So… what to say? I left off in Pennsylvania last time. Unfortunately, wa-a-a-a-ay too much has happened since then for me to remember any of it. I didn’t take as many pictures as usual, so I can’t go by that. But I had to post the picture of the happy pig from the fair…
And I can’t not post this one. The kids run like crazy while we’re in Pennsylvania—up at the crack of dawn fishing and riding bikes and splashing in the kiddy pool and whatever else. They always crash hard at the end of the week, but we’ve never seen this before. I had Sam take a shower before bed that night and when I went to check on him this is what I found…
His hair was wet and he smelled nice and clean, so at least I knew he had finished his shower before he collapsed! Ha! He was buck naked, wrapped up in that towel, snoring away. Crazy kid.
We left Pennsylvania early Saturday morning and headed to my very first IYC ever in my life. :-) I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go and it just never worked out before. I’m sooooo thankful that God worked all of the necessary miracles to enable me to go this year. It wasn’t as much of a “camp” atmosphere as it usually is (or so they tell me), but I still really, really enjoyed it—and felt like there were so many things that God spoke to my heart. I really NEEDED some of the devotions and messages and prayer times—and even a conversation or two that I felt like was ordered of the Lord. Felt like He was just leading me and giving me exactly what my heart needed at this time.
I know it’s crazy, but I took very, very few pictures on this trip. I had a lot on my mind, I guess, and just wasn’t in the mood to document everything like I usually am. Besides, when you’ve got people who are great photographers running all over the place with their super-duper cameras capturing everything in quality far superior to what I could, why even try?! I’ll enjoy all of their pictures on Facebook and the Assembly DVD that should be made available soon. :-)
The General Assembly began on Tuesday night and it was just so, so, so, so, sooooo good! There seemed to be such love and unity and freedom—and anointing throughout the entire week. I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite part, but the first thing that comes to mind is all of the folks from England. There were a whole slew of them there this year and they were SUCH a blessing! I so enjoyed hearing them each and every time their choir sang or when any of them had any part on program. They were so happy and enthusiastic to be there and they just sort of radiated with the joy of the Lord, you know?! Besides the fact that they’ve got such terrific accents and I just love to listen to them speak. :-)
The whole Assembly felt very evangelistic to me. There were so many good and anointed messages about reaching out to the world around us, being the light of the world, the city on a hill, accepting the call of God and following Him wherever He may lead you. It’s exciting to see Him moving on the hearts of His people and beginning to stir them to leave everything behind and just answer the call and GO.
One of my favorite messages was by Michael Dominguez from Kansas. He had so many good things to say—and such a way of saying them! Ha! He was so unexpectedly amusing. :-) The Parade of Nations was sooooo cool this year. It was very, very different and creative and felt very fresh and inspired. It was beautiful. I cried throughout all of the World Mission Program at the thought of Brother Ard retiring—it became clear throughout the program that it was coming. What a blessing he has been to The Church of God throughout the world! I thought the Annual Address was fantastic again this year, but I always feel strange being the one to say things like that. ;-) Sister Zimmerman’s ABM program turned out great and Sister Bishop’s ABM program was powerful as well. When I look through the Assembly program and try to recall the specifics I keep thinking, “Oh, yeah—and the Holy Ghost took over then, too… And that’s when the altar filled up with young people… that was the time that the Lord began to bless and…” and so on! It was just so, so filled with the presence of God. The VLB program was great this year, as well, although the march got a little gommed up for a while. ;-) Brother Dustin did an outstanding job and I’m so excited about how God is going to use him to lead our young people! I have a lot more praying and studying to do on truly loving the truth. Brother Banuelos preached a fantastic message about the bride—I always LOVE to hear him preach on the Church. Brother Strong didn’t get very far into his Sunday School program (mighty move of the Holy Ghost again—such wonderful prayer and surrender in the altar during that time!), so we’ll have to wait for the Evening Light to give us a little more information on how that auxiliary will be focused this year.
