The 16 hour trip consisted of a 24 ft Budget truck pulling a trailer with a jeep on it through the switchbacks of the mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee. Luckily, I was following the massive moving truck in our overly packed car with the two dogs.

I should mention here that our schnauzer  is extremely prone to carsickness. And If he decides to throw up, he crawls into my lap. Every. Single. Time. This has happened at least three times that I can remember. Luckily, this trip was not one of them. 

It was also lucky that I did not have to ride in that huge truck with Mike. I just know that I would have driven my poor husband crazy squeezing his arm (really hard) followed by sharp inhales when his driving scared me. And given the circumstances that would have happened every 15 minutes for 16 hours! I think it's safe to say he would have hated me after that trip!
So because the dog did not throw up on me and because Mike and I were in separate vehicles, we all made it safely to KY in one piece and proceeded to unload and unpack all of our things. I think during the unloading it became clear to ME (not Mike) that the "faint line" was for real. I began to feel dizzy at one point and had to sit down. This was not normal and I just knew. Now I had to convince Mike.
My mom came a couple of days after we got there to help us get settled. One night after she had gone to sleep, I took a digital pregnancy test. And there it was. Clearly it said pregnant! I ran to Mike and showed it to him. We jumped up and down a few times. Mike just laughed with pure joy all over his face. He was finally convinced and thrilled. We made a plan that I would travel back down to MS with my mom and we would tell all the family at once. This meant I had to keep the secret from everyone including my mom for several days. It was really really difficult but I wanted Mike to be there when we told everyone. So I kept the secret until...

Part 4...A "faint" surprise

If I repeat myself in these posts, ignore it. I am not going back to read previous ones. Again, I just want to document our journey  and how i felt during this time to the best of my memory. So my mom may be the only one who finds this interesting.

So we left KY to pack up our lives and say our goodbyes. So many things were uncertain at that point. We had no jobs in KY, no family, no friends and no idea the journey that God was taking  us on. I spent my final days in NC packing up our house and my classroom while saying goodbye to some of my dearest friends. I am sure Mike thought I was losing it the way I cried over all of it.

Well, it wasn't just that I was being an emotional female (though I am that). I blame it on hormones of another kind. The night before we started our 16 hour move, I said goodbye one last time to my friends. We had the U-Haul loaded, the house cleaned, and were ready to sleep on an air mattress for the night. I realized just before we went to bed that something was off. So  I went to the store to get a test. As I waited for the result, my hands were trembling. I am still not sure if I was nervous excited or scared out of my mind. It was probably a combination of all three.

The test I took had a very faint double line. So faint in fact, that my husband convinced me it wasn't enough to be a "real" positive. We laugh about it now and say that he just couldn't process the news that night. There was too much change all happening at once and I think at that moment he couldn't handle the thought of adding a baby to all that craziness! Again little did we know what was ahead of us and I am so glad we didn't!

Early the next morning we set off for a new state and a new phase of life. For Mike it was exciting- a new adventure! For me, it was a little more heart wrenching. I am a girl who does not like change at all. Yet, I knew that the Lord was the one moving us. So how could we stay? We both desire His will for our lives and this was it. Knowing that gave me peace in the midst of the fear and pain that I felt. And it also gave me hope, joyful hope for our future.

Part 3

Part 3... So after leaving that house we drove around to a few more places that didn't work out and gave up. We pulled into a Wendy's parking lot and cried out to the Lord in prayer asking for some direction. We also had to repent of our attitudes because honestly they were not honoring to the Lord at all. We had started arguing with each other and just being negative. We knew God had led us here, but we didn't know what to do next.

After we finished praying, we just sat there in silence for a bit. It was then that we remembered that our neighbor in N.C. had given us her cousin's phone number and told us that he lived in the same city. This alone was God given because we had only talked to this neighbor a handful of times the whole time we had lived there. Mike called his number and left a message. He must have sounded desperate because that is exactly how we felt! He told him our situation and asked for any help that he could offer. At that point, all we wanted to do was stop looking for a bit. So we just went back to the hotel where we were staying. Finally, the neighbor's cousin  (we will call him Scott) called us back. Scott said that he would be glad to help us look for some places near the seminary and gave us his address to pick him up.

So after we picked Scott up, we drove around a bit. He began to tell us about his life. He had attended the same seminary as Mike was planning on attending in the 80s. He and his wife had previously been on the mission field in South America and were now back in the U.S. permanently. Scott began telling us that what we were doing was not crazy (which was EXACTLY what I needed to hear). He told us stories of Christians in South America who depended on the Lord and saw Him be faithful to his promises again and again. He and his wife had been in a very similar situation when they moved here- they even had two dogs! Anyway, he showed us several apartment complexes much closer to seminary but none had any available to rent. Then we drove up to one that seemed out of our price range for sure. I said no, but Mike said "Let's just see". Can you tell who the optimist is out of the two of us? :) So he walked in to talk with the manager. She told him that there was only one available. It was a two bedroom (just what we had hoped for) and they had a special deal going. He walked out and said, " I think this is it". I took a little more convincing, like seeing the inside first. Ha! But in the end we decided to rent it. And we FINALLY had a home! Little did we know what joys and huge challenges we would face while living in that apartment...

Here we go..Part 2

 Continued... Part 2
I share this part of the story as a way to remember the small (and big) ways that the Lord provides for his children. I want to remember every detail of the past couple of years so that I can see how the Lord has grown (and hopefully) matured us as we have learned to trust and depend totally on Him for all things.

