It seems that I am always talking about moving on this blog! It's not time to move yet, but we did find out where we are going next...which makes me start "nesting". That's what Mr. M calls it, nesting. I start researching the area, looking at churches, looking for Junior Bible Quiz, looking for a home, researching homeschooling laws, etc. This move will be interesting as we have lived there before...3 times in fact! Yes, we are going back to Virginia!
Since we've spent 7 years there, you would think this would be easy...but it's not. Our kids are different ages now, we are different people, our needs have changed. The first thoughts go to our house there, we own a house in that area that is being rented right now. The family is not military and I am pretty sure they have intentions of staying there awhile. We also know that one of their children has a medical issue, which is why they moved there, to be closer to the hospitals he has to go to. We are only going to be there for 2 years. So do we really want to take back our house just because it would be the most convenient thing to do? Or do we want to keep good tenants and rent closer to the area that we would like to live this time? I mean, their lease would be up at the exact time that we would be moving there. What if we rent somewhere else and then they don't renew their lease? If we don't move back into our house, where should we rent? I would loved to be closest to whatever church we end up at but that's a little hard since we don't know where that will be yet! So many thoughts!
The church situation. We already know that there are no churches in that area that have Junior Bible Quiz...I'm so sad! My prayer is that we can find a church that would be interested in starting the program...but we'll see.
When we lived there last time, we visited or researched every Assembly of God church in that area and just could not find one we liked, so ended up at a different church. We have found over the years since then, that we really do like the AOG for our family. We like there to be leadership above just the church itself. In just the research I have done today...my feelings are confirmed on that issue. One church we checked out that I remembered driving by a lot had some articles about them in the local paper and major things have happened at that church since we left, none of them good. So we checked out the church that is now at that same location and got some huge red flags while reading their Core Values. We know the AOG Core Values and Statement of Faith and we agree with them. So nothing against other churches, but AOG is the one for us!
So now we are researching all the AOG churches in the area. Hoping that we find something different then we did 8 years ago...wow, it's been 8 years since we moved there last?! It seems like just yesterday! We have found a couple of churches that have some interesting things and one church in particular we keep coming back to. So we just have to continue to pray about it and follow God's leading.
We may be moving in about 8 months. That is so far away, yet the last 15 months has flown by!! We love it here in the Pacific Northwest and we love our church family! When we were opening up our Christmas cards this year, I was brought to tears. I had some friends telling us they don't want us to go away and to please choose to come back here again. Then other friends that were saying can't wait to see you! We feel so very blessed to have so many friends across this great country of ours. Separated by distance, but connected by love and being a part of God's family!
