The Krohn Family

Many of you have seen that we are selling our home and have asked why and where are we going.  We are moving on to the next phase of our life journey.

Melissa and I – and we believe all of us who profess to be followers of Christ – are called to grow and serve the body of Christ.  We have been so blessed over the years as individuals and as a family.  We’ve taken a close, prayerful look at where we are in our faith journey and are convinced we have a calling to take another step of faith.  Our Father has been preparing us for this next phase and it is our responsibility and joy to respond in faith.

Post college we have had major phases of our life journey.  First there was Madagascar and an incredible time of growth and learning through service.  We started our journey as a couple and family in Madagascar and it still remains close to our hearts and fresh in our minds.  Post Madagascar came Texas for a short stint, then a move to Indiana.  We have settled well in Indiana, are fortunate to work for a great company, and most importantly, have an incredible church and community around us.  We have been blessed with a beautiful home on a cul-de-sac and our kids have grown up in this safe, nourishing environment.  Each one has come to their own realization of their home in the body of Christ and are growing in their own unique and special ways.  It is now time to move beyond the cul-de-sac.

Melissa leads a ministry at our church, On Eagle’s Wings (OEW), and we have seen incredible life changes happen over the past years of ministry.  Melissa is wrapping up her Masters in Biblical Counseling this fall and is looking forward to growing and enhancing the program with her new gifts and insights.  One of the areas we feel called to is to serve the women and their families in more than just a counseling manner, but also with tangible physical support.  It is not unusual for the women in the program to be in very challenging personal times, including the basics of just having of a roof overhead.

You probably guessed it: we are not moving far.  We have purchased 4 acres of wooded land in the country and are in the midst of starting a construction project to build a new home with a guest apartment over the garage.  Our goal is not just to provide a roof to those in transition, but a peaceful environment where people, both women in OEW as well as others, can come and experience peace and a dose of agape love.  And so we’ve called the place, The Sanctuary.

As we considered different options for the environment we wanted a real change of pace and feel. We’ve opted for a log home with a large wrap-around covered porch.  We feel this will be inviting to others and we are excited to share it with our friends and extended family.  The property layout also has great possibilities.  Our front yard area will be open and fairly flat, but the rest of the property is hilly and wooded, gently sloping down to a year-round creek.  We’ve already scoped out the potential locations for a large garden, a walking/bike path down to the creek, a tree house for the boys (think zip line off the deck into the tree house!) and a campfire area.  Quite a different feel from the cul-de-sac.

We are about 4 months into a year-long process to plan and build the home and apartment.  We are praying for a buyer for our home, an interim place (apartment) for the fall, and hopefully an end-of-year move-in to the new home.  We have been blessed by many friends helping us prepare our home for sale, and we are looking forward to the fellowship with a community of friends who have offered to help us with the new property.

And so the journey continues.  We will be challenged – in a good way – to open our lives even more and to stretch in giving of ourselves.  It will be a big change for our kids (country living, new schools, etc…) and we are excited to see how God uses them in this new journey.  Each one has already thought of ways to help – from decorating their own room to planning the grounds.  We are confident that our kids will learn much as they experience what it means to give, and, consequently receive.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress and stories along the journey.

I have left comments open on this post as we welcome your thoughts, prayers and if so inclined, your help as we move forward beyond the cul-de-sac.  Peace.

Tom & Melissa

This year was the kids first year to play basketball.  Through a local church we connected into the Upward Basketball program. What a great program and group of people leading not just basketball practice, but with lessons in life through Bible verses and character building discussion.   All kids did great (of course!) and really enjoyed the whole experience. You can see a few more pictures on our Smugmug site.

It has been a long time since I posted.  Not from a lack of interest…but it seems that my use of Facebook and sharing news through it has taken precedence over our family blog.  But there is much to share with our active life that doesn’t fit in a 140 characters.  Over the next couple weeks I hope to update our blog with some posts that include news on the kids, life on the home front and most significantly our big plans for 2011.  Stay tuned.

A couple of weekends ago, the Krohn boys took a trip to the NE corner of Indiana to Pokagon State Park.  Joshua’s cub scout troup enjoyed a day of tobagonning and ice fishing.  A 2.5 hour drive from home, Pokagon is famous for its tobagon run.  A man-made course with refrigerated tracks, it is quite a thrill to ride down the track at up to 40 miles per hour.  Our top speed was 34 mph!  The boys also had their first experience of walking on ice (8 inches thick) and drilling holes for ice fishing.  We didn’t catch anything but it was fun imaging the fish at the bottom of the lake playing with our grub bait.

