Questions....

Back in September, the company that Matthew works for did a round of layoffs. There were 2 people in his department, him and another guy. They laid off the other guy. This got us asking some questions.

Will he be next?

Does he need to get his resume together and start getting it out there?

Are we willing to move?

How far are we willing to move?

All the normal questions that run through your head when something like this hits so close to home.

It was the next night, some dear friends of ours had us over for dinner and told us some amazing news! They would be moving after the first of the year to Chattanooga, TN. and they would be starting a new church in the area. As we were talking about their plans they asked us a life changing question....

"Would you consider going with us?"

We left their house that night saying we would talk about it and pray about it and see where God was leading us. Doing this meant pulling up our roots where we live now. It means leaving our family and close friends. I spent most of Saturday crying, not because I didn't want to go, but because I was afraid we were going to hurt the people closest to us. We also spent a lot of that weekend asking a bunch of new questions.

Should we do it?

Is it the right move for our family?

What about the rest of our family?

What about our friends?

What about our church?

What about a job?

How can we afford this?

Is this really what God wants us to do?

All of these questions and so much more started to run through our heads. But we both felt very sure of our answer and what God wanted from us.

That Sunday, we said yes.

During our first round of discussion, Matthew and I had come to the agreement that if this is what God wants from us he will provide the means to do it. For me that meant and job and insurance for Matthew. A job that offered more then he was currently making, mostly due to the fact that I would not be working anymore. And it would offer better insurance then his current job offers, which our current insurance is HORRIBLE!

Matthew started to apply that Monday. For the first few months we were in a place of waiting. He was applying and wasn't getting any responses. Or if he did get a response it was to say they weren't interested or had filled the position. This was a bit discouraging for me. We felt like this is what God wanted from us, but we weren't getting anywhere with it. At the same time, I had to keep telling myself that God had something better planned for us. And he did. 

I did have a worry about his trying to look for a new job while possibly being in a third world country for 2 weeks. Without even realizing it until after it all happened, God answered my worries with keeping things still until Matthew got home.

The week before Thanksgiving, Matthew got his first phone call for an interview with a company. Over the next 2 weeks he spoke to them several times and had a face to face interview. Then we waited again, for over a week for a response. Finally this past week they called and made an offer. After some back and forth about salary, there was finally an offer that everyone was happy with and Matthew accepted.

He has a start date of January 7th. If things go well and we are able to find a house quickly, we could be moving up there the weekend of January 5th and 6th!

The hardest part of this whole process has been keeping it a secret. A few family and friends knew, but we kept it under wraps from most of our family until Matthew had an actual interview. So we made the announcement over Thanksgiving. As for everyone else, we kept it secret until he had an actual offer. So we just started to tell everyone else yesterday.

We had several reasons for not telling people right away. The first was, what if we don't go right away? What if it is 6 months or a year after our friends that we end up going up there? We didn't want to tell people we were leaving without knowing when we were going. The second was, his boss goes to our church. We didn't want word getting back to him before Matthew had the chance to tell him. 

But God is amazing and has provided everything we will need for the adventure! We are so very excited about doing this with friends that we love so much! 

Now comes the really stressful part! Finding a new home and moving during Christmas while hosting 2 holiday dinners! Wish me luck! 

Let the whirl wind begin!