Our transition from Huntsville to San Antonio was anything but easy. While the new position at NorthWest has been fantastic in so many ways, our family struggled for a number of reasons. It took much longer to sell our Huntsville home than we had anticipated. Because of this, we had to drop the price to lower than we would have preferred. We still came out ok financially, but things were extremely tight there for a bit. We stayed at an Airbnb townhome for about a month because thats all we could afford when combining the cost of that and our mortgage. Our savings account was virtually wiped out. God would eventually provide a way for us and we were able to sell our house just in time, but it seemed like there was almost no light at the end of that tunnel for some time.
The thing that made this difficult though was that about two years ago, Ashley and me purchased a week long vacation in Cabo and it was impossible to get a refund. We were supposed to close on our new home here in San Antonio two days after we left for Cabo. Again, if we stayed back to close on our home, then we would forfeit a non-refundable vacation that cost us around $2000. We were able to sign power of attorney over to some close friends of ours and they signed for us while we were gone.
Here's what was incredible. My mom stayed with our kids while we were in Cabo. She got in touch with several people from our new church home who all elected to spend their Saturday moving all of our things from a storage unit into our new home. What we thought would take several days to do ourselves, they did in one. My new church family reversed robbed us! They took all of our things and put them INTO our new house. Once they got wind of Ashley's illnesses, they also set up a meal train and we did not need to cook dinner at all the first week that we were in our new house.
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| The playground at our new house. Given to us by one of the families at our new church home! |
A few weeks later, Ashley applied for and was offered the Children and Families Minister position at our church. I now get to go to work every day with my wife! We're blessed to be working with a terrific group of ministers and administrators at NW and some exciting changes are happening that we have both gotten to be a big part of. God continues to do things in our life that we never saw coming.
Audrey is flourishing at her new school despite it being 30 times the size of her old school in Huntsville (literally). She is a student athletic trainer and she loves it. It puts her on a fast track for medicine which is what she has always wanted to go into. She is thriving in her AP classes and really loves her new school.
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| Audrey with Santa (who also happens to double as one of our shepherds!) |
Addison is doing well too. I've learned that Addy is neutral about literally everything. I ask her how school was or how she enjoyed a particular event or activity and 99% of the time she simply says "it's good" and refuses to elaborate any further. She wears a purple hoodie and black athletic pants to school virtually every day. There was one day when she didn't and I asked her why and her response was "I have no idea. I don't know whats wrong with me today." She also works very hard to continue being a little girl despite being 11 now. This can be witnessed in the picture below where she's playing in her younger siblings' sandbox.
A couple of weeks ago, our family went with all of Ashley's sisters and their family to Disney World and I'm pretty sure that Gatlin was the most fascinated by everything that was going on. We got to see all of the newer attractions like Pandora from Avatar (my personal favorite), Harry Potter world (by far Audrey's favorite), and Toy Story land (by far Gatlin's favorite). We had some experienced Disney guides take us through each of the parks at the right times so that we could avoid lines as much as possible. They were terrific. They would even watch our two little ones so that Ashley and me could go on rides that they were too small for. It also turns out that Gatlin was barely tall enough to ride a couple of roller coasters for the very first time. You can see the video of him riding Slinky Dog Dash below. The entire vacation was exhausting because of everything that we did, but it was a very good kind of exhausting.
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| Audrey's Gryffindor acceptance letter |
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| Pure bliss |
Today marks six months that I have officially been on staff here at NorthWest and four months for Ashley. This transition has been difficult on so many levels. However, I have learned so much about myself and my family during this time. I think that we can handle just about anything together. We have learned the value and importance of relying on our church family in times of need. We have learned how much easier it is to work at a place where you feel like family as opposed to simply an employee. Paul's writings are so much clearer to me than they used to be because of the family style relationship that he had with the churches whom he was writing to. Ashley and I have both loved working with Marvin, our lead minister who has been at NW for over 25 years. We are very different from one another but I think that's why we're able to work so well with each another. We also get to work with a young youth minister whom we have both been very impressed with in Brandyn. There are also 14 shepherds at our church who have all loved us in so many ways that we have never experienced before. The more Ashley and I talk about this place, the more that we envision ourselves being here for a very long time.
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| Gatlin entertaining himself in my office |
Transition is difficult, even the good transitions. The Israelites struggled when they left Egypt. They struggled again when they entered into the promised land forty years later. They struggled the most when they were taken into captivity. The churches in the New Testament struggled during their start times. I think that we have struggled in our own ways as well. This struggle must take place though so that we can learn from God and lean on Him more. One of my professors in seminary once told me that by looking at the story of Jacob wrestling with God and receiving a blessing, we can conclude that when we wrestle with the heart of God, we will be blessed in a variety of ways. I am finally beginning to leave this season of transition and the season of wrestling with the heart of God. It was very difficult on me mentally, physically, and especially spiritually. But I am grateful for this struggle. It has been yet another reminder that God is so much bigger than anything that I ever could have imagined. He continues to open so many doors for people here and it has been a joy and honor to walk alongside them during these times. May God continue to open my eyes in ways that I never thought were possible, and may He open yours in the same way.
