Wednesday, November 2, 2011

No Place to Call Home

Our days in Texas are now behind us~it is now time to move on. At this point, Nicole is 3 months old and we are leaving Dallas to be a part of a church in eastern Pennsylvania. The excitement is building as we embark on our next adventure. Of all the places in the world that we could be moving to, here is where we ended up....

...Coopersburg...

That's cool! There is a town named after us!

We were not able to visit with family very much since we were living 1200 miles away. We decided that this would be a good time to take a couple weeks to spend with our families before moving to this church. The night before we were to head to Coopersburg, Scott called someone from the church to make sure everything was in order on their end. I knew we were in trouble.........Scott was told that we didn't have a place to live! 

 Previous conversations led us to believe that they were going to put a double-wide mobile home on the property, but a perk test proved otherwise.  Would it have been a hassle to call us and let us know that we didn't have anywhere to go? Obviously so....Now, it is June, but I am certainly NOT into camping indefinitely with a newborn! So, where were our belongings?  They mentioned something about THAT on the phone as well...they were piled into the middle of the fellowship hall. We were told 'not to worry' and they would find us temporary housing.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"    Matthew 6:25

 Being that we had a small car, space was limited. So, for traveling purposes with a baby, we had just enough clothing for one week and we did laundry.  Remember, we have a dog with us, too. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies!

But, a contract is a contract. Scott's first day of work was quickly approaching (the next morning) and we proceeded to make the drive the night before anyways. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by someone from the church AND a township supervisor. There was no double-wide...why I thought there WOULD be, was wishful thinking! The township supervisor was there to offer us his home.

This would be a good time to remind you of Matthew 6:25, but I will let you scroll up and read it for yourself. God certainly DID provide~what were we worried about?

This man had a log home sent to him in pieces and in his spare time, he was putting it together so that when he retired, his house would be finished. He had not even had a chance to live in it prior to our arrival. This man was our lifesaver! He gave us the key to his home and when we walked into the kitchen, displayed on the counter were bags of groceries AND DIAPERS! He even stocked the refrigerator before we arrived! I believe that a Sunday School class also contributed and had the cupboards stocked as well.  Might I add that this man did NOT attend the church~he did not attend ANY church! How thoughtful of this man to not only give us his home, but to make sure we didn't go hungry and Nicole would be dry.

After a quick tour of his beautiful home, we had to go to the fellowship hall to look for bedding, as well as other items that we might need while staying there. We searched through boxes and took what we thought we might need to get by. In the meantime, those boxes all remained in the middle of the floor and the youth proceeded to play basketball and volleyball around them and fellowship meals happened around them as well! This was to only be temporary for a few weeks and four months later we were still there.....

In the meantime, we were out searching for apartments daily WITH A NEWBORN! We would report back to the church what we found and they found something wrong with just about every apartment we found. Some didn't take pets, some didn't take babies, and some were just too expensive. The man who owned the home would come and mow the grass and even refused to work in his unfinished basement because he wanted to give us our privacy.

One morning I woke up to the feel of something funny in my hair. Well, it wasn't FUNNY, really! There seemed to be this clump of hair that wouldn't separate. As I proceeded to a mirror, a spider fell into the sink and I discovered that it had built a nest during the night. So, I had to cut this clump of hair out and, to this day, I HATE SPIDERS! So, I guess we were NOT the first residents of this home after all!

This was a tough church to be in~we should have seen THAT coming from Day One. Some would have been discouraged from the beginning~and WE had OUR moments, I might add. But these people needed a pastor (and we needed a place to live). We met some great people here.....and, some others as well.

Nicole was a really good baby. She slept long hours and we hardly ever knew she was around (some things NEVER change). She would usually sleep during church, but one particular morning, she was wide awake and decided she was hungry (some things NEVER change). Question: What is a mom to do?  Answer: Give her a bottle. Obviously, THAT was the wrong answer! Eating was not allowed in the Sanctuary and they considered that eating!  REALLLLLLYYYYYYY? I was informed that when she needed to eat, I was to take her out and feed her in the nursery. At this point, I wanted to take everyone that was chewing gum and make them take it out and put it on their noses for the rest of the worship service...there was only ONE problem...I saw no one chewing gum! Gum probably wasn't allowed either! Well, you can call me a rebel~I made sure I had gum EVERY Sunday and I proudly chewed it. No one ever told me about it. There were a lot of other issues at this church as well. The former pastor of 29 years continued to be a part of the congregation, as well as ALL of his family~choir director, pianist, Sunday school teachers, boards and committees, etc.~they were EVERYWHERE!  

Was it a mistake to go there? Absolutely not! Everything happens for a reason. I had a great-aunt living in  nearby Allentown, and this gave us the opportunity to visit with her and her family frequently. It just helped us to ask a LOT more questions when interviewing future churches.

By Fall, the church had purchased a beautiful home that we could now call the parsonage~but, not for long. By April 1st, we were on our way to our next adventure. We figured that starting on April 1st could not be THAT big of an April Fool's joke, considering what we had just come from. We spent a total of 10 months there but we were already looking forward to our next move, which took us to Johnstown, Pennsylvania.