As we continue to declutter the house in preparation for listing it next week, we find that we are also decluttering our hearts and minds.
Our present world is fading away, and Mexico is coming into view. We are starting to pay more attention to our Spanish (or lack thereof), picking out words from the conversations of others and from TV. We’ve continued to visit with our fellow workers, the Jacksons and the Lumppios, talking and praying about what our lives will be like in just a few short weeks when we’ll all be working together. The freedom of a simpler lifestyle is becoming more and more apparent each day. It is an amazing time of transition.
Greg called last night and it seems he’s finally getting some peace about our move. He told us that as a family they have committed to learn Spanish, and that they have decided to simplify their lives as well. A very big step for them. (Didn’t have the heart to tell him that in simplifying OUR lives, we are contributing the clutter of three boxes of toys and books to THEIR children’s lives!)
I also think back to Briefing Course this past summer and to our reading of the life of Hudson Taylor, in my mind the ultimate “declutterer”. How the lack of clutter in his life allowed him to focus on the more important things that God had for him to do. Our lives are refocusing on what God would have us do in His name in Mexico…
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Friday, October 14, 2005
Praise notes
As we continue to prepare we delight in how the Lord is meeting our needs day in and day out and how easy it has been to make the decisions to part with things. And the house is looking better and better every day thankfully!
We’ve given many, many things away quite joyfully! Ralph took all of our excess movies to work and his co-workers were thrilled to peruse the stack of videos, and the movies were all in their new homes by the end of the day.
We unearthed some Canadian cash that we never converted back from our last trip there, buried on the desk since July 2004. We stuffed that into an envelope and mailed it off to a young couple who were in our Briefing Course class. They are off to Mongolia tomorrow!! Now there’s a BIG adventure with the Lord!
In all the little scraps of things I discovered a tidbit that I tore out of a World Vision magazine (we sponsor Tania in Bolivia through them). Titled FYI: Feeling poor? It challenges you to go to www.golbalrichlist.com and see how your salary stacks up against your 6 billion global neighbors. Quite eye-opening, go ahead and give it a whirl!
And one of my co-workers has asked us to speak at their church! We are very excited and hope to get a date from them very soon.
Our big praise this week is that the Lord has blessed us with a great vehicle for Mexico. The guy from church who’s been looking for us called us yesterday with several to choose from, but he liked one in particular. A low miles, like new (really!) 2001 Ford F150 SuperCrew pickup. It seats six and has a canopy so we can load up the bed when we move. We are picking it up tonight, and the dealer took both of our cars in trade giving us more than fair money for both of them, plus we got the truck for below book, including the tax and license. Only God can put that together…we are so thankful for the answered prayer and for Bruce’s faithfulness to prayerfully seek a vehicle for us!!!
Since we’ll be a one car family as of tonight I’ve asked to tweak my work hours a bit so Ralph can drop me on his way to his job…looks like that is going to be okay, so we’ll be officially carpooling together as of Monday!
We are so thankful for your prayerful support as we continue to move through the preparations to leave for Mexico to serve the Lord. Your prayers sustain us. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
We’ve given many, many things away quite joyfully! Ralph took all of our excess movies to work and his co-workers were thrilled to peruse the stack of videos, and the movies were all in their new homes by the end of the day.
We unearthed some Canadian cash that we never converted back from our last trip there, buried on the desk since July 2004. We stuffed that into an envelope and mailed it off to a young couple who were in our Briefing Course class. They are off to Mongolia tomorrow!! Now there’s a BIG adventure with the Lord!
In all the little scraps of things I discovered a tidbit that I tore out of a World Vision magazine (we sponsor Tania in Bolivia through them). Titled FYI: Feeling poor? It challenges you to go to www.golbalrichlist.com and see how your salary stacks up against your 6 billion global neighbors. Quite eye-opening, go ahead and give it a whirl!
And one of my co-workers has asked us to speak at their church! We are very excited and hope to get a date from them very soon.
Our big praise this week is that the Lord has blessed us with a great vehicle for Mexico. The guy from church who’s been looking for us called us yesterday with several to choose from, but he liked one in particular. A low miles, like new (really!) 2001 Ford F150 SuperCrew pickup. It seats six and has a canopy so we can load up the bed when we move. We are picking it up tonight, and the dealer took both of our cars in trade giving us more than fair money for both of them, plus we got the truck for below book, including the tax and license. Only God can put that together…we are so thankful for the answered prayer and for Bruce’s faithfulness to prayerfully seek a vehicle for us!!!
Since we’ll be a one car family as of tonight I’ve asked to tweak my work hours a bit so Ralph can drop me on his way to his job…looks like that is going to be okay, so we’ll be officially carpooling together as of Monday!
We are so thankful for your prayerful support as we continue to move through the preparations to leave for Mexico to serve the Lord. Your prayers sustain us. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
Friday, October 7, 2005
Another week closer
Time is flying by for us. There is so much going on, and on so many different fronts, that only the Lord can keep it all straight!
I was sick with a bad cold over the weekend and Monday and Tuesday, so I didn’t get much done in the preparations. But now the summer clothes are all packed away, and the winter ones have been gleaned down to just what we’ll need this winter and the rest have been donated.
