Change

Living in the same city and the same house for the last 23 years, I forgot how difficult change can be.  Especially to someone like me who loves routine, structure, lists, and schedules.  We were so happy when the POD arrived last Thursday and we picked up our uhaul to move all our items from the POD.  We had rented a storage unit because we knew 23 years of stuff from our house would not fit into a tiny two bedroom, one bath apartment.  Although we donated or got rid of a lot of accumulated stuff, there was still too much.  We went from a 1364 sq.ft. to 880 sq.ft. Saturday morning Zachary and I went to the apartment to clean and Gus started working on moving things from the POD to the uhaul.  He was moving along so nicely, he didn't pay attention to his body and about 1:00 he arrived at the apartment and immediately went to the toilet and threw up for about 10 minutes.  He had gotten heat stroke.  The poor guy laid down on the hard floor and fell asleep.  By the time he woke up it was 3:00 and the uhaul was due back at 4:00.  Obviously, we weren't going to make that deadline.  We started unloading and 15 minutes later a huge storm came with strong, gusty winds, lightening, and pounding rain.  We waited out the storm and began unloading again which was about 9:00 and dark outside and no power inside.  Four seminary students in the apartment complex saw us and starting helping us.  In about 20 minutes there were ten students and wives helping us.  It was wonderful!  They were all so much younger than us and were calling us Sir and Ma'am!

The unpacking is going very slowly because every room is filled with stuff and it is difficult to move around and it is a much smaller space than we are use to living in.  Everything is covered with something!  Needless to say this week I have been very homesick and wishing I was back in Newport News in my house (which hasn't sold yet so please continue to pray for us about that).  

Gus started his job and classes on Monday so he has been very busy and very excited this week.  He has two night classes and one class, Hebrew, that is 7:00 a.m. Tuesday-Friday.  So he goes to class those mornings and then rushes to work his job all day.  I think he is amazing!  Beyond the unpacking and cleaning, Zachary and I started his 7th grade school year this week with only three subjects and we'll kick in with all subjects next week.  Zachary has been wonderful.  We got him up and running online as soon as we could so he can play games online with all his old friends.  He helped a mom that lives under us Wednesday by playing ball with her 4 year old daughter so she could have a break - she has an 8 month also.  Yesterday he went to the gym on campus and played basketball with a girl his age that lives in our building.  We had already made contact with a soccer club before we moved so he practiced with them this week and made the team.  So for Zachary, life is good!

We have met all the families that live right around us and what an interesting group.  We have a very young couple, an Asian couple with two children, and a family from Nigeria with 4 daughters.  In talking with the Nigerian family, we learned that they just moved here too.  We assumed that they came to seminary to learn and take back what they learned to their country to share the gospel with people there.  But they came here to share the gospel in America.  They told us that people in their country see American lifestyle and that people here love money and possessions more than they love Jesus and they do not value families and children like they should.  What a sad commentary on our nation and how wonderful that they would care about us enough to leave everything to come here.  

We covet your prayers and would ask that you pray for Gus to have the stamina (we aren't spring chickens you know!) to work, go to class, and do all his homework - he has had two Hebrew quizzes already the first week of classes.  Pray that my homesickness with pass so I can embrace the mission and work God has for us here.  Pray that Zachary will make friends and embrace the new school year.  Pray for us as we begin trying local churches this Sunday that God will lead us to the place He would have us serve and worship.  Pray for our house to sell.

May we be obedient to God's will and His leading.

Living Quarters

Sitting in this extended stay hotel puts a new perspective on being a "close" family and living in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment will certainly be a huge change for us.  When we were looking for a place to live in Louisville, we didn't really consider the on-campus, married housing because we were being far to picky.  We were use to our 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with my big kitchen and our large great room and we didn't want to settle for anything less than that.  We did really want to live near campus to be close for Gus to get to class, we could all take advantage of the gym, and I would be close for my wives seminary classes.  So we began looking at homes for rent and for sale near the campus - nothing worked out.  We gradually started looking at places a little further from campus - nothing worked out.  We did find a cute little house for rent, but it was 35 minutes away from campus and we really didn't want to go that far.  As our week of looking was coming to an end, we were getting very discouraged and being only two weeks away from moving, we were feeling a little desperate!  So we began looking at townhouses and apartments.  The rent was very expensive and we weren't finding anything available until months after we needed to be here.  Ugh!

One Sunday, a friend mentioned to Gus that we should look at on-campus housing.  This same friend sent me a note on facebook about it.  Even though we knew the on-campus housing fills up very quickly and the chances were slim there would be anything available, Gus gave them a call.  Yippee! They had one 2 bedroom, 1 bath in married with no children available.  Since Zachary is 12 they didn't really consider him a child that needed to be in married with children housing.  What a blessing!  Everything immediately fell into place and it was clear it is what God intended for us all along. If only we hadn't been so intent on what WE wanted, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time and stress.  

So for this week we are in an extended stay place until our apartment is ready at the end of the week.  We are excited about being right around the corner from campus.  There are sooooo  many great things about it that I will have to save it for another post.

