Pictures from Houghton Trip.

Here are some pictures from our weekend trip to Houghton.

A Wonderful Trip "Home"

This weekend Glenn had Saturday and Sunday off from work so we decided to take a trip down to Houghton/ Fillmore to see some friends. Saturday night we stayed at Chris & Jaynie's which is always so much fun and had quesadillas with them and the Keelers and Eileen. After everyone else went to bed Glenn & I went and crashed the Cronks' bonfire (our first for the year) and then went to sleep smelling smoky :)

This morning we got up and walked to Fillmore Wesleyan Church. Oh, it felt so good to be "home." We lived in Houghton for less than 3 years and went to Fillmore for a little more than 2 of them but that church was, and still is, our family. I really feel that I needed this trip home. As we chatted with people and let them know where we were and what we were up to it was so encouraging! These people walked with us during our faith years when God said "Go to Houghton and trust Me to take care of you." He faithfully did and it was so encouraging to talk to people and remember. Some of our friends there had not heard about Glenn getting into medical school and they were so excited for us. When they heard that we didn't know where we were living in Syracuse yet it didn't phase them, they just knew that God was going to take care of a place for us to live just as He has so many other times before. Talking with these dear saints was so faith bolstering because they remember, when I am so quick to forget, how God came through for us last time. 

The messages were needed too. Pastor Ben talked about "Spring Cleaning" and letting God clear out the clutter and sin that so easily entangles us. I know that there is some spring cleaning that needs to be done in my heart and life and I am thankful for another challenge to get to work on it and to seek God in it.  In Sunday School they are discussing a book on the Sabbath. I hadn't really thought too much about the sabbath and practicing it myself. For most of my jobs I had always asked for Sundays off for my availability but other than going to church on Sunday mornings and the obligatory Sunday afternoon nap Sundays weren't really different than any other day. In the book the author told about living in Tel Aviv for a while and from Friday night through Saturday there was no public transportation. None of their friends drove because it was the sabbath. Nothing was open. They had no TV or computer, so what do you do when you have nothing to do? The Israelites were instructed to have a sabbath day once a week and a sabbath year every 7 years, culminating with the year of jubilee on the 50th year. It takes radical faith to trust God and not work for a year. I don't even know if they ever actually practiced the sabbath years or the year or jubilee. It takes a lot of trust but if they did practice it God would bless them and abundantly provide. The question was posed about trusting God for our daily bread as the Israelites were supposed to do on those sabbath years and I had to think about the position that we were in 6 years ago, those in the Bible study at the Waterloo Rec may recall how I struggled with going to Houghton and being asked to trust God to provide because He wasn't allowing Glenn to work for a season while he returned to school. It is scary to trust God when you have 2, soon to be 3 kids. God faithfully provided through various odd jobs and gifts and other things that He did. I know that He will do the same thing in the next 4 years when Glenn won't be able to work. I don't know all of how He is going to do it. I have some ideas of some things that He may use but I am excited to be able to testify during and after these 4 years of what God did for us. We serve and trust the same God that the Israelites trusted, the same God who faithfully provided for us in Houghton and I know that He will do it again. 

Lord, I trust You. You know where is the best place for us to live and how You are going to provide for us physically, emotionally, socially, financially, and in all kinds of other ways that we don't even know yet that we will have needs and wants. Thank You for the reminder of who You are and what You have done. I love you Lord!

Some pictures to Share

So this is going to be a short post but I just wanted to share some pictures from the month of April. So without further ado....

Niagra Falls and fun car hunt

Easter Sunrise service Highland Park

Highland Park walk

I hope you enjoy these pictures and we will post more.

My Diagnosis

I have just diagnosed myself with the "we're moving again but I don't know where" blues. I feel bad because I really shouldn't feel this way. We have waited for Glenn's acceptance to medical school for so long and I should be rejoicing! For the last 5 years I thought that once he got into medical school life would be perfect, especially if it is a medical school here in the US, not overseas but life isn't perfect and it never will be. I feel that I have put a damper on Glenn's excitement about his acceptance and I feel bad.

