A Week Down

I've been at my new job in Carlisle now for a week.  It's going well and I'm getting settled in.  Deb has been over twice (July 4th and then for the weekend) which was nice.  We celebrated her birthday on Sunday with her twin sister Denise.  


But the biggest news of the last week is our house situation.  Our house in Treynor is sold with the contingencies removed.  Great feeling.  Here's a funny story with a little history first.  We had been over to Carlisle and looked at 10-12 houses a couple of different times in the last month.  Without revealing the location yet we had decided the house we wanted to make an offer on when the time was right.  


On Tuesday I had gone out to eat and decided to go by the house that we liked just take another look with the principal here.  As we pulled up to the house and I stepped out of the car my phone rang and it was our realtor from Treynor telling me that our house was sold and all contingencies were removed.  Wow, what incredible timing to get that call at that time.  (A sign?)

SOLD!!!

One of the best, OK the best, call I made all week was to Deb telling her.  I did however have to tell her a couple of times because she didn't quite understand how I put it the first time I told her.  It was great to be able to celebrate that together when Deb came over later that night and then the 4th of July.  


We have made an offer on the home that we like in the Carlisle district and are now waiting to settle on that with the seller.  More on that as things progress.  


We're now just having to work out the closing date on our Treynor house and we'll work something out on the Carlisle home as well which leads to a little different situation for us.  Even with all of the excitement we now have the reality that we need to find housing for Deb, Abby, and Parker for the next 3 months because we don't plan on having them move to Carlisle until sometime around November 1.  Deb needs to continue at the bank for awhile yet before coming over.  


So where am I living now?  Very fortunate to be living with the Beeman's in Ankeny (Brad and Denise...Deb's sister).  It's just a 25 minute drive down to Carlisle.  We're very grateful for their hospitality and the room that they have for me.  (They also have allowed us to store some boxes and things here as we begin to move stuff over.  Some is kind of a bad descriptor too...but I can still get to my bed.)


That's our week in a nutshell which brings us to several things that we're praying about and trusting God to provide.  
1)  3 month housing for Deb, Abby, and Parker.
2)  Smooth transition out of the Treynor house. 
3)  Plans of the Ricley's to get located to the University of 
      Utah to begin work in campus ministry by end of August. 

We'd appreciate any prayers for us and we'd sure be happy to pray for you and your needs.  We are so thankful for the support of our friends and family in this time of transition but we continue to find peace and comfort in our favorite passage.  


¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  (Jeremiah 29:11)

A New Adventure

I see it's been a year since I posted last.  i enjoyed the writing when I did it, but just got away from it....so, here I am again.  Much has changed in the past year.  And wow, I guess change is word of the year for the Gordon family since I last blogged.

Where to begin.....well, in no particular order but maybe the biggest blessing in our life has been the addition of another Grandson, Parker.  As I was blogging a year ago we knew our life was going to change but I wasn't quite able to talk about it at that point.  Parker is the son of our youngest daughter Abby.  Parker was unplanned, but is definitely not unloved.  I will probably talk about Parker more in the future, but for now, let's just say he has changed our life, but it's been good and we wouldn't imagine life without him.  Thank You God for providing this adventure.

Secondly, Thanksgiving weekend The Ricley's moved into our house upstairs to help save some money in hopes of helping them get to Salt Lake City sooner and begin their campus ministry at the University of Utah.  Needless to say, we now have a real "Full House" but we also realize that this is just a small  window in our life and we are especially enjoying having more time with them, and especially Grandson #1, Jonathan.  One thing that we have going for us is that we laugh every day and are entertained by the boys.  Because of circumstances that some may see as a burden we see as a blessing and know we are creating some memories that some never have the chance to make.  What an adventure.

Since we've talked about the entire family except A.J. it's only fair that I update him a little bit.  Not much has changed with him.  He's finished his junior year at Midland University in Fremont, NE, and will turn 22 in a week.  A.J. is majoring in Secondary Education and Coaching and will student teach next spring.  He is going to work the same security job that he's worked the past couple of summers and is continuing to lift and work out to get ready for what should be a very exciting senior season on the basketball court.

For the sake of time let's fast forward to right now.  I am preparing to start a new job in Carlisle (just SE of Des Moines city limits) as their first full time Activities Director.  Carlisle is a 3A (boys)/4A (girls) size school that really reminds us a lot of Treynor in terms of the school and community support.  This position will allow me an opportunity to work full time at what I feel my strengths are and that is working full time in area of Activities and helping to provide quality programs for student/athletes in the Carlisle Community Schools.

We never really planned to leave Treynor but we feel like God has put another adventure on our road and we're excited to take it.  This move will put us 20 minutes from Deb's sister in Ankeny so we're excited for that part of the move as well.  It also puts us closer to Iowa City (Go Hawks) and Ames (not a hater of ISU).  We look forward to being able to get to a few more games on both campuses.  May even catch a few things at Drake and other area colleges as well.

Our biggest prayer at the writing of this blog is the sale of our house.  We ARE grateful that our house didn't sell last spring when we had it listed and were looking to move to a different house here in Treynor....but now, we do need it to sell and specifically would like to get it sold in the next month or so because we have our eye on something in Carlisle that we would like to move on quickly.  If you could join us in that prayer we would be appreciative....but we know, ultimately, that God's timing will be perfect and ours is not.  He's proven that time and time again.

Again, we find ourselves comforted by the words of the prophet Jeremiah.
¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  (Jeremiah 29:11)  Only God knows the plans he has in store for us as we close this chapter of our lives, but that's enough.  We're headed down a different road, but we'll find our way because THE Way will be guiding us through it all.

Why would that change now?