In the past several weeks we have had several friends and family asking about updates on our preparations for the move to Cape Town. So this post is to share the latest and greatest on where we are now and the remaining few puzzle pieces that have to come together before we head out.
I was looking back at some old posts and on the 7/16 post mentioned that Brooke would be sharing about our recent move to the apartment. Whoops….guess we have a lot of catching up to do. So I will start there and for those of you with above average intelligence probably figured out we did move to….wait for it….an apartment. I do want to share about the house sale a little bit because it was one of the ways that we felt God move in tremendous ways to affirm this call.
In 2011 we listed our house for sale in order to move into a different area of Williamson County. We decided we wanted to be in an area that was going to allow us to spend way more money to get a way older and way smaller house. That’s the American Dream, right? We had our house on the market for about (10) months total that year and I think had everyone and their mother come through to look at it. Got great feedback, “House was wonderful and shows well. Clients really loved it and it was a strong contender; they decided to buy something else.”. “House was great. Priced right, but clients decided to build.” About 100 of those type feedbacks with various wording. We just could not figure out why the heck our house would not sell. Ten months and one bad offer as we kept losing out to new construction and existing homes in our neighborhood and surrounding ones. So we took it off the market in Nov ‘11 as we were heading on our mission trip to South Africa. Came back from that trip and if you have read the "Our Call to Go" section of our website know what happened next there. We re-listed the house in May ’12 in preparation for the process to move and ended up coming to market as the ONLY house for sale in our neighborhood. All new construction had been bought up and all existing homes had been sold. So what we had anticipated as being a long sales process again ended up being (8) days where we entertained multiple offers for our house. To say we got our answer why it didn’t sell previously would be an understatement of the year. Amazing how God works His plan and how we need to trust that He is in control.
So with the house sold, we signed a (6) month apartment lease and hoped it would be long enough for the rest of the pieces to fall into place. With the house sold, we knew we needed to get to work raising support. As we are only allowed to enter the country under a volunteer visa we cannot earn income while there. So we have to rely on the support of others to help us meet our everyday living expenses while there. On top of that I had not told my company yet of my plans because we really were unsure of when we would be leaving. This presented quite the challenge to share with people what we were doing, but only in a low key way. If you think it is challenge to have to raise support for (3) years you should try doing it when you can’t really tell anyone about it. I honestly thought there was a snowballs chance that we would be able to raise enough to get us there sometime in the next (12) months, let alone to stay for any period of time. You’re amazed by my faith….I know. Well, God again accepted the challenge and has humbled us in so many ways. While we are still continuing to raise support, we are blown away by the generosity of people and their willingness to give to be a part of this journey with us.
We are still continuing to raise support for the (3) years, but with September upon us we felt like it was time to make a faith decision on a time frame for departure. We had hoped to be over to Cape Town in January ’13 to allow the kids to start school there on time and so (4) one-way flights to South Africa are booked for JANUARY 2, 2013. With tickets booked our next step is to go to some training in October. The training is going to require all our focus while we are there which presented a new challenge in terms of my job. I knew with that coming up and some other work changes taking place I was going to need to tell my company sooner rather than later. Again, a faith step to give job notice, not two weeks in advance as the norm, but rather (3) months in advance. And again, God’s provision has come through in a huge way as my company has been incredibly supportive of this call in our lives and will allow me to continue to work through the time that I need.
So, house is sold, support-raising is started, tickets are booked, training is occurring, and I quit my job. Now, if we could just legally get into the country. You see, we haven’t yet been able to submit for our visa to know that we will actually even be able to move there. To apply for your visa you have to show that you have the tickets booked to get there on a specific date. Well, you can’t book your tickets until you feel like you have enough support raised to get there. Anyone else feeling like there is a lot of cart before the horse in this process? So with the steps above done we can now send all our paperwork off for the visa process. We fully anticipate all going well, as we have only seen God provide in amazing ways.
This post is getting long so I am going to wrap it up, but hopefully that gives you a little more update on where we are currently and the process that we have been working through. God’s provision through this has been humbling, amazing, undeserving and we give Him all the glorify for it.
“Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!’“
Luke 12:22-24
I was looking back at some old posts and on the 7/16 post mentioned that Brooke would be sharing about our recent move to the apartment. Whoops….guess we have a lot of catching up to do. So I will start there and for those of you with above average intelligence probably figured out we did move to….wait for it….an apartment. I do want to share about the house sale a little bit because it was one of the ways that we felt God move in tremendous ways to affirm this call.
In 2011 we listed our house for sale in order to move into a different area of Williamson County. We decided we wanted to be in an area that was going to allow us to spend way more money to get a way older and way smaller house. That’s the American Dream, right? We had our house on the market for about (10) months total that year and I think had everyone and their mother come through to look at it. Got great feedback, “House was wonderful and shows well. Clients really loved it and it was a strong contender; they decided to buy something else.”. “House was great. Priced right, but clients decided to build.” About 100 of those type feedbacks with various wording. We just could not figure out why the heck our house would not sell. Ten months and one bad offer as we kept losing out to new construction and existing homes in our neighborhood and surrounding ones. So we took it off the market in Nov ‘11 as we were heading on our mission trip to South Africa. Came back from that trip and if you have read the "Our Call to Go" section of our website know what happened next there. We re-listed the house in May ’12 in preparation for the process to move and ended up coming to market as the ONLY house for sale in our neighborhood. All new construction had been bought up and all existing homes had been sold. So what we had anticipated as being a long sales process again ended up being (8) days where we entertained multiple offers for our house. To say we got our answer why it didn’t sell previously would be an understatement of the year. Amazing how God works His plan and how we need to trust that He is in control.
So with the house sold, we signed a (6) month apartment lease and hoped it would be long enough for the rest of the pieces to fall into place. With the house sold, we knew we needed to get to work raising support. As we are only allowed to enter the country under a volunteer visa we cannot earn income while there. So we have to rely on the support of others to help us meet our everyday living expenses while there. On top of that I had not told my company yet of my plans because we really were unsure of when we would be leaving. This presented quite the challenge to share with people what we were doing, but only in a low key way. If you think it is challenge to have to raise support for (3) years you should try doing it when you can’t really tell anyone about it. I honestly thought there was a snowballs chance that we would be able to raise enough to get us there sometime in the next (12) months, let alone to stay for any period of time. You’re amazed by my faith….I know. Well, God again accepted the challenge and has humbled us in so many ways. While we are still continuing to raise support, we are blown away by the generosity of people and their willingness to give to be a part of this journey with us.
We are still continuing to raise support for the (3) years, but with September upon us we felt like it was time to make a faith decision on a time frame for departure. We had hoped to be over to Cape Town in January ’13 to allow the kids to start school there on time and so (4) one-way flights to South Africa are booked for JANUARY 2, 2013. With tickets booked our next step is to go to some training in October. The training is going to require all our focus while we are there which presented a new challenge in terms of my job. I knew with that coming up and some other work changes taking place I was going to need to tell my company sooner rather than later. Again, a faith step to give job notice, not two weeks in advance as the norm, but rather (3) months in advance. And again, God’s provision has come through in a huge way as my company has been incredibly supportive of this call in our lives and will allow me to continue to work through the time that I need.
So, house is sold, support-raising is started, tickets are booked, training is occurring, and I quit my job. Now, if we could just legally get into the country. You see, we haven’t yet been able to submit for our visa to know that we will actually even be able to move there. To apply for your visa you have to show that you have the tickets booked to get there on a specific date. Well, you can’t book your tickets until you feel like you have enough support raised to get there. Anyone else feeling like there is a lot of cart before the horse in this process? So with the steps above done we can now send all our paperwork off for the visa process. We fully anticipate all going well, as we have only seen God provide in amazing ways.
This post is getting long so I am going to wrap it up, but hopefully that gives you a little more update on where we are currently and the process that we have been working through. God’s provision through this has been humbling, amazing, undeserving and we give Him all the glorify for it.
“Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!’“
Luke 12:22-24
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