Abide

I Samuel 22:23

Abide thou with me; fear not. For he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life, but with me thou shalt be in safekeeping.

June 3rd is our last day on campus as houseparents at Gateway.  We've been out of Oak House for a few weeks, but we'll be working on campus until June.  There are times, daily, that I get white knuckled and say, "NO, God!  I can't leave this safety bubble of what I know!"  And then I think of my brother, 1/2 way around the world in Zambia, or Jon and Amy Gerst, who are going to Ethiopia.  <sigh>  Why am I such a baby about this?  We're only moving an hour away, and even closer to my parents.  


I am going to be working in the Foster Care department at Gateway as a case worker, starting in June.  I am so excited about this!  It's a great fit, and I'm excited to be learning a lot.  I enjoy jobs that have a wide variety of tasks involved, and I anticipate this to be one.


God gave us a rental house!  A few weeks ago, we were visiting Grace and God led a couple to come over and say "hi" while we were eating lunch in the student cafeteria.  The wife, Jama, struck up a conversation with me about kids, and soon she asked if we were looking for a place to live.  I said yes, and she mentioned that they were looking for renters to fill the house they were leaving, as her husband was (is) soon to graduate from Grace.  I got all of her information, and looked at the house 2ice that day, but I didn't know if it would work out or not.  Turns out, this house is HIGHLY sought after, and there is no way we would have been 1st on the list for it had Jama not said anything to me that day!  We signed the lease today (well, yesterday by the time I publish this :))


Our house is on "The Island" in Winona Lake, and right next to the Village, which is an artsy fartsy section of town.  In essence, for probably the first and only time, we'll be "cool" while we live here :)


Here are a few pix.  We want a lot of visitors for the short time we'll be at Grace.  
I don't have any pix of the outside, but a few of the inside!

My FAVORITE part of the house.  The windows.  This end of the kitchen shows them off particularly well. I told Jama to leave the blinds off (they took them off when they moved in).  We'll have to get some more curtains- these windows just make me wanna sing aaaaaall day!  [ps. We're in the market for a cute and fun table if anyone has a lead! Cute and fun, people, cute and fun.]

Other end of the kitchen- lots of cabinet space!  And a hoosier that comes with the house.   Yeah, I don't know what that is, either.

This is the living room in the foreground, what will be the play room in the mid-ground, and the kitchen at the furthest end of the house.  To my right is the GUEST ROOM, which we're told is the coolest room in the house in the summer :)  Come, come!

Um, so.  1st world issue- this is the shower.  Not exactly a fan.  But that is so minor compared to all the awesome things about the house/location.

A shot of one of the bedrooms.  The girls will share a room, and the 3rd one will by my office by day and Darren's study hole/business office by night.

That's all I got, folks.