Good morning. I wanted to update the severely neglected blog before we move, and seeing that it is only two days away, what time is better than right now. Because everything is moving so fast (we only knew a week ago what day we would be moving) it has been hard to keep people up to date. So here is the story of how God has shown us that our “long term” plans where not what he wanted for us.
About a year and a half ago we went through a journey with out church called Outlive Your Life. Our church called us to grow, go and give. I think I may have even posted about it at the time. I left my job and took a teacher’s assistant job in “the largest district in the state” on faith because God had not provided a teaching job. Shortly after, my husband left Apple and began to telecommute on a year long contract with a company for the VA. For the first time since New Orleans, my husband had a “normal” schedule. At the end of the school year I was offered a 1st grade teaching position at the school where I was an assistant. Did I mention that was a God thing? I am not truly licensed for first grade, but the district I was in allowed teachers with my type license to teach first grade.
Shortly after I was offered the position, we began our house search. We found a house in a great area, and moved in a few weeks before school started. Everything about moving was God, which seems strange because of the situation we are in right now, but more on that later. So here we are, I’m beginning my first year of teaching, we have a new house, I am finishing up my masters degree, and my husband is beginning seminary again while working a full time job. To say time was tight and life was a bit stressful was an understatement. We loved the quiet neighborhood we lived in and loved having our own space especially after some horror stories from the apartment we were in. Life was crazy but good.
About that time God challenged us through a story Joe heard through one of his mission classes. The story is really only a couple verses in the Bible, but it spoke to him. Gen 11:27-32 Abraham’s father began a journey with his family towards Canaan (you know the promised land), but stopped in Harran and settled there. We were challenged to be careful of settling some place and missing out on what God had promised. Within a couple months we were approached about joining in on a church plant happening on the MS coast. Because we were on guard more so than when we had been approached earlier, this is really the time we started pray about it being an option. I was finishing up grad school, and Joe’s contract was about to run out. They needed both of us, Joe would be working with community, missions, small group, and what ever else was needed, and I would be working with the children’s ministry. While we continued to pray and Joe’s contract ran out, we prayed he would get a job that would allow us to be a part of the church, if that was what God wanted. The day I graduated, Joe was offered a job with another telecommuting company. It took about a week for it to set in that this was the push to go.
At this point, I had began to plan for the next school year, how my classroom would look and run better with my experience. I had not began to fill out applications. I had not even thought much about of the job hunt process for the coast. We put our house on the market the week before school let out, I declined my contract, and I began to fill out applications for schools on the coast knowing I was extremely late in the game. The last week of school, I felt like all I could do was call and see if any schools still had openings. There were a whole bunch of “already filled”s on the list. As I called and sent resumes, one school stuck out. The first time I called, the principal was the person who picked up. If you are a teacher or in the system, you know how that doesn’t normally happen. Silly me didn’t even find out until the end of the conversation! Well, she asked me to send my application, resume, and license to her directly and she would get back with me sometime the next week. When I didn’t hear anything, impatient me, called and left a message. She called back and set up an interview time on a day we could come down. I had set up one other interview on the same day with a private school (as a back up), and we headed to the coast. Normally I am scared out of my wits about interviews, but strangely I was calm and confident for this one. I shouldn’t have been. The position was for seventh or eighth grade Language Arts, after I had just spent a year teaching first grade and three years teaching preschool! Did I mention it was a panel interview with six people and that when I get nervous I make off the wall comments that don’t make sense? Everything about this interview was different. When I left the interview, I was told should hear something that afternoon or the next day. I also met up with the headmaster for a private school in the area and was offered a position with the understanding that if something in the public system was offered I could back out.
When we drove home the next day, I sat on pins and needles until I gave myself the cut off of 3. If I hadn’t heard anything by that point, I was not counting on hearing anything at all. 3:30 is when I got the call. I was offered the middle school position and welcomed to the family/ team. That was it. If there was ever any doubt. We were moving. Joe started researching apartments, and we continued to keep our house ready to show at a moment’s notice.
Last week we took time to go down to the coast for a half vacation, half get things ready trip. We had a great time meeting with friends and family, but we also had business to do. Tuesday we drove over to my school hoping to get some resources for school and scout out apartments. I had just found out the teacher’s start date the day before was a bit earlier than I had expected and of course began to freak out. My principal put me at ease but asked that we be down a week earlier so I could meet with my team. Joe, being the smart kid he is, asked about apartments in the area since we weren’t having much luck, and she pointed us in the right direction with places to avoid and safer places. Don’t get me wrong, the area is safe, she just has some inside information about complexes that we would never have known. She even set up a meeting with an apartment for us. After that meeting, we kept driving and saw what looked like nice apartments, checked with her, and found out she hadn’t heard anything bad about them. Joe researched while we drove a bit more, and we ended up going back to meet with someone. Believe it or not they had several openings, and some were even immediately. We went back to my parents house after a few more stops and crunched numbers. The next day was the Fourth of July (our vacation day) so we went to the beach. Thursday we had already planned on going back over to meet with the family minister in a church plant that was more established so I could get a better feel for what I was getting myself into. We went over early and met with the apartment complex manager, planned when we would be able to move in, and signed our paper work. We had a little over a week before our move in date, and things started to come together quickly. Joe was able to set up all the utilities, and while we were down we were even able to find furniture that would fit the space (and serve more than one purpose). We came home Sunday put things up for sale on facebook the next day, and before we knew it stuff started to disappear. Did I mention we are going to be in a third floor apartment, and that it has been a huge blessing that we won’t have to worry about moving some of these things?
That brings us to the present. Our house still hasn’t sold, but we are trusting God will continue to provide for our needs like he already has. We are meeting with people, saying our “see you later”s this week, and packing. We are down to two days, and it still doesn’t feel real. It has been a crazy couple of weeks, and yet again God has orchestrated it all from the very beginning. He even allowed me to gain experience this past year with an age/grade I shouldn’t have been able to teach, and I may never teach again. I don’t think that was haphazard. God knew I needed that experience to be able to relate with elementary kids in ministry and to grow me as a teacher with challenges I had in the classroom. I think the most ironic thing about all of this is that last week while we were out of town, our house didn’t show once, but this week it has shown twice while we are trying to pack. God does have a sense of humor doesn’t he.
Here are a couple ways you can pray for us. Please pray that our house sells in God’s timing, and that he sends someone our way that is willing to pay asking price as we will be losing money once it sells. Pray for our safety Saturday when moving. Also pray that God would put people in our lives to help equip us for the jobs he has for us. We are looking at this move the same way that we would be if we were moving “overseas” on the mission field. Pray that our marriage will be strengthen as we work closely together with each other and the church. Please also pray that God would grow and guide the church to the place he has for us. All in all please pray that God would receive glory from whatever we are doing, whether it be in the church, in our other jobs, or in the relationships we make. We are excited about where God is leading us, and I hope this clears up a bit of the craziness of the quick move.
As the school year is coming to a close I keep thinking of all the things I should do differently next year. One of those things is be more prepared! So, I am currently working on compiling a Sub folder with extra activities that can be used Friday while I’m out. I have had an amazing assistant this year that can come up with activities on a moment’s notice, but it will be nice to have a resource in the class just encase. Most of the resources I have found for this folder were found at
The next stop on the list is 
