Elias, Joshua and I took a spin up to Erie (where most of the pics were taken) and to visit some friends at Miracle Mountain Ranch (MMR) during the labor day weekend. We enjoyed a relaxing time together which is unusual for vacations. I enjoyed taken "photography" like pics while we were there. :)

   

And I thought May was going to be the craziest month...June has been a different kind of busy.

The first 2 weeks in June were nice and relaxing, trying to catch up on all the stuff I never did in May. Then on June 12th, I woke up suddenly around 6:45Am to a loud boom and something falling on my feet. Looking up there was a nice size hole in our ceiling. The plaster had fallen down and there was only thin wooden boards that used to hold up the plaster, left.

Well, Happy Birthday to me...( my birthday is on the 13th)

That was the beginning of the fiasco for the rest of June. We decided we wouldn't stay there another night and we moved into our parents. Now it's not just the ceiling falling it, it's many things wrong with the place. The dryer with a gas leak that got pinked tagged by the gas man, and they still haven't fixed it, only unplugged it and took the tag off. The dryer is also not hooked up to the outside, so the lint just flies into a room behind it, adding to the layers of lint on the floor and walls already there.
And how about that raccoon? Who finally walked on top of the water damaged crawl space and made my ceiling fall in. Yes a raccoon. The same guy who we have been fighting for the 2 yrs we been there. Elias even saw his paw come through the wood lathe after the plaster fell!

Of course we started looking at all the other ceilings and found quite a few other spots that had water damage.  But what do you know, the land lord still deemed it livable and insisted that we owed him 2 months more rent ( Your normal 60 days notice if you were moving out). They did PATCH the "hole quickly. But the place just wasn't safe. They couldn't fix it properly with that raccoon still there ( and he was there even when our last things were moved out on the 30th).

So between looking for a new place, looking at apartments, packing,  talking/ fighting with the landlord and Elias still having to work...it's been insane. VBS last week made it extra crazy for me.
WHEW!
We did manage to get out in time, leaving it very clean...5 times cleaner then when we moved in. And hopefully we'll be signing a lease tonight! Though we won't move in till the 18th cause the guy wants to do some staining ( hardwood floors) and painting. :)

It's strange to not have a home. We have all this stuff, so much, that I think I'm going to try to sort more out when we are unpacking. I think a lot of it is hobby stuff, between Elias and I. Our stuff has over flowed from our storage place to my parent's basement.

I'm reminded of the verse how we are foreigners in this world. This world really isn't our home when we are Christians. Not having "my own place" has given my an object lesson for that verse. I UNDERSTAND it better. I have a desire to get rid of more of the "stuff" I have. After packing it, I'm convinced I don't need it all. That I should focus on the things I really do use. I don't want a bare apartment that doesn't feel like a home, but I also dont' want so much stuff that I feel crowded.
I guess it'll also help as I shop. Are we going to USE this? Need it? :)

There were many other lessons learned too, like stretching my faith a bit, because it was just so hard for someone as tired as I was. But I really think as God has brought us through this whole house searching thing, first wanting to buy, then decided no lets just rent something bigger and nicer in the area we want to Lord, please SOMETHING. God has been weeding the idol of "my dream house" before we actually buy sometime down the road. And he HAS provided us a place to live that I really like! I still have dream of owning a big old house that I really love, but now it's a dream God can make come true when he likes.

I know financially, it seems foolish to keep renting when we could get $8,000 if we buy NOW, but I think it would be even MORE foolish to try to live outside God's will for us. God can provide us $8,000 if we ever need that. I prefer to depend on God then the unstable government. :) Of course I'm not saying I wouldn't take it if it was time for us to buy a house, but to buy and $80,000 plus house for $8,000?

Since Joshua is sitting on the potty and won't get into anything while I concentrate, besides flushing the toilet and attempting to grab the toilet brush.

Life is a bit crazy right now, there's so many little things going on, it just adds up. Elias has been attempting to contact a particular person to ask about a "construction loan", where you have to get a contractor involved and that makes things a BIT more complicated. But the guy hasn't returned any of his phone calls, so we move on to someone else. We aren't going to do buisness with someone who is either extremely busy and can not handle another person or is rude and doesn't get back to you. But since we decided to move on, other things have come up and have kept ELias busy. My laptop is still not fixed, I'm expecting the hard drive today and MAYBE Elias will find time to put it in before he has to leave.
Tomorrow will be the first community night our cell group is doing with the Mercy Ministry, I may not be able to go because Joshua is still sick and I do not want him to get anyone else sick, specially any of the refugees.  But maybe he will be feeling better, we'll see. I'll be here praying for it anyway.

I've also finally taken on coordinating a social activites team at church. Right now I'm in the process of collecting people.

With all this business God has really been teaching me that I need His grace every day. I don't think you can learn this dependancy until you have a certain amount of responsibility that it starts to weigh on your mind. For me, I'm not the greatest at managing tons of things it becomes overwhelming and between Elias and I, sometimes I feel the church, well ourchurch anyway, asks too much. Then I ask myself, why then am I starting something else? Why does the church of today have soo many more programs then the church of yesterday? Why do we need a Mercy Ministry? Why do we need cell groups? Why do we need someone to encourage community? Well thats it, we don't live in a real community anymore. The turn over rate in our church is really really high because of the students coming in. So lately my brain has been mulling over how to balance all this....