God is good all the time!

Finding a Job

So much has happened since the last blog. We were in Kentucky a week ago for two job interviews and to look for places to live.  Zachary spent the week with cousins which made him extremely happy and I am so thankful to them for keeping him at the last minute.  Z would have found it extremely boring to look at houses every day for a week.

I don't remember if I mentioned before that Gus decided not to pursue a job as a lawyer for several reasons.  It would be very mentally demanding and time consuming as he well knows to continue being a lawyer (after hours depositions, meetings, etc.) and try to attend classes, do all the reading/homework, spend time with family, etc. In addition, his Virginia Bar license would not transfer so he would have to spend time studying and spend $1,000 to take the Kentucky bar exam.  So we decided it would not be worth it to do that especially when he strongly feels God will not lead him to be a lawyer again.

So he subscribed to the major Louisville newspaper so we could get the classifieds.  He began to apply for every job he felt he could do.  As he applied for the jobs, it was hilarious to see that he wasn't qualified to do anything but be a lawyer.  Even a janitor job he saw that he would have been willing to do (whatever pays the bills!), he wasn't qualified to do because he had no training in OSHA safety requirements.  But his legal knowledge paid off and he got interviews at two law firms as a paralegal.  He got offers from both interviews 15 minutes after he left their offices! He took the second offer because the work would be more varied and interesting.  Both offered him a salary we felt we could live with and benefits, so we are thankful to God for that! His timing once again was so amazing. The salary is so much less than he has made the last 15 years and we will truly need to rely on God's daily provision and His guidance on living a much more frugal life.  We are excited about it!  We have also paid off every dime of debt we owe (except for our house which is still not sold) and I can't tell you how FREE we feel!

More on housing later. Glory to God for it all!

Depending on God

I wanted to talk about money.  I don't like talking about money and my husband doesn't allow us to tell people about our finances - not even Ryan or Zachary has ever known how much money their Dad makes or how much our house cost or any debts we've had.  But since we truly want God to get all the glory for this new adventure we are on and I've had some comments that make me feel like I should clear up a few things.  A few well meaning friends have indicated how blessed we are for Gus to be able to quit work and go to seminary for three years without worrying about money.  I guess they assume that because Gus was a lawyer, all lawyers are rich, so thus we have loads of money piled away to just take it easy while he goes to school.  We didn't always make the right choices with our money at the beginning of our marriage (Ryan and Diana - please don't make that mistake! Love you!) and so we spent the first five years of our marriage getting into debt while Gus finished his last year at Virginia Tech and went to UVA Law School for three years.  We spent the next five years getting out of debt and getting ourselves straight on what we should be doing with God's money.  We had a nice chunk in our savings account and started building up some money in 401K and retirement accounts.  As many of you know, we felt God leading us to not go into debt for Ryan's college and not let him start off in debt either.  So after $63,000 went to four years of tuition and room/board for college and $15,000 repairing and fixing the house up to get it sold, well let's just say we will be depending on God to provide everything we need.  We certainly have the option to move money from retirement and other investments for us to live on for the next three to four years but we have decided not to go that route. We truly feel God calling us to depend totally on Him.  We are putting our retirement and other funds in accounts that will not make it easy for us to get to them and we will live on whatever Gus makes at whatever job God leads us to.

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing." Matthew 6:25.

So this just isn't a career adventure for us, it is a total and complete dependence on God for everything - EVERYTHING!  And that is something we have not done in a long time - it feels amazing.  We have no job and no place to live in Kentucky right now and are unsure who will give us a place to live if we have no job.


"Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.  And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."  Luke 9:57-58


Jesus had no home and did not earn an income to provide food, but trusted His Father in Heaven to provide all He needed.  So everything in our new direction of life, will absolutely be done by God and provided by Him - no one else. We begin this journey with less than we have had since we first got married.  In fact, we were the happiest in our married life when we lived in Blacksburg, Virginia in a dumpy trailer, living on a secretary's salary, and didn't know how our bills were going to be paid (except for having two great kids since then that made life quite happy!) We have come back to where we started except this time we will be putting our trust in our Father in Heaven and not ourselves.  Am I still scared, oh yeah!

We're finally finished!

The for sale sign is in the yard and the house is on the market.  Two months worth of work and it feels amazing to be finished.  The house officially went on the market Wednesday and our staging is complete.  The whole staging thing is strange because we are still living in the house, but it feels like we can't really live in the house.  Does that make sense?  Every day we have to put out the staging towels in the bathrooms, almost everything we use in the house has to be put away so nothing looks cluttered.  Every day I have to tell Zachary "don't touch the walls" , "flush the toilet", "pick up that", and "take your shoes off before you walk on the new carpet". When someone is coming to see the house, we've been told to leave classical music playing and put out fresh baked cookies before we leave.  There are 35 houses in our small zone so it will be a true testament to God's power and all to His glory if the house sells in time for classes August 15th. 

