_______Goodbye Constellation

And so, with the announcement that funding will be cut for NASA's Constellation program, our lives face unwelcome change.  Adel has been working on this program for over three years.  I am so proud of all the good work that he has done to further our country's exploration into space.  He has brought his solid work ethic and his incredible brain (I don't even know what he's saying half the time) to this project.

Adel and many of our friends here, are waiting to see how this decision will impact them.  Our NASA employed friends, I'm told, are guaranteed jobs since they are civil servants.  Contracted workers, like Adel and many of our other friends, are not so secure.  Although there's no guarantee, Adel believes that his company will still have a job for him once the dust settles.  He just fears that it may be located in West Virginia instead of here.

While Adel is concerned about watching his dreams of a lifetime career in human space flight crumble, I am preoccupied with the potential crumbling of my own dream: keeping this beautiful life we have going in League City, Texas.  If Adel is forced to relocated for work, it will shake my little world.  I will have to give up my house (sniff).  I have loved every minute living in this house, being able to open my home to friends and Bible study groups.  I love the space and I feel like just now I'm starting to make it feel more of my own.

If Adel has to relocate, I will have to leave the friends and community I have found here (waaaaaaaa).  Some of my friendships are just starting to get good, deep and real, just the way I like them.  I don't want to start all over again!  I moved just months before having each of my babies.  I know what it's like to need friends and not have them, to have to lean on the loving people of the church community when I don't even really know them.  I don't want to go through that again!  And then consider how devastated I would be to have to move away from my family (WAAAAAAAA).

The biggest fear of mine, the one I'm trying not to think about, or even imagine (and yet, here I go), is that Adel will be out of a job altogether and competing for a limited few with thousands of similarly distressed aerospace engineers.  This would be a worst-case scenario and would mean for me that I would have to go back to teaching.  I loved being a teacher; I just don't see any room for it in the full life that I lead as a stay-at-home mom.  I LOVE this life.  It is so full of joy and peace.  (Side note, it hasn't always been though!  The first six months of staying home with Isaac, before I met other mommy friends, was incredibly lonely and boring.  And the year of trying to care for a toddler and a newborn was the craziest, most stressful year of my life.  But I worked through those hard times, found my groove, and now I LOVE this job.)  I would be incredibly sad if I had to give it up.  No matter what happens, thank you THANK YOU, Adel for working so hard so I could stay at home with the kids for more than four years!

Both Adel and I are staring into the face of possible change, not necessarily liking what we see, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.  So, once again (hearken back to my January 21 post), I am having to trust in God beyond my own understanding.  Our lives are His.  Everything He has given us...our home, Adel's job, this community of friends, my freedom to stay at home...He is able to take away.  We are praying (fervently) during this time of waiting that God would provide for us to be able to stay here and continue this life that we love.  But we are also praying that no matter what happens, God would use our circumstances for His glory.  And, in the midst of waiting to see what will unfold, we pray that God will use our uncertainty to mature us in His wisdom.

Good work, Adel.  We are so proud of you.
Goodbye Constellation!

PS, My grandma sent me this reply via email: Dear Meg and Adel, we have moved many times, always with a lot of tears and fear of the unknown, The worst was Indonesia,  but every time things worked out great.  We have friends all over the world and I would not trade one move for a million dollars.  If you have to go(I would cry a lot) you will not regret it even though you can't see it now.  Love, D.D.  


Actually, as scared as I am of change, I have to admit that waiting to see what God's going to make out of it is kind of exciting.  Still hoping with all my heart to stay here forever, but also trusting in God's plan!