How We Became Dog Owners - Happy birthday Rahab!

Last year May 10th was a Friday and we had just been in our rental house here in Fort Worth a little over a week. We went to Frontier Forts Days at the Stockyards to learn some Texas history, check out the Stockyards for the first time and take a break from setting up our house. When we pulled into our driveway we saw a German Shepherd dog run across the street and into our yard and hide behind a bush. Glenn warned us to stay in the car to gauge what the dog would do. Seeing that she just looked scared and didn't attack he shooed us inside then, since it was such a hot day, went in to get water for her.

After drinking some water she laid down on our sidewalk and settled in. I guess she felt like she was safe with us. She was bleeding, whether from fights with other dogs or from wounds inflicted by humans we don't know.

We didn't know what to do with her. She had a collar on so we put her picture out on Craigslist as a found pet, contacted the city and the humane society and left her description. No one had reported her missing. We had just moved in and had told the landlord we didn't have any pets though we had discussed with him what we would need to do if that changed. We didn't want to let her into the house.

The kids were smitten with her. Initially they called her Voda because her ears were so funny and she reminded them of Yoda. We took her into the back yard and the kids set up a tent out there thinking they'd sleep with her out there.

In the morning she was still there so we took her to the Humane Society and found out that she wasn't chipped so no luck on finding her owner that way so we had a dog until someone claimed her. We decided to call her "Number Five" since she was playing the role of our 5th child and since we didn't want to give her "a real name" so we didn't get attached. The only problem (besides we didn't have a pet on our lease) was that we were leaving for a 3 week graduation in NY/ family reunion in WY trip on the 12th and we didn't think it was a good idea to take a new to us dog on a several thousand mile road trip. We looked into kennels but not having any idea of her shots history, or any history really, she was not a candidate to stay at any of them. What were we going to do with a dog in this city where we knew no one? God provided once again.

We contacted the German Shepherd Rescue to see if they could help since the Pug Rescue had been a help to my brother in the past with my aunt turned niece Tootsie. The first couple of people we heard back from said they couldn't help and then a lady contacted us asking if she could meet the dog. She told us that if she didn't clash with her dogs she would watch her for us for the whole time we were gone provided that we promised to take her back when we returned from our trip. She told us she already had 3 German Shepherd and 4 Pugs and she really couldn't adopt another dog long term at this time. We agreed to her conditions and drove up to meet her. The meeting went well and Amber even agreed to go and take her to get her first shots. We are so grateful for God's provision of this lover of dogs who was willing to take on one more for 3 weeks for us.

Number Five's first car trip - you can tell the kids don't like her at all, right? haha

She was kind of confused that we were leaving her and stared after us at the gate.

Well, we got 3-4 responses from our Craigslist ad but they were all either looking for a dog that didn't disappear until after we'd posted the dog's picture, didn't meet her description or we could tell they were just spam so we were now dog owners. Since she was actually going to be a part of our family we decided to give her a real name and the kids thought the name Rahab would be appropriate since we rescued her from the streets of Fort Worth just like Rahab was rescued from the destruction of the city of Jericho in Joshua 6 (not to mention that she may have lived a similar lifestyle out there on the streets before she came to live with us).

A quick family pic when we picked her up after our trip.

Lydia, our animal lover, is so excited to have a pet!

I think Lydia liked the kennel more than Rahab did. Rahab didn't do well in the kennel so it went into the garage.

Everyone loves Rahab.

 So, we've had a dog for a year now. There are pluses and minuses but we are so grateful for her. I was especially thankful after our break-in that God had already provided a guard dog for us, we had just taken her with us, not left her at home when the break-in occurred. She still needs a lot of training but she is a good dog and we love her. She is not the dog I would have chosen nor would I have chosen to go out and get a dog but God decided she needed us and we needed her. He knows best.

Finally, I leave you with some pictures from Rahab's first camping adventure to Dinosaur Valley State Park. She did great.

I'm so cool I need to wear shades

Dino tracks are much bigger than dog tracks!

Happy birthday, Rahab, we love you!

Benefits of Balancing Your Checkbook

Yesterday I was balancing my checkbook and there was an item that was too much. We were charged $43.99 for our internet after I had called and changed to RoadRunner Lite so that our bill would stay at our promotional rate of $34.99 that we'd been paying for the past year. I really hoped that by changing to "Lite" our bill would go down but at least I found out it wouldn't go up.

