At long last, we have our own home!  My sister took the above photo last week when they were here; it’s our boys and their two sons playing in the front yard of our new place!  This will be our third (and final) move in the last two and a half years!  I’m getting tired of packing and unpacking!  When I took the position at Brandywine Valley Baptist Church, we put our home on the market in Maine and moved in with my in-laws while we waited for it to sell.  What was supposed to be a house easy enough to sell in a matter of weeks ended up taking a year because the housing market crashed the week the for sale sign went up!  Once that sold we were all set to buy a home – we were actually making an offer on a house when we we surprised to discover some tax complications on a home we co-own with my brother in Maine (it’s an investment/rental property).  Argh.  So we waited out that issue while living in a rental home.  Meanwhile, the economy continued to tank so we weathered changes in benefits and salary cuts – making it all seem like we would never be able to afford a home where we wanted to be – near our sons’ school so they wouldn’t have to change, and near the church (proximity to the ministry makes a huge difference in effectiveness).

Well, God answered a prayers and then some.  A beautiful home that had been on the market for a while had a large price drop putting it in our range … and with no work needed!  It has all the bedrooms we need, a great playroom, in a wonderful neighborhood and near everything we need to be near.  On top of that, it’s been repainted, the driveway redone, the appliances are new, the heating and central air almost new and the roof relatively new.  All that for the price of homes that normally need a ton of work – to say we’re excited and thrilled with the answer to prayer is an understatement!  We really were starting to think it would be hopeless to find a place!

And now for the chaos.  We never move at easy times – we moved from Maine to here a couple weeks after Zachary was born, then moved from my in-laws to the rental in July right after I was away for a month on two mission trips!  This time around we’re contending with all the Christmas craziness but we’re excited to celebrate the holidays in our new home!