonstrating good leadership. Knowing that this would be one of the first things I would have to do here at BOLC, I had been working out fairly consistently this summer to ensure that I was in good shape. But I can honestly say that I was not working out as  often or as intensely as I could have. So I was a bit worried going in to it and not sure of how I would perform. Waiting in line getting ready to begin the test at zero-dark-thirty ( Army slang for being awake at an insanely early hour) I asked God to help me to praise Him and bring Him glory no matter what the outcome of the test was. I literally had no idea how I would do, but was really trying to focus on praising God even if I failed. He gave me a sense of peace about it, and I began the test just trying to do the best that I could. I truely believe that He must have given me some sort of miraculous strength and energy that morning because I ended up scoring the highest I have ever done! In the 4 years that I have been in ROTC doing monthly PT tests, I have never scored over a 250 out of 300 possible points. I did 68 push-ups, 78 sit-ups, and ran a 14:30 2 mile, and got a 271/300. I literally have never done that many sit-ups or push-ups before, and can totally attest that performance to the power of God. Praise Him!

That same day, God answered another prayer that Sarah and I have both been praying, and that is that I would find a fellow brother in Christ in my class. I stumbled in to a conversation about guns with a guy in my class, and eventually I asked him where he went to school. He said he went to Liberty (which immediately got me excited) and so I asked him why he decided to go there. He told me that he chose the school because he really liked the Christian faith and values that the school has and that he wanted to be in a school that shared his faith. Wow! God just smacked me in the face and said you are welcome. I was so overjoyed. It even turns out that he is married, and Sarah and I have begun hanging out him him and his wife. It is such a blessing to have found them, and we are really excited to have a Christian couple to build a friendship with down here.

This weekend, Sarah and I made a spur of the moment decision and decided to go with a good friend of ours, Joe Shenk, to help out at the Rockbridge Younglife camp for a men's retreat. We spent Saturday running a high ropes course for the men, and Sunday helping to build log benches for the camp. I spent the majority of the day Saturday 50 feet off the ground helping the men transfer between a section of the ropes course and a zipline, while Sarah kept to the ground and helped them get off the giant swing which marked the end of the course. We met a bunch of really cool men; some who were terrified of being that high off the ground and literally clung to me and made me push them off on the zipline. and a man who had lost his leg last year in a hunting accident and did the whole course with a prosthetic leg! I was blown away by his courage, and was in awe of his perseverance to not let his injury slow him down. God always end up touching my heart in some way when I make the decision to go serve in His name!

Well, there is much more I could write about, but this post has already gotten long and my tummy is telling me that it is time to eat. Stay tuned for more stories from the Martins!

A new chapter begins...

For those of you who were waiting to here about our move (probably only our parents haha) I apologize for the wait. I wanted to draw it out and add to the suspense. Just kidding. I've actually been soo busy that I havent really had even a few minutes to sit down and blog--I still dont like that word, blog.... it sounds like a sound you make when you are coughing--but here ya go. The move went really well and went without any problems. It was about a 5 hour drive, with 4 hours of it spent driving down the infamous I-95. The apartment is in a very nice neighborhood and has very easy access to a plethora of stores such as Wal-mart, Martin's (a grocery store like Giant) that I like for obvious reasons, restaurants, and a Goodwill (thats for you momma!). The apartment is spectacular! It is leaps and bounds above our last place, which, not to take away from this place, is not hard to do. It is fully furnished, has a full kitchen, 2 br, 2 bath, all utilities included, and even has a pool and fitness room next door for our use! Needless to say, the Martin's are living the big life. No more basement apartment with musty smell, mold, spiders, and dirt that appeared from nowhere. Thank the Lord for blessing us with such a nice place! We are very fortunate to have not gotten stuck in a hotel room!

As for why I have been so busy, I have the Army to thank for that. I started Active duty training here at Fort Lee yesterday in the BOLC-B Ordnance training course. BOLC stands for Basic Officer Leadership Course, with B denoting that it is the second portion after my ROTC training. I am now a proud member of Charlie Company, 71st Transportation Battalion for the next 4 months while I learn how to be a Platoon Leader in the Ordnance division of the Army. The first few days have been rough as we have had to report to work at 0430 each day and are there until about 1700. This is hopefully just for the first week as we in-process and sit through hours and hours of instructional briefings as they try to cram all of the basic information down our throats that we need to function as an officer on base. It feels a bit like trying to drink from a fire hose; it is a bit overwhelming to say the least. Sarah has been working diligently from home, continuing her work for the PSU Clearinghouse for Military families. She has spent most of her time so far by herself at home while I am off playing soldier, so I think she would really apprecaite a phone call or chat during the day from friends or family, if you have the time! 

I think that is all for now. God has been good and is with us here. One prayer request that I would ask is that God would raise up a brother in Christ from within my class for fellowship and spiritual encouragement.