Coming to Texas

We left Pennsylvania on Friday, June 29.

We had packed everything – absolutely everything – so we had to find things to occupy our time as we waited for somebody to come from the property management group to walk through the house. He never came. We waited as long as we could and then all piled into the van to go pick up Gary at the airport. Our friend, Tracy, stayed to start cleaning. I hired her to clean up the house after the movers were done on Sunday. We got to the airport about half an hour after Gary arrived, but we were excited to take off on our big trip to Texas.

We were having a wonderful time driving through the beautiful Appalachian mountains of Virginia. We realized that we were in the land of some of the greatest men America ever produced, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Patrick Henry.

We enjoyed our trip, and the kids were great in the van.

Friday night, we stayed at a hotel in Virginia. Gary took the youngest kids out to the pool. All of a sudden, the wind started blowing really hard and throwing chairs around in the pool area. Sand blew into their eyes. They came running back into the hotel rooms. We had 3 rooms. I got the little girls to take a shower with me and the lights went out. Gary went from room to room checking on everybody. The girls’ room still had electricity except for air conditioning. Gary got the manager to bring a fan for the girls. Our room had no electricity, but our air conditioner kept trying to come on all night and the fan blew some air so that it was not sweltering. The boys’ room didn’t have any power at all. All they had was a dim light in their bathroom.

The next day we found out that the whole area had lost power. We drove on to the next town. We stopped to eat at a Wendy’s, but they had no power, so we had to go to the Arby’s across the street. We kept on driving toward Texas. We found out that the land we left behind was dealing with the devastation left by the storm. Thousands of people had no electricity and no water.

The men who loaded and moved our stuff stayed in Virginia two nights after we were there. They didn’t have any water in the hotel rooms. Jeff, our mover, took a bar of soap and jumped into the swimming pool. He needed to clean up after loading furniture and boxes for hours then driving for several hours.

As late as Sunday, July 1, we still didn’t know if we would have a house to stay in or put our stuff in when we arrived in Houston. We didn’t have an address to give our movers until Monday, July 2. We arrived in Houston Monday, July 2 and had to get two checks cashed. We were able to cash the paycheck at Walmart. But they wouldn’t cash the cashier’s check. We needed that money to pay the security deposit. Gary was finally able to take the check to the actual bank it had been drawn from and get it cashed. So we quickly went to the house and paid the owners the security deposit and first month’s rent. We spent the night in an empty house.

The movers arrived with our stuff on Tuesday, July 3 and carried it into the house. Gary and I went to sign the lease while they were moving our stuff into the house.

Our move didn’t go the way we had hoped, but we saw God move again to provide for us in the nick of time.
One thing that seemed like a real bummer is that we don’t like where we are. The house is really nice and big. The boys even have a master bedroom and bathroom! The girls’ rooms are really big, too. Our room is very big, and we even have a little part where Emma and Abby could have their own bunk beds. But we don’t like living in the city and we’re tired of living in a subdivision, so we already gave notice and we’re looking for a house in the country.

I say it seemed like a bummer when we found out we can’t stand living where we are, because it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We all got really serious about praying that God would take us to our Promised Land. Each one of the children has been praying every night that God will give us a farm. Our prayer time has been rejuvenated. We have a battle plan and other people have joined our army.

We are looking forward with great anticipation to the land and home that God is going to provide for us supernaturally or by whatever means He chooses.