The final message was Brother Harvey Anders’ message on “Answering the Call” and I so wanted to hear it! Unfortunately, I missed almost all of it—and was so distracted when I actually was in the building that I don’t remember a thing! We had gotten the call a few weeks ago informing us that we would most likely be moving to Alabama. Of course, we were also instructed not to divulge that information as it is always subject to change up until the time the appointments are actually made. We put our house on the market immediately and had been living in the agony of secrecy (I HATE not being able to tell my friends and family what’s going on in my life!!! I understand why it must be done this way, but it’s still utterly miserable to have to “hide” those things), and the time had finally come to tell the kids about it. We didn’t want them to be shocked with the appointments were read. I knew they would freak out and I really didn’t want that happening in the middle of the Assembly, you know?! So after the children’s presentation that morning I went outside to wait for the workers to start delivering the children back to their parents. After quite a while I saw my three kids in a group being ushered back to the building and I intercepted them along the way. We went and sat at a picnic table and they were already freaked out. “What’s wrong, Mom??? Are we in trouble??? What’s going on??? What did we do???” It’s not normal to be sitting at a picnic table chatting while church is going on, you know. ;-) All I can say is that it’s a very good thing we DID decide to tell the kids ahead of time. I expected them to take it hard, but I had no idea it would be that bad. Sam did his share of crying, but Katie and Joe completely lost it. The tears were pouring and they were just wailing. I had fully anticipated crying with them and trying to comfort them, but there was no chance for that. It was so extreme that I ended up laughing at them (they were totally out of control—you would have laughed, too!) and finally had to shake them and threaten them to pull themselves together “or else.” I wish I could explain Joe’s true condition. The tears weren’t just pouring down his face, they were gushing from his eyes—jumping out and missing his face entirely. It was amazing--I've never seen anything like it! The kids just kept sobbing and heaving and wailing and asking WHY. WHY do we have to move??? I tried all of the reasons that I hope to instill in their hearts. “Because God needs us in Alabama. He wanted us to work for him out west all this time, and now it’s time to go work for him someplace new. He needs us there and He knows that—for us—we need to be there. We want to be a blessing wherever God calls us and there are ways that we will learn and grow out there that we would never be able to out west. We’ve been happy serving Him in our Region and we’ll be happy serving Him in Alabama—it’ll be fine, you’ll see!” The spiritual stuff was getting us nowhere and I finally resorted to the “we’ll only be a few hours away from Grandma and Granddad” thing in hopes of regaining some sense of control. ~sigh~ I so wanted them to come to terms with this for the right reasons, but it just wasn’t happening and I couldn’t handle any more wailing and tears so I caved in and played the Granddad card. It worked. The tears of agony turned to tears of joy and the kids began leaping all over and screaming and squealing uncontrollably—which brought more threats from their mother about controlling themselves. Ha! (We were away from everybody, but there were still some onlookers--and as loud as the kids were being we might as well have been using a bullhorn!) It took quite a while for everyone to bring their emotions into check enough that I could take them back into the Assembly. Even then, I was sure to enter from the back of the building so the red, puffy, tear streaked faces wouldn’t be seen. ;-) Katie has shed some more tears since then (thinking of leaving Naomi, mostly), but aside from that all of the kids seem to have completely recovered from the original trauma of the news. They bounce back so quickly.
As for my own feelings about the move, all is well. As much as I hate secrets and have been so anxious to be able to just TALK about it, I'm guessing it was probably a good thing that we knew about this a few weeks ago because it's given me time to work through all sorts of feelings and emotions. I feel much more leveled out now. I, of course, have always been a western girl and have always been pretty proud of it. ;-) I love all things western--the skies, the mountains, the clean, fresh, non-humid air, the SNOW, and most of all the people. All of my dearest friends are here and I've shed plenty of tears over leaving. I hate the idea of everybody being together without me! (I've always been selfish that way! Ha!) I'm going to miss everybody soooooo much and there are times when I have felt like it's the end of the world. (I'm rarely that dramatic, but I did have one really bad day a few weeks ago! Even at the time I was so embarrassed to be feeling the way I was feeling! Ha!) But those were just all of my pitiful, sissy emotions speaking. ;-) Everybody hates it when somebody moves into your area and all they ever do is complain about it and talk about how wonderful things are "back home" and how much they miss it there--and before long everybody around them is ready to scream, "So go back home already!!!" Ha! I so do not want to be one of those people! I want to set down roots wherever God calls us to work for Him and make that place my home, be really and truly settled there, and not always be looking back to "the good ole' days" out west. To be brutally honest, for the first several days after finding out that we'd most likely be making this move I couldn't even make my mouth speak the words: "Lord, I want to make Alabama my home." (I hope no Alabama people are reading this--I don't mean to be insulting! Ha!) It was just so hard, you know?! All that I've ever known and loved is out here and I do dearly love it here. But God is so good and so loving and so faithful. He has helped me through all of those crazy emotions and has changed my heart and given me not just a willingness to go, but an excitement about following where He leads. He knows best and I trust Him fully. We've gone over all of the ways that things will be different for us in Alabama (and there are surely some we haven't thought of yet) and know there will be plenty of adjustments to make, but I can honestly say that I am looking forward to this move and to getting to know the good people there and working along side of them. I want to be a blessing and I want the Lord to be able to use us where and how He sees fit. I have no doubt that this will be a major learning experience for us and I'm so thankful for all the opportunities that we'll have to grow in the Lord through this. I truly hope that we can somehow be a blessing to The Church of God in that state. Sometimes I wonder what we could possibly have to offer them, but God knows what He's doing. He'll work it all for our good--our family's good, the good of the state of Alabama, and the good of the Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico & West Texas region. It does make us very happy to know what a wonderful man of God they are getting as an overseer out here. God will surely bless all the way around. :-)
Back to the Assembly... When Dad read off the very first appointment (it would have to come first alphabetically!): Alabama--James R. Horne, I could hear the gasps from every direction followed by lots of "What???" "What was that???" "Who did he say?" comments from all around, lowering into several seconds of hushed and shocked whispers. The appointment wasn't a surprise to me, of course, but it was the last one I heard--and I tried SO HARD to concentrate so I would know what the other changes were! When we were dismissed it was a whirlwind of tears and emotions. Tammy found me first and she didn't make things easy! Then when I finally made it down to where James was and saw the Hatch guys in such bad shape I really lost it! I so did not expect anyone to be affected like that. Then the Hays showed up--that made things a whole lot worse. All the while there were some Alabama folks standing there waiting to welcome us--and we were caught up in all of the tears and blubbering! It seemed so rude and I didn't want them to think that we're totally miserable about this appointment (!), but it was just one of those things that couldn't be avoided--the simple truth is that it's ripping our hearts out to say goodbye. (There's that dramatic side of me again. Ha!) Once we actually make it through all of the terrible goodbyes and get to Alabama, I hope that they'll be able to see that we're not miserable--we're happy to be there and excited about the future. For now, all they know is that we're a wreck over leaving! Ha!