Anyway, while I was balancing my checkbook I noticed that we had been charged $43.99 so I called TimeWarner. The first guy I talked to was no help at all and couldn't tell me why I was charged more and said that from what he saw that our bill should be around $54 (what???). I told him that Damon, who I'd talked to on 2/7 (yay for keeping records) told me that my bill should be $34.99. He told me that it was a billing issue and he couldn't help me. I asked to talk to billing.

Marcia, who I talked to in billing, explained that the bill had already been put through before I had called previously and that my next bill (that I haven't received yet) will be $26 to make up for it. Then she held me on the line to see if she could find a better deal for me. She asked if, with my permission, she could bump us back up to high speed internet for $29.99/mo. "$5 less for faster internet? Um, yes, thank you!!" We get to have the cheaper rate for a year (provided that it transfers with us to Lowville). Yay! So glad I called!

I have been using a couple of excel spreadsheets that I found and modified to make it easy to keep track of our spending and I love it. Yesterday, besides time on the phone with Time Warner, I was able to balance our check book and close out February, complete with pretty graphs of how we spent our money in less than 10 minutes. The spreadsheets have made my life so much easier to see how off track of our budget we are and the nerd in me is very happy. If you'd like copies of my spreadsheets (based loosely on Dave Ramsey's categories) let me know.

Thanks God for cheaper internet and a quick, easy way to keep track of our finances :)

God Doesn't Need a Tax Refund

I was working on our taxes on Sunday. They are kind of complicated due to various things but I'm pretty sure I got it all right comparing what we paid way too much for someone else to do for us last year and what I'm coming up with this year on the free version of Turbo Tax.

One thing I was (for some reason though I really shouldn't have been) surprised at was that we don't get a federal tax refund this year. Did you know that you have to actually earn income to get the Earned Income Tax Credit? And the Child Tax Credit? Who'd have thunk it? Silly me.

Last year we got a bit of a return because Glenn had had that work study job the summer before. The previous year we got one because he had worked half the year at Highland before starting medical school. This year we both worked hard but neither of us worked at all for pay. That means we didn't earn any money. Which means, obviously, no tax refund.

When I first came to that realization slight panic attacked me. Our tax refunds have been super helpful in the past. They are something I've come to expect every spring. They helped us purchase a vehicle. They helped cover the little more that we spend every month than we should (we're not good at the zero based budget thing but our only debt - by God's grace - is school loans - PTL!). They have helped us pay cash for part of Glenn's tuition bills, our inevitable vehicle repairs, and other unexpected expenses. And this year we aren't getting one.

Truth came through after my brief moment of panic and I realized something. God doesn't need a tax refund. He is going to supply our needs. In His way. In His time. I am not worried. He's not using a tax refund this year. That is OK. I can trust Him. I know part of how He is going to provide for us for the coming year but I don't know what else He might or might not do. I do know that every cent we've ever gotten has come from God to provide for our needs. Even if, from the outside, it looked like it came from our jobs or a tax refund or an inheritance from my parents or countless other sources. Every penny has been a gift from our generous God who knows our needs and provides for them and for so many of our wants as well.

Thanks God for faithfully providing for us. Thank You that You are not dependent on any outside source. Thank You that we can trust You completely. Please help us to be faithful with the resources that You provide for us and help us to steward them well for Your glory remembering that they are, ultimately, Yours.

Note: When I saw that we weren't getting a federal tax refund I thought, "Oh no! How much do we owe NY?" It turns out that, this year, NY gives you $100 per kid aged 4-16 even if you didn't earn any money. Interesting. So, after all the calculations are done, we are getting about $300 from NY. I am thankful that we don't have to pay anything this year and that we are getting from NY enough to pay for our moving truck - yay! Thanks God!

We're Moving Out. To where? I'm not exactly sure

AHHH! I just wrote a letter to our landlord giving notice that we will be moving out at the end of March but, at this point, we don't have a place to move to in Lowville. This is not the first time that we have done this but it is still kind of nerve wracking. I am so thankful that God knows where we are going to live and that He has it under control. I can trust Him. He has never left us without a place to sleep and I don't know that He is going to start now. I am so thankful for all of the times that He has provided places for us to sleep over the years (and for our landlords and for all the wonderful people that let us crash at their places when we were homeless) so I can look back and have confidence in Him that He is going to do it again - Lord willing without the homeless part!

God has Provided

This morning I saw a post on Soulation's My Faith Hurdle asking about why God was not providing as He promises in scripture. I know that I have struggled with this in the past and I felt led to share our story. Here is what I wrote in the comments section:

"Marie-
What you write strikes a cord with me because I have been there and I am SO excited about what God is going to do in your life in the next few years. Things look bleak now but I know our God. He has allowed many of the same things to happen to me and I can look back and say "Trust Him!" He is NOT going to answer the way you think that He will. He is NOT going to provide the way that you think that He will. He will NOT do it on your time table. 