So we press on in faith and Gus is registering for classes tonight.  I have already registered for my class at the Wive's Seminary and I am really looking forward to it.  I always wanted to finish my degree and am only three classes away from being done, but now I get to take these classes that will strengthen my role as Gus' helpmate in whatever ministry God leads us to after seminary is over.  I am praying he also uses the classes to lead me to whatever ministry  He would have me serve in at our new church in Louisville or wherever we eventually end up.  I have so many things I would love to do: lead a homebuilders couples Bible study in our home, have a support group in our home for young wives (and they are all young except me since I will be the oldest wife in the seminary classes), maybe offer a monthly babysitting night for all these young families who need a night out, or lead a book study for moms with a Sally Clarkson book.  Zachary and I have already looked into some volunteer options for us during the week.

One of the great things I love about homeschooling is the opportunity to volunteer together any day of the week.  There is an orphanage type facility in the area that we are living that desperately needs volunteers that might be a good option for us.  Gus thinks that if we volunteer there, I'll start bringing home foster children and want to adopt babies.  Wouldn't that be wonderful!

Each day brings us a step closer to starting our new adventure and it is exciting, frightening (we have no place to live in Kentucky and Gus does not have a job!), stressful, and AMAZING - may it all bring Glory to Him.

IT'S OFFICIAL!

I have always believed God must have an awesome since of humor. After all he made laughter and hilarious humans! All week we have been anxious about Gus getting accepted to Southern Seminary. We have spent all this time and money on the house, looking for houses in Louisville and making all these plans and he hadn't even been accepted to the seminary.  We were really rolling along on our feelings that this was God's plan for us.  He was told it may take longer than the usual three to five days to receive a reply to his application since it is nearing the July deadline and the school gets so many applications in May.  So it has been almost eight days since he received notification that they had received everything to complete his application.  They told us he would receive an email or a letter.  Since everything is done by computers these days, we assumed it would be email and have been checking Gus' email three or four times a day for the last eight days! Nothing.... So in our nightly prayer time together we have been praying that God confirm if this is His will and please send us an email.  Nothing....

Yesterday we had the new carpet installed. Everything was everywhere and constantly being moved from room to room and there was no time to get on the computer.  But it was in the back of both our minds all morning.  Finally the carpet was done and we were feeling so good about how the house was looking that we both were silently saying "Whatever you want God, we won't worry about it anymore"!

The carpet was finished and we had decided to run over to the mall and grab some lunch since we have barely been out of this house in weeks.  We grab the mail on our way to the car and there it was - five minutes after the last major house project was completed a letter from Southern Seminary was in our mailbox.  It was very thin and we started thinking like you use to when you received college letters - thin envelope means rejection, fat envelope means acceptance.  I thought we were all going to throw up and it seemed like forever that Gus held the envelope and we just stared at it.  Finally, Zachary says "what are you waiting for!"  Oh those first four words - "it is my privilege"!  We all started screaming and jumping around.  It was wonderful!  So after all our anxious moments, God delivers his confirmation five minutes after the last major house project was done.  What a sense of humor our Lord has and how wonderful He is!  All in His timing and all in His way.  All to His glory this journey will be!

The big "D"

Being the human that I am, I knew that it would come and so it has.  The big "D". D-O-U-B-T! I have felt much doubt about this seminary adventure this past week.  Our goal was to have the house on the market by the end of April because we know spring is the best time to sell a house. It is now May and we have finished maybe 1/2 of what has to be done before we can list the house.  Every day seems to create something else that has to be done.  At first it was ok, I knew we were working every day on something that needed to be done no matter how small it seemed.  Now, we discovered that seminary classes start August 15th instead of mid-September like Gus thought.  So I let the D-O-U-B-T start creeping in that there is no way we can make it to Kentucky by then - WE DON'T EVEN HAVE OUR HOUSE FOR SALE YET! D-O-U-B-T!

Then my son calls us to say he is officially engaged.  We knew it was coming soon, but since it wasn't official it was easy not to think about it.  Now that it is real, I don't want to leave my baby!  Sometimes it crossed my mind that we would be almost 14 hours away from him. A few tears would drop and then I would put the thought aside until he called or sent me a message and then it would creep up again.  Now that there are wonderful wedding plans that will be going on only 3 hours away, it is now much harder to think about being 14 hours away.  D-O-U-B-T!

Added to those two big "D's", Zachary is really beginning to feel the reality that we are leaving family, friends, and the biggest thing to him - Ryan. Our house has been in total disorganization for a month now, in 30 days Gus will be unemployed, he doesn't have a new job, and we have no new place lined up to live in.  This has really begun to weigh on the mind of my 12-year-old and he had a huge meltdown last week.  He was so upset, my heart just broke for him. D-O-U-B-T!

On the flip side of all this, I am excited about all God is going to teach us through all this. I feel He is going to change us all beyond what we can imagine.  He is already teaching me that Carol, the order-loving, routine-needing, hates being out of my comfort zone, control-loving, doubting Thomas, can only survive this with His strength and His alone. NO D-O-U-B-T ABOUT THAT!