I’ve put together a short video of our time at Pokagon and also a few more pictures on Smugmug from my phone.  Unfortunately my 35mm camera battery was dead…so you get what you can with an iPhone.

After our nice snow on Thursday, the 3 kids and a friend of Emily’s went to our church with Dad to do some sledding.  We had a great time as the snow was deep enough to make for some nice runs.  Our favorite was to go down together as a train or just linking arms.  Dad treated us to some hot chocolate at Capstone during our break.  A good couple of hours of winter fun!  There are a lot more photos on SmugMug and a short video of our time together here.

Christmas has come and gone again. We had a great couple weeks of vacation.  We had a bit of snow, just enough for some light sledding in the neighborhood.  The kids still get very excited about Christmas, both the time together around the house and, yes, those presents.

Christmas Eve was a special treat this year as Uncle Kelly and a friend joined us for a nice dinner.  While oyster stew wasn’t on the menu, we did have great appetizers, beer cheese soup and pie for dessert.  Yum, yum.  Christmas day is always a joyous day in the house.  The kids are up early and after working through our stockings, we treat ourselves with Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast (Thanks, Mom).  Presents are clearly the kids “high” for the day and it wasn’t long before we had a helicopter flying in the living room, music playing on the ipod speakers and bumber cars zooming across the kitchen floor.  We closed out the day with our favorite Christmas movie, The Nativity Story.  Everytime we watch this movie it makes us wunder at the faith and commitment of Mary and Joseph.

We had planned to travel to North Dakota to visit G&G Krohn, but unfortunately a big blizzard stalled out over the Red River Valley and kept us from getting “home for  Christmas”.  Uncle Kelly, Shane and Mia also shifted their plans and spent the week in

Indianapolis instead of ND.  Our kids really like having time with the cousins and we enjoyed a couple of days around the house and an outing to the Children’s Museum.

To cap off our time over the vacation, we took an overnight trip to Cincinnati and visited the Creation Museum.  We all enjoyed it especially the planetarium shows and learning more about the science that supports the Bible creation story.

We finished the time in Cincinnati with a quick visit to the Krohn Conservatory.  Yes, you heard it right: “Krohn Conservatory”.  We didn’t have much time to visit the conservatory so we’ll make another trip to Cincy and likely throw in the Newport Aquarium.

Additional photos are available on our SmugMug site and a short video of Christmas scenes is available here.   Happy New Year to everyone!

Merry Christmas!  A number of you have received our Christmas card and letter, but for those of you who haven’t, you can see them here.  Click on the card thumbnail on the left to see a full size version.

Emily once again wrote our letter to go with our card.  Here is a link to the letter.

May you rejoice in the true hope for all generations in this Christmas Season.

I often get asked what applications I have on my iPhone.  So instead of trying to answer these one off, I put together a page with the apps I use the most.  You can see them here.   The comment section is open at the bottom of the page so I welcome your ideas and suggestions.

With the weather on and off these days, when a nice day comes along it is time to take advantage of it.  One of our favorite nearby places to visit is just down the bike path to the creek and pond area.  There, someone tied a large towing roap to a tree and made a swing with a seat.  Our kids love to ride their bikes there and this past Sunday, two of our neighborhood kids joined us on the bike ride (Dad ran along with Benny).

It is fun to see the kids pretend to fly, especially Josh.  He loves to ride the swing upside down.  For our new neighbors, it was their first ride on the swing.  A little intimidating at first, shouts of “Higher!  Higher!” soon come from the swing.  You can see a handful of pictures I took on our SmugMug site.

Good fun on a beautiful fall afternoon.  You can also compare them to swinging pictures from a year ago.  Our kids are growing up quickly.  Good thing I’m not getting older.

Matthew got his school pictures this past week.  He is a growing boy and doing great in class.  He can’t wait to go to the big school next year and start kindergarten.  You can see all of the kids’ 09-10 school pictures in our SmugMug gallery.

Dad also got a new picture.  After 35 years of glasses, I had Lasik surgery yesterday and for the first time that I can remember, I woke up and could see around the room without reaching for my glasses. I’m still adjusting to the change and my eyes are quite sore, but it is great to not have to think about glasses.