Let me take a couple minutes and share my story. I met my husband at a Bible college as well. We married while still in school. Our college lost accreditation then I got pregnant with our first born two months after we got married. I was thinking, "What are you doing God?" I think that we made 5 figures once in the first 6 years of our marriage. The idea that people actually made 6 figures or more was beyond my comprehension but can I tell you something? We never lacked for a place to live and the means to pay for it. We never lacked for food and enough to share with others.

We had to move back near family and my husband had to quit school when my mom got sick.  My husband worked during those 2 years (I think one of them we actually made 5 figures, the other we didn't) but God continued to provide our needs.

After my mom passed we knew my husband needed to finish his education and we thought he should go to a bigger, cheaper school in a city where my husband could work as well as go to school (By this time we were pregnant with our 3rd). Instead, God told us to go to a small, expensive college in a very rural location where we would NOT be able to provide for ourselves. I thought that God's plan was stupid. “How on earth we were going to get money for the tuition let alone pay for living expenses for the 4, soon to be 5 of us??” I had just finished reading some missionary biography (for the life of me at the moment I can't remember which one) and God keep saying "Trust Me!" I said, "I don't want to! I want to know HOW you are going to provide for us!!" He just kept saying "Trust Me." For the first year there my husband didn't work at all (besides cleaning a couple of houses the first semester) until summer break where he worked for a pretty meager amount leading wilderness trips for teens. His second/ last year there he did work study and was a substitute security guard occasionally and I watched a little boy for part of the year. I can't really explain how He did it but God provided all of our needs. We got a few random checks in the mail, a couple asked us to house sit for a semester and only pay half utilities, etc. Ultimately we call it God's math. Somehow, some way God provided. I tried to keep records but looking back at them I still don't see how God pulled it off. We ended up with less student loan debt than your average student there took out for 1 year after our 2 years there. The only way I can explain it is God.

My husband then applied to medical school and he didn't get in and then he didn't get in again. God made us wait. He had a lot to teach us in the waiting. It wasn't easy, it wasn't comfortable we couldn't always see Him or feel Him but He never left. Finally, God granted acceptance to medical school and my husband is currently in his 3rd year. While we were in the 'waiting to get into medical school' phase of our lives my dad would often worry over the phone to me about how we were going to make it through medical school financially with me homeschooling our 4 kids and my husband not being allowed to work as a student. I would tell him that God was going to take care of us. If He was going to do it exclusively through student loans then so be it and we will do what we have to do as long as we have to do it to get them paid off. (After that we plan to go and work overseas.) For medical school God actually chose to provide through my dad. My dad passed away right before we found out the 2nd time that we didn't get into medical school (my husband got in the next year). He left us half of what was left of their retirement money and we are living very frugally but, Lord willing, that money will cover our living expenses for most of our 4 years here and we are only having to take out loans for tuition (which God awesomely got us into a great school which happens to be one of the least expensive medical schools that we applied to). We are trusting God to get us out of medical school with less than $100,000 in debt.

1. Seek Him first. Matt.6:33
2. Remember everything you have is His, not yours. Be a good steward.
3. Trust Him. We've always been faithful to tithe even when, financially, it made absolutely no sense. For us it makes no sense not to tithe because it is the one thing He tells us to test Him in and He has been faithful!
4. Avoid debt. One thing that we have done is avoid debt at all costs (besides student loans). We don't have a credit card. If we don't have the money in the bank available to pay for something we don't buy it. We've been blessed to only have to take out loans for tuition.
5. Don't worry. He does not always provide what, when, where or how you want Him too (I would MUCH rather have a million dollars of debt and still have my parents but that was not His plan) but He has never allowed us to go hungry or lack for a place to sleep (though we have been homeless a few times. Couch surfing with 4 kids is an adventure!)
6. Keep a record of what God does for you. Be it a blog, a notebook, etc. When we were first married one piece of advice we were given was to keep a gratitude journal and write something down in it together every night. We've continued this with our kids and we now have a stack of “Thank You books” that we've filled with great and little things that God has done for us.

Marie- I am excited for what God is going to do in and with your life. I'm excited that 12 years from now your faith will be so much bigger than it is now and you will be able to write a story to encourage others because God showed up for you over and over again just as He has for us."