Before I move on...

My plan is to begin working on the Africa pics maybe tonight but for sure sometime tomorrow. However, before I do there are a few things I want to share. I almost just said no, I don't have the energy for that and I am going to forget about it but there were a lot of things that I had to deal with while Aaron was gone and our God saw me through every single incident and out of it all came so many reasons for me to give Him praise and so that is why I share this.

The night before Aaron and Elleigh left we received a phone call from the guy whose mom owns the house we live in. His mom had died the night before. For those of you who do not know the story, the lady who owns the house was in the nursing home and had been for years and because all her money had run out they had to put her on Medicaid to keep her in the nursing home which meant they could not make a profit on the rental of this home. So, they were looking for someone to live here and keep things up, pay the insurance, and to pay the biggest expense which was the property taxes and they found us. It has been a tremendous blessing to us. The house is old and it does seem that there is constant small repairs but I am still in awe every time I think about this house literally falling into our laps. We were living in a less than 700 sq foot house on campus with 3 children and although I have wonderful memories of that house and most of all our neighbors we were literally busting out. One month after moving into this house we found out we were pregnant with Millie. This house is not huge but it is plenty large enough for all of us and we are just beyond thankful for it. Moving on, because she is now deceased Medicaid will make a claim on this house. Aaron has 9 months left in school so the thought of moving is not a great one and on top of that there is really nothing out there for us right now. With that said, we do know that the Lord will provide somewhere for us to live if it comes down to that. But I will admit I was pretty upset that he was about to leave the country and there was a lot of uncertainty about how long we had to get out of this house.

Fast forward to Tues. We were having a good day. I had decided we were just going to have fun and make the best of our time without A and Ell. We played outside until late that afternoon and when we came in I noticed that it felt a little warm in the house. I thought well we are just hot from being outside but I soon knew that was not the case. The compressor for the AC was not running at all. I remembered that had happened before so I checked all the breakers and nothing was tripped and I thought maybe it is just frozen up or whatever so I turn the unit off for a while thinking that it will start back running. Wrong! It was so stinkin' hot! Wed morning (my birthday no less!) I get up and am hoping it will work. Wrong! So, I begin looking for someone to come look at it. Because of the arrangement we have we take care of these type of issues unless it goes over a certain dollar amount. I was cautious because I didn't want just anyone knowing I was heree alone and I didn't want to be taken advantage of. So, I called around and finally got some help. I had some storage boxes in the closet with the AC unit so I go in there to clean that out so that they can get to the unit and I pull the cord that connects the internet and strip the end of it so that it will no longer fit into the outlet which means no computer access for whenver A and Ell finally could contact me. I just sat in the floor and cried and cried and cried! I finally thought of duct tape and it is true that it will fix anything! I then learn that the compressor is not getting enough voltage so I have to call an electrician. The electrian comes later that afternoon and replaces a breaker and gets the AC going. However, he found a much larger problem. On the back of the house where the electrical lines connect to the meter base a limb had fallen on the power line and broken all of that at the meter base and it was hanging on my a telephone cable. So, everything out there had to be replaced. Lots of money! We could not go into the backyard and I was told that when it did break we would lose all power and it would be dangerous because there would be live wires on the ground. GREAT! So much for spending our days in the kiddie pool! Was it going to fall in the middle of the night and catch on fire? Were we going to have to move immediately? Well, the biggest issue was that I knew that the guy whose mom owns the house was not going to want to pay to have that fixed when they were about to lose the house. Very long story, kinda short, he came out and I helped him until 11:15 pm to stabilize it so that hopefully it would not all come down on the ground. Of course, we were taking our chances by being out there doing this. He got a couple more estimates and insurance agreed to file it as weather related. So, everything was finally fixed yesterday. We were without electricity most all day but it was worth the peace of knowing it was fixed and the girls being able to go back outside. The deductible was very high so I was still thinking he was not going to want to do this but we came to an agreement of splitting the cost 50/50. How long do we have to live here? We have no idea. Are we wasting our money by paying for that? Maybe, but we had to have a place to live and for now that was our only option. We feel like right now that it will take a long time (from what he has been told) to get everything done and then they have to sell the house and give the money to Medicaid so our prayer is that none of that will be completed before we have somewhere else to go and really preferably not before A finishes school.

It was just unreal to me that all this happened while A was out of the country and I am not sure how well I handled it all. I fell apart many times!!! I asked God, "why" many, many times! But, I did find strength and most of all I had to lean on the Lord because I couldn't lean on A. The Lord reminded me that I should always lean first on him. I also gained a whole new appreciation for single women.

Like I said there were so many things to be thankful for:

My friend Kim called me the day everything was unfolding and she called me back to say that she and her mom would like to take us to the "cool" (we were still without AC at the time) restaurant of my choice to celebrate my birthday. This was such a blessing to me!

Our Seminary family was very gracious to check on us and make sure that we were safe and to offer assistance.

Our friends and family called to check on us A LOT! This always means a lot. They listened to me cry A LOT! My sisters took the time to talk to me over and over and over! My friend Shannon called me one night in the midst of all this and we had a great time talking and it was a distraction for me.

I am so thankful that the guy whose mom owns the house was willing to come out and help me in any way possible. He did not have to do this and I am very thankful for his generousity.

Through all of this and just with A and Ell being gone in general we had tons of people and their churches praying for us. Though things did not go as I would have planned for them to God was there every step of the way for me.

There were times (especially when we were HOT) that I was on edge with the girls but I had more patience with them in the 2 weeks they were gone than I ever have and I know it was because of the many many prayers for us.

I know this was a very long post but as I have said before it helps me so much to look back on times like this and say, "yes, HE saw me through it as HE always does" so I wanted to document this. Also, when I start to freak out over whether we have somewhere to live or not I need to be reminded that it will all work out!

Africa pics coming really soon!