Wow...time flies, huh?  My husband just got a new job (in the Promised Land analogy, this might be akin to victory in the many battles toward Jerusalem!), but the training is INTENSE, and time for me to write is limited and usually occupied with writing and editing articles for our local homeschool group newsletter.  With Matthew working long and late hours, I find that I'm more focused in the evenings on preparing for the next day.  The house is clean, dishwasher's empty, and I can't put together a full load of laundry until the kids get dressed and hand over last night's jammies.  Our homeschool agenda is already listed on the dry-erase board, and all the lessons are prepped and ready to go, so I have a few short minutes to continue my story.

Okay, so our first practical step (after learning that we'd have to move) was to explore our own area.  We were just minutes outside of Manhattan, and it didn't take long to realize that we were not going to find anything affordable within a 2-hour radius.  The cheapest rental we could find (a three bedroom, one bathroom apartment in a bad neighborhood) was $1600 a month, not including utilities.  Uh...NO!

Good friends of ours had offered Matthew a business partnership.  They lived about an hour north in a beautiful part of the Hudson Valley, New York.  The husband owns a general contracting company and offered Matt the opportunity to buy into his company.  Matt’s equipment and expertise would allow the company to add seamless gutters to the mix, and when there was no exterior work, they would partner on interior jobs to increase their volume.  The wife of this family is one of my closest friends, and it would certainly be fun to be closer to them.

We prayed over the offer, and although we knew we wouldn’t be able to find a rental through a realtor or the newspaper, we trusted that if it was God’s will, he would open a door for us.  A number of kind and generous people in our homeschool group offered us temporary housing solutions, but nothing permanent presented itself, and so we knew that this was not the plan God had for us.

Another couple that we’ve known since before we were married encouraged us to consider Sarasota.  Again, we just lifted it up to God and waited to see what He would do.  Not too long into this process, our Sarasota friend was taking a brisk walk around her neighborhood and saw a rental sign.  She called me with the number, and I contacted the owner and discussed our situation. 

I was open and honest, explaining that we weren’t even sure if we were going to end up in Florida at all.   I explained that we had five children and a host of pets and hadn’t secured a job in Sarasota yet.  Clearly, we were not the best rental candidates!  But he sent me an application anyway, and I filled it out.  Before mailing it back, I felt lead to include a photo introduction of our family.  Using a basic layout program, I printed a family picture, along with a picture of Matthew and I together and one of each child, captioned with their names and ages.  Shortly after receiving our little packet, the landlords called and said they felt a strange connection to our family and were willing to hold the house for us.

With housing out of the way, we figured we’d need a job ready for Matt if we were going to live in Sarasota.  Matthew has some experience in all areas of contracting, and although his expertise is really in aluminum (gutters, fascia, soffit), he felt lead to look up roofing companies.  The very first one caught his attention, and he called them.  In deed they were hiring, so Matthew sent a resume.  Before the end of the day, they called him, and again, he was open with them and explained that we weren’t entirely sure we’d be moving to Sarasota (although it was looking more likely everyday).  They said that something about him seemed right for their company, which was strange because they were a roofing company, and his resume didn’t include much roofing experience.  They told him to keep in touch with them, and let them know what our plans were.

As easy as it was to find housing and work, that’s how easy it was to find a church and plug into a great homeschool group…all from New Jersey.  The youth pastor at the church I spoke to said that although they didn’t have a special needs program in place to help our son, they’d be open to starting one, and after chatting for a while, it came up that Matthew plays guitar.  The youth pastor said one of their best guitar players had just moved, and they needed someone to fill the spot.

Sarasota seemed to be welcoming us with open arms, but there was still a journey ahead, and if God was in it, He was going to have to provide a substantial sum of money to move our family of seven 1,300 miles. 

Because we have quite a few pets, who would have to travel in the car with us (turtles, a snake, a gecko, cats, a bunny, and a dog), we knew we’d have to drive straight through the night without stopping.  That meant we’d have to take turns driving, and we couldn’t split off to have one person drive a moving truck and the other drive the van.  So we had to find the most inexpensive way to get all of our belongings to Florida without renting a truck. 

After adding up the cost of moving, gas for our van, tolls, food for the road, a complete car tune-up and new tires for the trip, deposits for the house and utilities, money to restock the refrigerator and pantry, and enough to live on for about three weeks to allow time for the move and for Matt’s first paycheck, we calculated that we would need far more money than we could put together in our own efforts.  We needed Jehovah Jireh (the God who Provides), and we knew that if He put this amount of money in our hands, we could be sure that this was His plan for us.

Over the next four weeks or so, we watched in complete amazement, as the money began to pour in.  It came in a variety of ways – some from the loving and generous people who just wanted to help, some from large jobs that Matt was offered as we planned and packed, some from the sale of machinery that we would not be taking with us – but it all came, exactly when it was needed.

On September 8, 2008, we packed a large moving container with all of the furniture, clothing, bedding, books, dishes and house wares that we had not sold at the yard sale, and we waved goodbye as the driver came to get it take it ahead of us to our new home.  That night, we all camped out on the empty floor of the bedroom Matthew and I had shared for the previous three years, in the empty house where my precious husband had spent all of his childhood.  It felt adventurous and exciting, but also sad – we knew we’d probably never see the inside of this house again; the house Matthew’s mom had brought him home to as a newborn baby.

The next morning we awoke, showered and got dressed.  We spent the day with some friends, letting the kids run around and expend as much energy as possible before the monster drive ahead of us.  My mom and Matt’s mom joined us for dinner, and helped us get the kids ready and pack the car.  We said goodbye to all the neighbors and hugged our moms tightly, and then got right on I-95, the road that would take us all the way to Florida.  Twenty-three and half hours later, which seemed to go much faster than we’d expected, we arrived in Sarasota.  We’d never been in Sarasota before arriving that Wednesday night, but instantly we knew we were home, and we God was with us.

The last leg of our trip was I-75, which we’d picked up in Tampa.  As we neared our exit, we saw something in the distance.  It was some of kind of tall tower, and it was changing colors.  The kids pointed it out, and we all wondered what it was.  As we got closer, we saw a cross and figured it was a church.  Just as we passed by, I saw the name of the church lit up in colorful stained glass.  It was the church I’d spoken to from NJ, our new church home!  God had led us here, and a new life in Him had begun. 

It was as if we’d just crossed the Jordan and entered Gilgal.  Many battles awaited us as we journey toward our Jerusalem, and many victories were still in store.

Thanks for joining me so far…I’ll be back soon to tell the amazing story of how God filled our home with beautiful furniture for just $7.00!

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Posted by 2boysmom

I don't know if you're still checking this blog, but I just read your story and I'm amazed! It's so awesome when we KNOW we're in God's will. That was a huge leap of faith. Always remember that when you have stumbling blocks in your path. I often have to remind myself "what God showed me in the light" and not question it in the "dark".
I hope all is well with you in Florida. We are in Florida right now and will be here for the next 10 days. You can read about it on my blog.

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Posted by 2boysmom

Thanks for keeping up with me! We are in Boca Raton, then heading to Orlando on Thursday afternoon. We'll do Disney on Friday and Saturday, get up Sunday morning and head to Pensacola for 2 days. At that point we'll be 6 hours from home.
Boca Raton looks like we expected Beverly Hills (Calif) to look - but didn't. It's beautiful here. I couldn't believe all the nice horse farms we saw on the way from Tallahassee to here.
We're having a good time, but I'm a little put out with the money thing! We ate at Dennys this morning!

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