We were some of the very last ones in the building that night, still visiting with everybody. We finally left and went out to eat with Mom & Dad and Sue and Brianna. That was nice and relaxing. I'm soooooooooooo glad Sue and Bree were able to be there this year--we so enjoyed being with them and believe that God is working in Bree's heart in spite of herself. ;-) That night when we got back we ended up in the Hays' room for a couple of hours. We had forgotten to bring Balderdash (can you imagine?!), so we just visited. We had some great laughs and now have new memories to pack away and take with us--and they're the kind that will resurface often, I'm sure. Ha!
On Monday we drove back to Mom & Dad's house, did a couple of loads of laundry, looked at houses online, and made arrangements with a realtor in Alabama to see some of them the next day. Tuesday morning we left the kids with Mom & Dad and James and I drove down to the Bessemer area to check out the houses. We went into six, I think, and found two or three that we thought might would work, but then found reasons why two of them really wouldn't--leaving just one. The one that I knew from the beginning would be our favorite just from the pictures online. I love it. :-) In fact, if our house in New Mexico was under contract we probably would have put an offer in on it that day. Here it is:
Yes, that really is a teepee over there. The boys were pretty excited about that and they were more excited when I showed them the pictures of the lizard we saw by the front porch. ;-) I love pretty much everything about the house (even the price--what are the chances of that?!) and it seems perfect. But I've been praying and giving it to the Lord--we just want what He wants for us. I'm even thankful that we don't have a contract on our house yet because we might have moved too hastily on this one and jumped into something before we're certain of God guiding us, you know?! We want to be surrendered and follow as God directs us and we don't want to rush into anything. I feel much more "released" from everything right now, so that's good. :-) If God allows it, I would love to make that house my home. If He has other plans for us, that's fine, too.
We drove back to Cleveland that night and stayed with Mom & Dad. The next morning we took them out to breakfast for Dad's birthday (he's 57 again this year! Long story...) before hitting the road. We made it through Tennessee and Arkansas and into Oklahoma before we stopped for the night--and that included an unscheduled stop in Memphis to get a crack in our windshield filled. Yesterday we drove through Oklahoma, the panhandle of Texas (stopping at Mardel in Amarillo--found a couple of good deals), and New Mexico. We made it home last night and have spent the day today recovering. I don't mean physically--I mean getting everything taken care of after a three week trip. We're all unpacked, I've got all of the laundry done, got the kids up and going on school (they're set to start their computer school for the year this coming Monday) and the house in good condition over all. James took the van in and had it cleaned and the oil changed (3rd time in 3 and a half weeks--crazy, hu?!), dropped his suits off at the cleaners and all that stuff. The only thing left for me is the MOUNTAIN of ironing to be done. It's always the worst after the Assembly trip with all of those dress clothes to be ironed! Ugh! I wish the Assembly DVD's were available already so I could watch them while I work--it helps keep me going when I have something to enjoy at the same time!
Jason came over tonight. He's the realtor who helped us find this house when we moved here and he is FANTASTIC. After we learned a few weeks ago that we'd be moving we contacted him and listed the house right away. The market here is really slow right now and we haven't had many lookers. We're anxious to be where God wants us to be though, so we figured it was time for a price reduction. Jason feels like we were priced okay to begin with, but that perpaps the lower price will draw some more interest. We know, of course, that it's not a fantastic realtor who is going to sell our house for us. Nor is it a great price. God is the one who will sell the house and we're sincerely praying and asking for Him to do just that. The new appointments take effect on September 1st (isn't that Tuesday or Wednesday?!) and though there's no chance that we'll be in Alabama by then we want to do all we can to be there as soon as possible. It's difficult to take the next step until we get an offer on the house, so a whole lot of our prayers are going that direction right now. And I fully expect God to answer and send the right buyer at the right time. :-)
So there you have it. My life in a nutshell. So many big changes! But we're all well and happy and excited about the future. But still hating leaving the Kaufmans and the Hays and the Clarksons and the Smiths and... well, you get the idea. ;-) I'm just thankful for all of the wonderful ways to keep in touch with people nowadays. Even just 10 or 15 years ago all you could do was write letters or save up $ so you could make very expensive long distance phone calls. It's sooooo much easier now. Thank the Lord for that! I'll be able to stay close to my old friends while making lots of new ones. The best of both worlds. :-)
