Wright Turn....

     So we are moving to Oakwood...that much we know. Now comes the part of the story that I think highlights the amazing sovereignty of our God and Savior Jesus in all things. You see moving to Oakwood sounds great until you start to analyze all the things that will have to go right for this to take place. First of all, we have this 3 bedroom house that we have to do something with. Do we sell it? If so, do we sell it ourselves or get a realtor? How much do we sell it for? That means we are going to have to get an inspector. The last time this happened, the guy missed the issues with the hot water heater and we ended up dropping 600 bones on the whole deal. Needless to say, we had a lot of questions. Well, like Katie and I shared, we had been looking at downsizing and had looked at a few houses; so we were already in contact with a realtor to help us sell and/or buy a house. We sat down with her and were basically dealt the nicest this is going to be nearly impossible speech we could be given. Meanwhile, somewhere in Northeast Arkansas, God was moving a family to register at CBC, pack up everything and move to Conway. Pardon the How I Met Your Mother reference, but kids....this is the story of how we met the Wrights. So like I said we are moving to Oakwood, Katie and I were only sure about 2 things at this point in the adventure: 1. God had put it in our hearts to move to Oakwood. 2. Somehow, this whole house thing would work itself out...even if it didn't look promising. We spent the next weeks praying, talking, crunching numbers and daydreaming of this random knock on  the door where someone loved our house so much they would just buy it on the spot. Well, our God had something so much better for us.
     We hadn't advertised because we weren't sure how much to sell for, weren't sure if we could do it ourselves or needed a realtor. Then one day it hit us. What if we rented? Yes that's right, rented. Sounds simple right? I mean after all, we've never done this before and I'm not exactly Mr. Handyman but the more I thought about it the more it sounded appealing. We could rent and know that the house was settled as oppose to wait and wait and wait for the house to sell in a market that isn't promising, in an economy that isn't stable, before we went to Oakwood. We could rent with a deposit and have an account to use for any repairs and maintenance. This could work. Once again, this was totally outside anything that we had planned or even anything we thought we could do. But,  as with every other step in the story, we knew if this was what God wanted he would provide and that's just what he did.
     We announced to the church Sunday that we were hearing God tell us to move to Oakwood and all that it would involve and asked for prayer. Monday, I got a text from my friend Jay Sawrie and he had met this guy named BJ Wright who was asking on Conway Online Yard Sale if anyone in Conway knew of a 3 bedroom house available to rent for his family when they started CBC in the fall.. Could this be it? Jay commented on his post on the Facebook group and told him about our house. I messaged this guy and we literally spent the rest of the afternoon while I was at work talking about the house, exchanged pictures of our home and talking details about renting the place. They loved it. It was exactly what they wanted. We had a deal. I called Katie and shared with her the potential answer to our prayers. The Wrights were planning to come to Conway on Wednesday so that BJ could finalize his transfer to McDonald's, where he would be a manager over several stores in the city. Could this really be happening?
     The Wrights came Wednesday night to view the house. It was everything they were looking for and instantly we became friends with this great family. The amount of rent and deposit was perfect for their budget. The yard was great for their dog. The location was great for BJ's commute to work. This was the best thing for both of us. We found renters that we could have a relationship with and that agreed to everything we desired to rent for and our timelines to move matched perfectly. The Wrights found a home, and not just a place, but a home that they said they would want to keep during the entire time they would be students at CBC. God had orchestrated our stories together in such a way that can only be His Hand and He alone should get glory for it. This was an answer to prayer. In case you missed this..no advertisement...we prayed on Sunday, answer on Monday, were landlords with a date set to move to Oakwood by Wednesday. Is anything too great for my God? I think not....

So here we are, a little over a week out and I still can't get over His Wright Turn.....Stay tuned readers because I have a strong feeling that we ain't seen nothing yet.

Left Turn!

