New Adventure

About 6 or 7 months ago we started to talk and pray about our next steps. We love our home and as you know it is such a huge part of our story/faith journey (especially with the full court ) but we started rapidly running out of room. Preston now stands at 5 feet tall and is only getting bigger; Bennett and Emma are growing like weeds as well. So we thought we would have to do one of two things. We could add on to our existing home or we would have to sale this home and build another house a little bit bigger. So we meet with a couple of contractors and talked to some people about what our best options were. We came to the conclusion that truly our best bet would be to sale the house on Hopkins and build again. In late May we met with Robert Montague, director of the BDC, and discussed where we could go. He told us about some available lots on Allison, just about 4 streets up from where we live now. We spent the next few days praying about what God would want us to do.

After praying and talking to some close friends we decided Allison was where we felt God moving us. We committed to Robert to purchasing one of the available lots. In this was also a blessing in that The Parkinson family (Ben is one of the pastors at our church) and The Crenshaw family (great friends that live on Hopkins with us now) are moving on Allison as well. We then started to pray about selling our current home. I really did not think it would happen fast at all. In my head I was thinking we would be here for about another year before we could move or start building. But God always is surprising me! We sold our house within about 2 weeks of talking to the BDC and making plans of where our new house would be. (Thank you Soup Campbell!) Is that affirmation or what??

The last 2 weeks have been filled with meeting with bankers, builders, architects, tree people (we have a huge tree that we refer to as “the beast”) that has to come down on our new lot. New prayer request, we are hoping that the city will take this tree down for free, otherwise it is going to cost us big!!!! It has been a whirlwind roller coaster ride for sure. But isn’t that the best way? I was having lunch with a friend on Friday and was telling her this story and I started saying, when you give your life over to Christ and die to yourself, you are not made any promises about what the future will be here on this earth. So there are times when it is smooth and straight, fast and downhill, slow and uphill, sometimes you are laughing your head off and sometimes you are scared to death but here is the best part, I know who runs my roller coaster and I trust Him. And at the very end of this ride two thing will be for sure, it will not have been boring and I will end the ride spending eternity with my King.

People are always asking us, “What do you do in Binghamton?” And the answer is simply this; we don’t “do” anything other than live out the gospel. We love Jesus, each other, disciple our children, take care of our home and family, love our neighbors, and give God the glory for all he has done. We hope by just “living” and not necessarily “doing” people can see Jesus in us and want to know what is different. All we know is that he has called us to live in Binghamton and regardless if that is because of something he is going to do in our lives or someone in the neighborhood we are going to be obedient to His call.

Our entire family is so excited about our move, okay so Emma has not a clue but the rest of us are super excited! We have loved being a part of this community and truly could not imagine living anywhere else. We believe God is doing a new thing in Binghampton and in Memphis and we are thrilled that he would allow us to be a tiny part of it. We don’t feel like we Have to live in Binghampton we feel like we Get to live in Binghampton. We pray that our kids will learn they are blessed to be a blessing here and that everyone deserves a loving neighbor-Mark 12:30-31.

We would ask that you pray for us in these ways:
1. That everything with the selling of this house would go smoothly and we would close and be able to transition without any roadblocks. (My mom has graciously offered for us to move in with her until our home is built.)
2. Pray for my mom as she gains 5 new roommates Peace, patience would be just a few things I could think of for her -Love you mom!
3. Pray for our new home on Allison
4. Pray for our builder and that everything would run smoothly in the building process
5. Pray for that “Beast” of a tree to be taken down by the city
6. Pray for our new neighbors on Allison (I will let you know names as I learn them) some of them…are Chris, Taurus, Jackie and Phil, The Parkinson family (Ben, Aimee, Abigail, Anna, and Allie), The Crenshaw family ( Brian, Erin, Austin, Olivia, and Eliana)
7. Pray for our neighbors that we are leaving and for Marcus who is purchasing our home. Pray that it will be as much of a blessing to him as it has been to us!