Big News

As all of you know, it has been an incredibly challenging 9 months for us. There was so much joy when we brought Esther home from the hospital. The joy, although it never disappeared, quickly morphed into panic when GM closed and Matt became unemployed.

We put out >75 job applications. A handful of those turned into interviews. None were in the immediate Rochester area. The best offer we received was from a company in Syracuse. We talked and talked and talked some more. We were ready to make the move. The assessor came to the house, took pictures and gave us an estimate. We were really doing it! The morning we were going to call and accept, a job offer came in from a company about an hour from home. We cried tears of joy and accepted that position immediately. We no longer had to worry about fixing up and selling the house, moving away from our families and all the stress that comes from change.

Fast forward four months. The position we accepted turned out to not exactly align with our family values. Matt spends a great deal of his time traveling and the time away from home is becoming a strain. 3a-3p night shifts coming up and more travel. Matt misses the children and the children miss their father.

Matt is the most morally upright person I have ever met. He committed to his position and was determined not to look for a new job until he had put in his time. Soooooo, when the company from Syracuse wrote an e-mail in May and asked if he was willing to talk, Matt was skeptical. Hadn't we just finished saying that we were staying here? Hadn't we started fixing up the house for ourselves? Was this a God thing? We had been talking a lot about how unhappy we were with the lack of family time...we had been praying for a solution.  Matt agreed to a phone call, and the recruiter said:

"We were sad that we lost you the first time around. And I Never Give Up on a good candidate."

A sign? Maybe.

We spoke in code for a couple of weeks. We agreed that we were not going to talk in front of the children about the possibility. We just weren't sure anyway.

So when the kids started talking to one another about growing out of our home and wanting to move a few weeks ago, it surprised me. I was in another room with Esther when I heard Joseph and Sarah talking candidly about wishing they had a new house. I came in the room and I tried to redirect them: "But Joseph, we are almost done fixing up the playroom! What makes you want to leave?" He responded by telling me that the house was too small for us and there were a lot of hornets around here. I chuckled and asked Sarah what she was thinking. She told me that she also wanted to leave because we had been here for allllllllll her life and that was a veryyyyyyyyyy long time. I asked where she wanted to go, assuming the answer was Strasburg or a grandparent's house.

"I want to move to Syracuse," said the 6 year old.

A sign? Maybe.

Projects started getting done even faster. Our house went from this...

To this...

...in just a few weeks. Not like us at all.

 

Matt says now that the house is finally looking presentable, we have to leave. It is just the way it goes...

 

So we accepted the new offer this week. Matt will start his new position in the beginning of July.

The Express is "solid in the siding." Hold on tight and pray for us as we begin our new route. We are nervous and excited, confident but cautious. We pray for peace and God's will.