Leave, Miss Maria, and a Government Shutdown

Normally, there will not be this many posts in a day. This is just to make up for all of the days when there won't be any.

We have been working for the last couple of weeks to make arrangements for Lloyd to take a week of leave, so we can visit family in Arizona. This trip is very important to us, and we have wanted to make the trek there for over a year now. Hopefully, it will all work according to plan. Lloyd has been working for almost two weeks now to get his hands on the packet of paperwork that he needs to submit to request leave, and he should finally be receiving it tomorrow. (Thank you for your efficiency Uncle Sam.) He expects that getting all of the forms filled out by everyone who needs to do so should take a couple of days, and he is hoping to have everything ready to submit come Monday morning. He needs to submit the request a month in advance, and we are going to need lots of prayers to get it approved. Every other time that he has requested leave, he has had it denied at least once and needed to resubmit repeatedly up the chain of command to get his time off. We are praying that this time goes more smoothly. In any case, we expect it to take about three weeks or so until we know how this is going to go. We would love any extra requests that could be sent to the Big Guy on our behalf.

Lloyd is scheduled to meet with his med board case manager Miss Maria on Tuesday. (Hopefully she shows for this one.) If she has done her job (fingers crossed), we are hoping that it will be possible to schedule his Phase 1 and Phase 2 physicals as well as his appointment for Dictation. For the last five weeks we have not had any significant delays to the med board process, so we're going to be praying that the trend continues.

Finally, the latest Continuing Resolution for the budget that was passed by Congress expires on Friday, and it seems that the federal government is playing a game of chicken. We are not entirely sure what a shutdown would mean for the military in general and Lloyd specifically. Even if a provision is passed ensuring that the military continues to receive pay, there is no way of knowing exactly how that will play out and who will be paid. Even if all soldiers are paid, some of the people who are critical for his med board process are civilians. There is a lot that we don't know right now, and it is unsettling. We are not, however, fearful. We both know that God is the one who provides for us. Even as we go through our trials, He continues to richly bless us every day of our lives.

God Bless