I’m Baaaack! Our Year of Change.

If I could characterize the last year in one word, it would be change. If I could characterize it in a phrase, it would be God’s faithfulness. As of the beginning of May 2024, my husband stepped down from his position as pastor of our church. This was the big change that kicked off all of the rest of them. While he was looking for a full-time position, he was working a part-time position for the city of Mapleton, IL, for a while, but it wasn’t quite enough to pay the bills.

He continued looking for a job and worked during the month of June, but we had a vacation already planned and mostly paid for in July. He decided to stay behind and work, but the rest of us, my mom and my sister, loaded up our fifteen-passenger van and traveled to Pensacola, Florida.

The Pensacola Connection

That’s where things got interesting. While we were in Pensacola, an old friend asked if I’d be willing to work for her Christian school. I was invited to interview, and when I went, I was offered the job. After a conversation with my husband, we decided that with our girls going to college in the area that fall, and our oldest son also living in the area, it made sense for me to take the job – even though it meant a move.

We didn’t get home from vacation until Monday, July 8th last year. We had our house to sell, and my father-in-law decided to move back to Texas, so we had an additional house to sell, and I had to be back to start work by August 5th. My father-in-law’s house sold quickly. Our house got a contract on it to close on September 5th.

Cross Country Move 

The next change we experienced was packing up and moving across country from Illinois to Pensacola. We left August 1st and got in August 2nd in the evening. I started work on August 5th. On September 3rd, the contract on our house fell through. We had ‘rented’ the house that we were supposed to be buying in Pensacola, so we didn’t know if we were going to have to move again. But….God. God worked it out for us, through a crazy turn of events, to purchase that house without a mortgage.

Our house eventually sold by November of last year. Steve had been looking for a job. He had even gotten 3 new certifications hoping that would help him get a job. We sold our fifteen passenger van and purchased a clunker so that we’d have more money to live on because our money was running out.

Principal?

When we came back to school after Christmas break, during inservice, our principal had said, “If I’m asked to come back next year….” I asked him if I he didn’t think he’d be coming back next year. He said he’d already been offered another job – a pastorate in another state, and he’d be leaving before the end of the school year. I told him that Steve might be interested in the job. About a month later, this brought about a wonderful change. Steve was offered the position as principal. He had just under a month to shadow the other principal before he was the principal of the school. The really cool thing? He got the job just as we ran out of money. Again, But…God….

Another move? 

But the school board, understandably, wanted us to live closer. We currently lived 45 minutes from the school. Steve was going to need to be there late many days. He was going to need to be there for board meetings, sports games, and other events.

So this brought about another change; we put our house in Pensacola up for sale and in less than a month, we had a contract on it. We looked all over for the right house. We thought we found one, but it had just had a contract put on it. We looked at another house in a town twenty-minutes away, but we decided it was too far from the school still. But the Lord opened the door for us to purchase a perfect house. Because of our buyers, we closed on May 5th – two weeks before the end of school.

Unpacking the Truck

We packed up our house on a Saturday with help from our girls friends from college.  But on Monday when we moved in, we had at least fifteen – maybe twenty people from school and its supporting church come to unload the moving van and a storage unit. It was a site to see. I can’t tell you just how moved my heart was. I knew they cared for us, but this was wonderful to SEE how much they cared for us.

The home we purchased was only four minutes from school. Our property is tucked off of the beaten path on 2 1/2 acres. We can have animals (because my son is a part of 4-H). We have room for a big garden. We already have a volleyball net up for our kids and our students to use. We’ve lived here for almost two months, now, and we love the space. We’ve planted a few herbs. We’ve harvested over two gallons of blueberries. My youngest son made blueberry cobbler, and I’m getting ready to make blueberry jam.

We did have to do a lot of repairs to this house. We had to put on a new roof. We’re, of necessity, getting new gutters. Water has been getting in under a door, so the gutters should take care of most of that, and then we’ll replace some subflooring and flooring on top. We had to adjust some electrical, and we still need do some work to the crawlspace.

Cars too? 

In the midst of it, both of our cars also died. One we took our clunker into the shop to get some leaks fixed. But when they were working on it, they broke a piece. They said they fixed it, but our van – which was running beforehand – wasn’t working now. They said it was nothing that they did to break it. We’ve taken it to another mechanic who is currently working on it. Our little Kia – the car that was supposed to be the dependable one, started clunking one day on my way back from Pensacola. The check engine light started flashing, and it was dead before I got home. We had it towed to the shop that originally worked on our van. But this time, the mechanic told us that it should be under warranty because Kia was under a lawsuit becaue these engines had been doing exactly what ours did. We had it towed to Kia in the hopes that they would honor the warranty. We had to prove our oil changes, but we did, and yesterday we found out that they are going to replace the engine for FREE! Again, But … God.

This week, we’re supposed to get gutters. Next week, our subflooring is supposed to be replaced. Then it’s just the crawl space to deal with.

I’ve made a friend in town. This has been a very good change, and has done wonders for my spirit.

So that’s my LONG story of my last year and two months. It’s been long, and convoluted, hard, and amazing, but God has been mightily at work. I’m hoping to try and keep up with things better, though I can’t promise it won’t be without any bumps.

What has the Lord brought into your life this last year? I’d love to hear in the comments.