As 2018 comes to a close...

As 2018 comes to a close we are preparing for the year ahead. Our calendar is already a maze of training sessions and tournaments and T’s Traditional TKD Training which will also include him testing for his 3rd Dan before the end of 2019. It makes my head spin just looking at it and thinking about it all. 

God has blessed us so much this past year. We’ve all been healthy. T has finally gotten to where he can eat a normal diet again after four long years of dealing with the aftermath of his getting strep throat that went undiagnosed causing a huge upheaval in his GI system. It’s so nice to be over that threshold. 

We’ve been blessed in that God opened doors for T’s training that has resulted in him being on a new sparring team with great team members and their families. We love our Carolina Kicks family. It’s been the absolute best thing that has happened for T and for us as a family. The biggest challenge of him being on this team is all the traveling it entails. I’m on the road weekly to and from Charlotte, NC. The expenses are adding up and going into the new year T’s training is going to intensify. We will be going to one week a month, twice a day, two hour training sessions with his coach. When you add the cost of training with fuel, food, and lodging, our monthly expense for just the training alone is going to be skyrocketing. Please be fervent in believing God with us for His protection as we travel back and forth for the trainings/tournaments, for our overall health as we will be traveling so much, and for His provision for us to be able to do this for our son so that he will be able to live out his dreams of being a TaeKwonDo Sparring Champion and possibly get to go to the Olympics someday. 

Having a kid so focused on what he wants to do at such a young age is a very unique thing indeed. Not too many kids know what they want in life and our kid already knows that he wants to be a competitive TaeKwonDo Fighter. He wants to win Nationals on the AAU level, the ATU level, and the USAT level. He wants to work towards being selected to be on the 2028 Olympic Team. He wants to be able to go and win at US Open in 2020 as well as Pan Am and possibly Canada’s Open Championship as well. He has high goals.  He also wants to open up his own Dojang once he earns his 5th Dan Master stripe. He already has picked out a name and has an idea for the logo that he wants for his Dojang. This kid is about accomplishing goals and making a future for himself. He knows what he wants and he’s going after it with our help and support. 

In the midst of all this we are still homeschooling also. T would not be able to do what he’s doing without homeschooling. Almost every Elite Athlete we’ve met does the same. 

It’s a whirlwind ride with our guy but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Never in a million years would I have expected to be doing this when we first signed him up for TaeKwonDo. We thought it would be good discipline for our strong willed son (I have no idea where he gets that from...LOL!). We never could have imagined all this but here we are living it out with T. To say we are proud is an understatement. What he’s already accomplished in his short life so far with being a competitive TKD sparing athlete is amazing. If he didn’t do anything more in this sport we’d still be crazy proud of him. 

Being able to balance everything has been hard to say the least.  Giving him time to be a kid and stay focused on the goals he has set for himself is a major juggling act. 

We are always making it a point to ask him is this still what he wants to do.  We never want him to ever feel pressured in any way from us that this is something he has to do. As long as it’s his passion and dream and he still wants to do it we will support it as best we can to make sure he accomplishes what he’s set out to do. 

We know that with God all things are possible!!!  God opened the door for T to train and be on the Carolina Kicks Sparring Team. It’s a big sacrifice to be gone so much but Scot and I want to honor what God is doing in T’s life. God is the orchestrator we are just the instruments moving forward with what He is doing. I learned many many years ago not to question what God is doing in someone’s life. T is a gift from God on loan to us for such a short while because T is God’s child!  We trust what God is doing with, in, and through T. We have no idea what God has in store down the road for T but we are going to continue to trust Him. 

God Bless you all and we pray that 2019 is your best year to date!!!!