The books have been sorted from two overly full bookcases down to two boxes that will go with us. We’ve also given quite a few away to family and friends, and the rest I’m preparing to sell, either on Amazon or half.com. Ralph’s youth ministry library has gone to our niece Amy, who’s studying to be a youth pastor at a Bible college in Portland, Oregon.
The prayer card is done and we’ve had several people take a look at it to make sure we don’t have any glaring errors before we print it. The photos my cousin Donna took of us turned out great, in fact one of them is the photo that’s been added to this blog. We are thankful she’s such a gifted photographer!
The roofer came out and certified our roof as good for at least five more years, so we won’t have to replace it after all, we praise God for that! We have a guy coming Monday or Tuesday to clean the gutters and remove what little moss there is on the roof and the chimney.
I’m off to Women of Faith in Seattle this weekend with the women from our small group at church. While I’m gone Ralph has promised to sort through all of our CDs to narrow them down to what we’ll take and what we’ll give away or sell. Should be an interesting process, I didn’t realize how many we have accumulated over the years.
Thanks for taking the time to catch up with us…stay tuned.
I was sick with a bad cold over the weekend and Monday and Tuesday, so I didn’t get much done in the preparations. But now the summer clothes are all packed away, and the winter ones have been gleaned down to just what we’ll need this winter and the rest have been donated.
The books have been sorted from two overly full bookcases down to two boxes that will go with us. We’ve also given quite a few away to family and friends, and the rest I’m preparing to sell, either on Amazon or half.com. Ralph’s youth ministry library has gone to our niece Amy, who’s studying to be a youth pastor at a Bible college in Portland, Oregon.
The prayer card is done and we’ve had several people take a look at it to make sure we don’t have any glaring errors before we print it. The photos my cousin Donna took of us turned out great, in fact one of them is the photo that’s been added to this blog. We are thankful she’s such a gifted photographer!
The roofer came out and certified our roof as good for at least five more years, so we won’t have to replace it after all, we praise God for that! We have a guy coming Monday or Tuesday to clean the gutters and remove what little moss there is on the roof and the chimney.
I’m off to Women of Faith in Seattle this weekend with the women from our small group at church. While I’m gone Ralph has promised to sort through all of our CDs to narrow them down to what we’ll take and what we’ll give away or sell. Should be an interesting process, I didn’t realize how many we have accumulated over the years.
Thanks for taking the time to catch up with us…stay tuned.
Prayer Update
Thank you for all your prayers regarding our upcoming move. We are praising God for his answers and thought we should bring you up to date:
- we are looking at a January departure date
- coordination of the move with the Lumppios seems to be the way to go
- we’ve abandoned the idea of buying a truck to share for the move and will just take our own vehicles
- we are no longer considering buying a car in Mexico
- we can get the tourist visas we need right at the border
- a sturdy, reliable vehicle for us to use and one of the guys from church is keeping an eye out for us (he works for the local Ford dealer PTL!)
- formal approval/acceptance by the national church in Mexico
- when to list our house for sale
- replacement workers for both of us on our jobs
Saturday, October 1, 2005
Progress…
October 1, 2005
at least we hope so!
Our Realtor came by on Friday to do the initial walk-through of the house and garden so we can do any work that might be needed before we list the house. Good news: nearly everything is ship-shape, with a couple of caveats. The roof MAY need replacing and we’ll have someone come out and make that determination this coming week. He’ll either certify it has five more years of life or will get us an estimate of what it will cost to replace it. And our very pale carpet is showing its wear as well, so that may be an issue too. But, he also said the market here is so competitive now that these things may not even come up. We pray they won’t.
We’ve got boxes all over the house with the names of various folks so as we sort stuff things going to them go directly in their respective boxes. We need to “de-clutter” as much as possible before we list the house, and the sorting and giving are a big part of that.
Mike at my work will sell our collectible things on eBay for us, so I’ve got to take the pictures and get the descriptions together for him. We are thankful for his help on this!!
During a break in our rainy fall weather this morning my cousin Donna shot a roll of film of us in the Japanese garden downtown and tonight we are working on our prayer card using one of those photos. Hope to get them done this weekend.
Oh, and I’m working on Perspectives too!!
January seems so close!
at least we hope so!
Our Realtor came by on Friday to do the initial walk-through of the house and garden so we can do any work that might be needed before we list the house. Good news: nearly everything is ship-shape, with a couple of caveats. The roof MAY need replacing and we’ll have someone come out and make that determination this coming week. He’ll either certify it has five more years of life or will get us an estimate of what it will cost to replace it. And our very pale carpet is showing its wear as well, so that may be an issue too. But, he also said the market here is so competitive now that these things may not even come up. We pray they won’t.
We’ve got boxes all over the house with the names of various folks so as we sort stuff things going to them go directly in their respective boxes. We need to “de-clutter” as much as possible before we list the house, and the sorting and giving are a big part of that.
Mike at my work will sell our collectible things on eBay for us, so I’ve got to take the pictures and get the descriptions together for him. We are thankful for his help on this!!
During a break in our rainy fall weather this morning my cousin Donna shot a roll of film of us in the Japanese garden downtown and tonight we are working on our prayer card using one of those photos. Hope to get them done this weekend.
Oh, and I’m working on Perspectives too!!
January seems so close!
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