Going, going, going … gone?

The end of our time in Dallas is getting closer and closer. Ten days ago, we moved out of our house and into an apartment on the Wycliffe center. From here, we are making better progress with clearing out the house and selling the stuff we don’t need or can’t take with us to Germany. (If there were background music to this paragraph, it would be a strange mix of the theme from Jaws and the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah.)

Our house has been re-listed for either sale or rent with a different real estate agency. The rental market in Duncanville is currently stronger than the market for home sales. We know the agency owner and the property manager personally, so we feel that we can leave Dallas confident that our home is in good hands. Our agent is confident that we can get and keep a good renter in the house, which will remove owning that property as a barrier to us leaving the area and the country. Hooray!

In another twenty days, we’ll drive out of Dallas with a trailer behind our car, not planning to return until we come back to visit supporters and friends. Our first stop is Denver, where we’ll spend Christmas and celebrate the new year with Katherine’s family. After that, it’s on to St. Joseph, Missouri, where we expect to stay (near family) while we find the additional financial supporters we need. Thanks to friends in a church there, we have housing arranged for the first month or so of our stay. That is a major answer to prayer! Thank you, God!

So when you pray for us, please pray that we’ll be able to sell or give away everything that remains. We’d like to throw away as little as possible. Pray for us to get everything we’re taking organized in plenty of time, so that we’re not completely stressed out when we arrive at my in-laws’. (We don’t like to just dump ourselves, exhausted, at their front door.) Thank you, pray-er friends!

“Whatcha got?”

The title comes from a sermon that Mark Gungor preached to the congregation at Celebration Church in Green Bay a few weeks ago. I like to listen to his daily Internet radio show on marriage, and I tune in to his sermons and Bible studies as well.

In this sermon, Pastor Mark talks about how we and God interact when it comes to life and plans and His will. Christians often wrestle with these things. In fact, we’re wrestling with them as we try to figure out how this transition from Texas to Germany will happen. Our house hasn’t sold yet, and that fact has weighed on our hearts and our heads. But as I listened to this sermon, I could hear God’s voice coming through Pastor Mark’s and feel it reaching into my mind.

The sermon focused on the accounts in the Bible in which we read about God’s eliciting ideas about how to approach the situation at hand. One such time is found in (and around) 1 Kings 22:19-22, in which God is looking for a good way to entice King Ahab to go to war. He apparently rejects other suggestions until one is proposed that He knows will succeed. Pastor Mark emphasized through this example, and others, that God is often watching us for our reactions and ideas. God chooses to work through us humans on purpose. (Consider 1 Corinthians 1:26-27.)

That’s the background for our decision to try a different approach with our house. Pastor Mark asked, “Whatcha got?” and I had to answer, “A house.” This thought dogged me. I had noticed fliers at the office advertising that someone from Wycliffe was now working with a real estate agency in the area of rental property management. The agency is owned and operated by a fellow we know from our homeschool group. “But Lord,” I said, “we don’t want to keep our house.” There are some phrases that you should avoid using with God, and “But Lord …” is one of them.

After looking into requirements and details of renting property with this rental agent, Katherine and I decided that we’ll put it up for lease while we move on toward Germany. We’re offering it up to God, trusting that He’ll approve this idea. Our plan is to work quickly on sorting through the remaining “stuff”, move out of the house into a Wycliffe apartment, and then have a few massive household sales. The house will then be emptied and readied for rental. When that’s done, we’ll leave Dallas and start on the road to Germany.

When you pray, please remember us and our struggle to free ourselves from the things that hold us back from serving the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. Pray for efficiency, perseverance, and good renters!

Newsletter, April 2010

With all that’s been going on with home renovations, it’s been hard to pull away and write a bit. In the last newsletter I wrote (in December), our email project was about 50% complete. Now, a part of me can rest, since that project is 100% finished. Done! And so far, I haven’t seen much residual work.

So now the big push is to finish the sorting and selling and packing and fixing-up and planning and … you get the idea. Perhaps you’ve been through it yourself. In the newsletter, I describe what we’ve been up to and what lies ahead. In just a few weeks, we’re going to make our first major moving trip, and there’s a lot to do in the meantime.

Please enjoy the newsletter. You will notice that it mentions how much more support we need for our assignment in Germany. You may not be aware that all Wycliffe missionaries raise their own support. We’ll need to get the full amount before we can leave. And that, my friends, is part of what faith is for.

April 2010: A Liddle Good News (for reading on-screen)

April 2010: A Liddle Good News (for printing)

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