I don't know why I struggle so much.  I know that God always comes through and works out all the details but still I struggle. Instead of getting excited about and being thankful for things that God has done for us I get caught up in the things that I don't know. We went to Syracuse yesterday for Glenn to go to "2nd Look" which is an opportunity to re-checkout the school for those who know for sure that they are going there and for others who have been accepted to more than one school to help them determine which school they should go to. While Glenn was there the kids and I headed out to check out the city. We didn't have any real plans. I had mapped where the zoo was and libraries and a couple houses that I wanted to do a drive-by of. We have looked at a map of that area so many times that I didn't think that I would get too lost because I knew that if I went far enough in the right direction (I'm thankful for the compass on our car since I don't have a very good internal one) that I would end up on one of 4 streets and could kind of find my way from there to where I wanted to go. Thankfully I didn't get too lost. We stopped and played at a playground for a while. While there I talked with a couple of moms that were on the playground and asked about where they would recommend living. They weren't super helpful but they tried. I really don't know what I am looking for in a place to live. I would love to buy rather than take out loans to rent a place to live and I really think that, to an extent, living somewhere for 4 years for the first time in my married life has become a bit of an idol for me. I hate moving. I should be good at it having done it 13 times in the last 10 years but I am not. And I hate it. I long to live in one place long enough to actually unpack and settle in. It is one of the things on my list in Habakkuk 3 but I really need to surrender it back to Him and even if "we never live anywhere long enough to buy a house or even fully unpack... yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation...." It is a choice that I really need to make. No one else can make it for me. I need to do it. 

Anyway, back to yesterday, after it got too cold to play on the playground anymore and the little friends left we got in the van and headed to the library. We sat and read books and did more reading of The Tale of Despereaux (which we watched the movie of today at our library here - the book is much better, though I was not surprised about that). After leaving the library we did a drive-by of a couple of houses that we were considering renting or buying (no on all of them!) then had a picnic lunch in the van (our van was a no-food zone but it was raining too hard to eat outside) and went and picked up Glenn. 

I think that Glenn was very glad that he went to 2nd Look. He had the chance to meet some future classmates and find out more of what life in medical school will look like he also got a chance to meet a man named Scott who is a follower of Christ and is married with a little girl and is finishing his 4th year who was encouraging. After picking Glenn up we drove around a little bit to check out a couple of other areas and he told me about his day and I got a phone call from the man whose house we have kind of been stalking on Craigslist that we had arranged to stop and see in the afternoon. After I hung up I told Glenn that he kind of had a funny accent and Glenn and I put two and two together with a couple of other details that we knew and realized that the man whose house we were going to see was the Scott whom Glenn had met that morning. It was a God thing. We went to check out his house and I was encouraged too by this man who had actually chosen Upstate over U of R when he had been accepted by both schools. It is always encouraging to hear from someone who has been down this road already and seen God faithfully provide. 

We still don't know where we are going to live. Scott's house is a possibility. We still don't have our finances in order to be pre-approved for a mortgage. They don't give you a mortgage based on living expenses loans (for some reason - haha) so we are having to try to pull some financial strings that aren't being very easy to get loose. Also Glenn starts classes 6/8 which is less than 7 weeks from now. Not really a lot of time to close on a house. All of the rentals that we have been able to find though are either way more than we can afford (I laugh at the word afford because of our Dave Ramsey thing we went through last year) or in really scary neighborhoods (OR BOTH!). I know that God will take care of us and He has never left us homeless. I need to keep trusting Him. 

Though I don't know where we will be living after 5/31 when we have to be out of this house, though we may never buy a house and may move many times while Glenn is in medical school, though we end up with tens of thousands of dollars of med school debt, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds' feet, and makes me walk on my high places. (my paraphrase of Hab.3:17-19)