Page 7 - KOG Glory & Grace Issue 9, Feb 2023, "Home"

YOU CAN FIND HOME WHEREVER YOU ARE
Missouri. Illinois. Hawaii. Kansas. Montana. Add in a few exotic places (Egypt, Iraq, Cuba, Japan, Germany, Korea) and you’ll have a list of the places where Sergeant First Class Robert Moore has laid his hat. Since “home is where the Army sends us,” Robert and Olivia Moore know a few things about making a home wherever they are.
“One of the strengths of our relationship is our ability to have hard talks,” Olivia explains. “We used to take night drives on Oahu (hours at a time) and talk things out.” As dreamy as driving around an island paradise may sound, the Moores understand how challenging life can be.
Robert and Olivia knew they wanted to start a family, so while in Hawaii they went through two rounds of IVF (in vitro fertilization) to conceive. Aria was born in January 2019 at only 29 weeks gestation. While Olivia was in labor, Robert received news from the Army that they would soon be having a PCS (permanent change of station). After 88 days in the NICU and only three weeks with Aria out of the hospital, the Moore family moved from Hawaii to Kansas.
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Robert Moore and Olivia Yeager, with daughter Aria
"The great thing about Kansas was that we were close to home,” Robert says, “and close to both families,” who lived just across the border in Missouri. This meant an expanded support system, cousins for Aria, and the familiarity of being close to the place where their relationship began.
Missouri was the place where Robert and Olivia met back in 2005. They reconnected there in 2011 (after Robert had served three deployments, including 2005-2006 in Iraq), but it was in Chicago in 2012 when they had their "third, first date." By Christmas that same year, they were engaged and beginning to build a life together.
Recognizing, as Robert says, "you can find home wherever you are,” they admit they weren't looking to move to Montana. Truth be told, they weren’t looking to relocate to Hawaii either! "Hawaii was a joke," Olivia admits. In those days the Army asked them to provide five locations for potential service. "We needed a 5th location and so we put it down," Robert laughs.
Now the Moore family is working to make Montana feel like home. Finding a church home in King of Glory has helped expand their community and “Aria is starting to warm up,” Robert shares. "Olivia is our rock," Robert says, "and humor and Disney movies keep us all together!"
"May we show up with courage for our lives. May we be restored and renewed by our wanderings...May we throw open the doors of our lives to the disruptive, healing Holy Spirit here. It turns out that Your love is where we have always belonged."
AUTHOR SARAH BESSEY