So off we went to KY to find a place to live. We were foolishly optimistic and thought that we could find a place to live in two days and be done in time to spend Father's day with Mike's (my husband) family. Now, you must know 3 things that made this idea foolish:
1.) We had never visited this city before so we did not know where to begin looking.
2.) We had two dogs that were also going to be moving with us. Most landlords (that we have met) DO NOT like pets!
3.) Probably the most critical obstacle- we needed to move in 2 weeks!!!

Well, we arrived in town and stopped at the first apartment complex we saw that was near the seminary. We were excited because the outside of the complex looked nice and they allowed pets. When we talked to the people about price it was well over what we thought we could afford- which at that point was very little because we had no jobs. Ha! So we left and I am ashamed to admit I was already in tears over the situation. And I don't mean crying a little bit. I mean what we Southerners call "bawling" and telling Mike that I didn't want to leave my first job, all of my friends, and our first home to come here. The truth was I was afraid. We were stepping out into the unknown and it was a first for me. I was just beginning to come to a true knowledge of  Jehovah-Jirah- God our provider.


The search continued for the rest of the day. We drove all around town looking for somewhere to live. All of the apartments we found (via craigslist mind you) were either too expensive, too far from the seminary (the only thing we were sure of), or wouldn't allow pets. Our dogs at this point were our only "children" (I laugh at that thought now) and there was no way we were getting rid of them.
We went to areas of town that felt very unsafe. As we approached one particular house, I was looking over at Mike who was driving and saying, "No" repeatedly. He would reassure me with, "It's okay. It's probably safer than it seems. Let's just look at it." The landlord was at the house waiting for us.When we got out at the house and looked through the screen door hole in the screen, he told me to RUN! Apparently, it was not as safe as he had hoped. So we ended the first day of the hunt exhausted, discouraged, and a bit concerned. Our faith in the Lord was (and is) so weak at times.

The second day in KY started much like the last. Mike found a house on the ad board at the Seminary that was the right price and from the pics it looked perfect. We were told it was "a stones throw away" from the seminary. Well when we found the house it was about 25 minutes from the seminary and needed A LOT of work. It also needed a refrigerator, an oven, and none of our furniture would have fit in the rooms. In the midst of our disappointment over the house, the landlord's daughter found out that I was a teacher. She told me that she had been a teacher in the city for 20 years. I started to get excited thinking that she would be a great connection for a job. She then informed me that I would never get a job in this county, and if I did it would be in the "WORST part of town" (which I would have been totally fine with,even prefer,but that's another post) because that is where they put all "new teachers like me". Yeah, well you can guess how I was feeling at that point. It took all that I had not to burst into tears right in front of that lady. I just nodded and fell silent as Mike quickly tried to get us out of there.
Once we were in the car, I lost it again. We were both at our wits end and did not know where to look next.     To be continued...

Here we go...

I have so much I still want to do to this blog- adding pictures, etc. I recognize, however, that could take awhile and I just want to go ahead and start writing. Hopefully pictures will come soon. Who knew these things could take so long!
I am starting this blog in order to one day share with our girls all that the Lord has done. I also want to use it as a way to document their days as infants/toddlers. I know that these days will pass way too fast! Most people will probably be bored to tears reading this because it is just our story. My prayer is,however, that by sharing this God's name will be glorified and you who are reading it will be drawn to Him. My heart is truly filled with awe and such joy as I look back and see all the mighty works of the Lord!
I guess the best place to start would be while we were still in North Carolina. We had been married and living in N.C. for about 3 and a half years. Mike was a meteorologist and I was teaching first grade. For about 2 years of that time, Mike was feeling the Lord drawing his heart toward something else. He became very discontent and "antsy" in his current job.Through much prayer and several key conversations with other believers, it became clear that Mike and I were being called into full-time ministry.
When we knew we were being called we started looking for seminaries. Mike did his research and really liked all that he read and heard about a seminary in KY. He loved the history and many of the professors there. Ultimately though, we decided that we would go to seminary wherever we could both find jobs. "Isn't that the wise thing to do"? we thought. Who would move without a job? We both started praying and asking the Lord for jobs. Mike applied for meteorologist positions all over the country. One of the positions he applied for was a weekend job in KY.
He ended up getting a call from the station there. They asked for a new resume tape, etc. and seemed to really like Mike. We just knew that this was the Lord answering our prayers and that he would get the job. So Mike started the LONG application process to get into seminary and I prepared to look for jobs in the KY school system.
Several weeks went by and we heard nothing back from the news station. It became clear that Mike did not get the job like we had hoped. We were very disappointed and started to second guess God's will for us. Summer was fast approaching and neither of us had job prospects. Maybe we should just wait to attend seminary? Maybe Mike should do classes online? We wrestled with these questions and many more as we continued to seek the Lord's will.
During this time, Mike mentioned to me that we might should consider moving without jobs. "What?" I thought he was crazy! Quit our jobs with steady incomes, move to a new state with no place to live, and look for jobs once we got there?  That was not the order of doing things in my mind. No way!
A couple of weeks after finding out Mike did not have a job in Louisville, we were introduced to a friend of a friend who was also a pastor. We had dinner with he and his wife. To make a long story shorter, they spoke truth into our lives about stepping out on faith. They talked to us about trusting the Lord to meet our needs if this was something we knew he was calling us to do. They showed us examples in the Bible of God's people trusting the Lord in this way. After being reminded of these examples and much prayer we knew stepping out in faith was what the Lord was asking us to do. Scared but filled with hope, we made plans to drive to KY to find a place to live. To be continued...