quick little update on our family

For those of you that read my blog on occasion for fun, or if this might be the first time you've surfed over to this part of the blogging world, please accept my apologies for the boring post here! This post is an update for family & friends that are wanting to hear how things are going - it's been a crazy few weeks for us! I promise as things settle down more, I'll return to my regular nonsense postings! Scout's honor!

For the rest of you that are looking for the update on life, I'll be a tad generic, but will give you the general idea of what's happening! There's just sooooo many details to everything, and it's really not needed at this point.

Let me start by sharing a little verse my Mom showed me the other week (I'll use NIV). Acts 17:26 (this is talking about God) "...and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live." My Mom showed that to me, trying to encourage me, and it did. God knew we were going to be suddenly homeless. He knew we still had to finish the year out of Kirsten's school at the same place. He knew we might have a hard time finding the right place to live, but He had it here ready & waiting for us.

A week ago Sunday we were told to leave where we were staying. No warning, just pick up what we could at the moment & leave. My parents were gracious enough to let us stay with them, knowing that would be easiest for transporting Kirsten to & from school (they're about 2 miles from there). Keep in mind, we also had only one car at this point (see the post here for that info). Throughout last week, it was literally a day-to-day issue of trying to find a place to move to. We did our best to focus some attention & extra loving on Kirsten, who was feeling confused by the situation. For her, it turned out to be a week of slumber parties at Grandma & Grandpa's house. We had started out pursuing one apartment that we liked, and in that process, we ended up returning to the apartment we lived at last year (we were there for 3 1/2 yrs). Our intention was just to obtain some documents from the new landlords, but God obviously had another idea in mind - this is where He wanted us to move back to! The day that all happened (last Wednesday), Matt & I were a bit stunned by what was going on. We NEVER would've thought about the place, but it just happened! Definitely a God thing! No other way to explain it! I'll post another time about the details of this apartment. Let me just say it's completely different from how it used to be!

So, we had found a place, and were lining up arrangements with people that offered to help us move. During all this, our remaining car (the silver Taurus) pooped out on us. The transmission went. Yup, another thing went wrong! No car!!! We shared this information with family & friends, and I tell you it's been absolutely amazing to see the love & generosity people have been blessing us with! AMAZING! Some friends let us borrow their very cool station wagon (yes, seriously, I fell in love with the thing! it's so cool!) for about 4 or 5 days. We ended up moving in here on Sunday with the help of a bunch of people (one of which is an outstanding organizer of the whole moving process! blew me away!), and Sunday evening we met some friends for a nice & relaxing BBQ. Oh, and someone even watched Kirsten for the day on Sunday so we wouldn't have to worry about her getting hurt or anything while we moved. Monday we went for the last few things we couldn't fit Sunday, then we joined some family for a BBQ. Aaaah, it sure felt good to sit & relax a little! Tuesday we rented a car & returned the wagon. Tomorrow we'll return the rental and we'll be using a van from some friends that are going on vacation for a week. The hope is that we'll be able to get the trans fixed by the time we need to return the van. If not, we've had an offer of another vehicle from someone else that we can borrow for a while.

Can you see how cool this is all working out?!? For as absolutely stressful and unsettling as it all is, it's also very beautiful to see and experience the love and friendships and relationships that we have with so many people! During a lot of this, I couldn't help but keep thinking of another verse - Jeremiah 29:11 "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" With all that's gone terribly wrong in the past few weeks, I've known it's not God that's throwing all this garbage our way, wanting us to fail. My Father doesn't work that way! I know He loves me and wants good things for me! And as we're working through it, I can see some of the great lessons we've been learning along the way.

So, to wrap up this huge story (which I said would be short! LOL), we're just waiting now on getting the car fixed. It's mainly an issue of funds (sudden moves will do that to you!), and we have an avenue we're pursuing, but so far it's not working out (401k at work). We'll just keep praying and keep trying and see what happens! Oh, and we'll keep unpacking, too (this place is loaded!)!

Thanks to so many of you for your kind words and thoughts and prayers. I love you all!