Thankful

The day I was going to sign a contract for a 2 bedroom apartment - without having a roommate - I got a call from a guy saying he had heard I was looking for a place to stay and offered to let me come look at it. It is definitely not in the best location - 30 minutes from both work and church, but it was still a big blessing. It's a big 4 bedroom house in the middle of the country with 2 goats and 25 chickens soon to come. I'll try to get some pictures up of the place before too long. Thanks for all your prayers. The Lord is faithful. My two roommates seem like good guys. They both attend the same church I plan on going to and welcomed me in like I had known them for a long time.

Waiting

Last Saturday I made the move to Birmingham with the majority of my possessions in my Volvo Wagon and my parents' Hyundai Sonata. I was thinking that I was going to move in with a guy I had contacted through craigslist.org, but he ended up choosing a different person to be his roommate. I had made arrangements with my friends Micah and Heather to stay with them in case it didn't work out, thankfully. So now I'm just praying about what to do. It's a good but helpless feeling - it has made me lean on God's promises even harder - although sometimes I struggle to FEEL that they are true. Some verses that have been sweet are the last few verses of Romans 8 - that if God is for us, who can be against us? That if God did not spare his own Son, he will most certainly provide all the lesser things we need. That there is no condemnation for me - Christ died! That NOTHING can separate me from his love. And in Psalms there have been a lot that have been comforting, but to name a couple, Psalm 68 says God provides a home for the solitary (or lonely depending on the translation) and that he is the strength of his people. Deuteronomy says that the Eternal God is your dwelling place, and the everlasting arms are under you. Sometimes its hard to live in those promises, as sweet as they are. But I cling to them and know they are true. You can pray that I will wait well for the Lord until He provides what I need.

More Chattanooga Pics

Here are some more pics from my time in Chattanooga. Most of them are from the aquarium:
Zoe was a bit scared of the butterflies

Super Eliot

While in Chattanooga, I was sitting in the living room with Eliot and he saw me taking a picture of Gemma. So he wanted me to take some pictures of him as he jumped off the couch. His form isn't bad!

Traveling

I've been traveling (I learned this year that I have been misspelling that word for a long time - I always thought it was travelling. But it's not) for almost 2 weeks now. My first leg of the trip took me to Chattanooga, TN where I stayed with my brother and his family for almost a week. I then took a Greyhound bus to Raleigh, NC and stayed with my good friends Spencer and Jana for 5 days. Currently I am in Birmingham, AL with my newly wed friends Micah and Heather. It's been a good trip so far and I wish I could share some pictures with you from my journey but I accidentally left my camera in Chattanooga...but when I get that back, I'll be sure to post some of the good pictures I got in Chattanooga.

One quick note about traveling by Greyhound: I had never done it before and did not really enjoy the experience (especially now that they cut their 7 day advance ticket purchase discount - it was actually cheaper to fly from Raleigh to Birmingham than it was to take a bus! The actual time spent riding on the bus was not bad at all. Everyone stays quiet, there's a bathroom on the bus and I was able to sleep for several hours. The bus stations - at least the Atlanta station - is not a pleasant place to be. I had to transfer buses there and had about 40 minutes to do it. That shouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that the bus I was supposed to take filled up while I was getting a bite to eat and I ended up having to wait 3.5 hours for the next bus...just having a ticket with the time you bought it for doesn't guarantee you can actually ride that bus. The people that work at the station did not act as if they knew a whole lot about the system, because no one could ever give me a straight answer and when they did it was usually wrong. Nonetheless, I still ended up getting there! And I'm glad that I went so I could hang out with Spencer and Jana.