With only twenty days left until we push off in our big camper for the Midwest-friends-family-conventions tour, there is still much to be done.

The details are coming together: Tony’s job is winding down. The camper is slowly being excavated from the five feet of snow in our yard. No kidding, we really have five feet! The kids are finishing up their school-work and the packing has begun in earnest. The biggest blessing of this week is the arrival of buyers for our house… the last big piece of the puzzle! A lovely couple from Alaska has entered into a contract with us and will soon be the new owners of Fern Hill. We couldn’t be happier.

We’d resigned ourselves to the fate of leaving on this adventure with our house still on the market and our trip fund dwindling fast as we supported two lives. The housing market isn’t exactly booming, you may have noticed, and we were ready to be “realistic” about the amount of time our house would be on the market. A long time. Of course, being praying people, we’d been badgering the Lord of the Universe for some time about the fact that we needed to sell this house. It had become my daily routine to respectfully remind the Being who called forth the sun that we were on a bit of a time schedule here, and that plane tickets wait for no man. Imagine my great joy when, instead of striking me dead for my impatient insolence, He sent the last two people on the planet who are in the housing market to buy to our home. AND, He sent them in time to close before we leave, so that stress has been relieved. God is good.
Of course, my husband reminds me, “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings,” whoever she is, and there are a lot of details to slog through before the ink is dry and we’re really free to cycle as long as we like through parts unknown. For instance, the trim work and the deck railing need to be finished (thank you Kohn Improvements!) and the barn which crashed down last week under the weight of the snow needs to be hauled off. Minor details on top of the million other things we’re throwing into boxes and stowing at our friends’ houses. Fortunately, we are blessed with friends who come all the way from Canada on their spring break to help us pack and Grandparents who’ll use their week of vacation to fly out and help load U-Haul trucks and drive vans back to Indiana. We have friends who will adopt guinea pigs and bunk beds and cook us meals and help us dig through mounds of snow to get to our camper. We are so thankful for each and every one. We could never get through this immense project without them.

As the e-mails of surprise and encouragement pour in from Tony’s work affiliates worldwide and as loved ones call daily to ask what they can do, we are overwhelmed and humbled by the amazing grace extended to us by the Creator and Sustainer of our lives through these precious people He’s allowed us to know. What started out as our crazy idea to bond with our kids and roll through the world awhile is fast becoming a community effort and a cause others are donating time and money and love to see come to fruition. The words that best summarize how we feel on this twentieth day before launch are as follows: grateful, loved, excited, overwhelmed and blessed beyond measure.