Gage already explained how we were praying about moving and cutting our budget. I (Katie) was praying about possibly selling our house and simply renting for a while, but with having a dog- by the time we found a place and paid the pet deposit we would be saving little money if any at all. Actually, I guess I should back up some. For about ohh 3 months or so before thinking of moving I began to find myself frustrated with our house, frustrated with having to leave the trailer an Oakwood to return to our house, and frustrated with leaving the little girls who wanted to stay and hang out and talk. Most of all, I was getting tired of feeling like I and we were living two separate lives- one in Oakwood and one at our house. I can look back and see now how this heart changing was God's way of preparing me for his left turn. So back to praying- it was Benchmark week at school and I was in charge of administering a small group their test for a whole week. During one of the writing sections I gave the students their prompts and struggled to think I what I was going to do for the next 45 minutes and maybe even longer with no phone, no book, no magazine, no nothing!! I began talking to Jesus telling him what I was thinking and feeling. I began asking Him for clearer direction with what we needed to be doing with moving and the house. I felt the Holy Spirit say 'Oakwood'. Immediately I began Questioning God. "Are you telling me we need to move to Oakwood?! No, No surely not. We can't do that- that's not part of the plan!". At that moment I felt peace and excitement with a little nervousness as well. I began thinking of what we could do to the church trailer, what we would take with us, an what we would sell. All the while continuing to question God if he was really telling us to do this?! As soon as testing was over I went straight to my closet to get my phone and sent my husband this text, 'soooo I think God wants us to move to Oakwood.'

The Story Begins....

       So what causes a working middle class couple to walk away from a 3 bedroom house in "old town Conway" and move to a 2 bedroom, trailer in much need of attention and TLC? Simple answer...The Gospel. Now I know that sounds uber-spiritual, but that's actually our motivation and the story is pretty awesome to be honest. It started about 6 months ago when we started looking at other houses in the city because ours was too much to handle and we wanted to down size some and cut the budget a bit. Now, to be honest the Lord had been dealing with my (Gage's) heart a bit in this area after reading Radical Together by David Platt. And I know what your thinking, typical American evangelical feels guilty about his possessions so he is going to dream about selling them all in order to right the wrong of his excess living. Not exactly...I mean I do think we have way more than we need and often times struggle with wanting more all though I don't need any of it. But the truth is, I felt the Lord pressing on me that our family needed to reconsider our position in life and reevaluate what we were doing with the things God had given us. 
       We started shopping around for the house we probably should have bought to begin with and found a few very promising prospects. There are hundreds of houses sold every day in the city and it really is a buyer's market right now. Still, when we crunched the numbers, talked and prayed, it was as if we were trying to force this to happen as opposed to this landing in our lap the way God provided for us with the house we are currently in. So, with a lot of uncertainty and confusion I left for a week to attend a conference called Together For the Gospel in Louisville, KY. 
         As we landed in Louisville, me and several pastor friends from Conway settled in for the week at one of the pastor's parents house. This was going to be a great time to rest, pray, and listen to what God had to say in regards to my life and answer some questions that I had carried to Louisville with me. I had no idea that God had answers but not to the questions I had been asking....I shared with my friends the burdens on my heart and spent a lot of time silent-hoping to hear from the King. And hear I did....Jesus began to speak to my heart regarding my giving, my stewardship, my viewpoint on those with less than me and my overall role as leader of my family and pastor in South Oakwood. I began to re-evaluate this downsize plan of ours and spent the first couple of nights sharing my thoughts with Katie over the phone. Truth is, I had fallen in love with the American Dream and these new houses were nothing but a highway to bigger, nicer, better, more comfortable place. But none of them had any ounce of Gospel focus at all. If I'm honest, the only focus in the decisions so far was me. So I shared with my wife that maybe we didn't need to buy again, maybe we could rent, I mean honestly who cares what the "standard" is, we need to be faithful. We both agreed. And then the Lord took a sharp left as the driver of our life....