For those who have been wondering, we made it to North Carolina! Move out day went a hundred times better than we could have imagined. It was sunny, warm and dry—unheard of for a West Michigan January! And as if that were not enough, we had plenty of help from family and friends and were able to get everything loaded and our apartment cleaned and painted quickly.

We are now in our new apartment and working on unpacking and settling in. Unfortunately, things have been, well, stressful. You know the saying, “If it’s not one thing, it’s something else…” We were quite disappointed with the condition of the apartment when we moved in and had to work with maintenance and cleaning staff to get it taken care of. Since then we have dealt with everything from a pipe under the sink breaking and flooding the kitchen, to the car not starting and having to replace the battery, and loosing our power just when we had finally taken a break to watch a little tv. And that is all on top of the usual chaos of moving like tripping over boxes as we try to decide where to put everything, making three trips to the DMV just to get my drivers license, learning how to shop at a whole new selection of stores, and trying to learn our way around with these crazy, crooked North Carolinian roads!

On the other hand, as difficult as the past few weeks have been, neither of us has once stopped and wondered if maybe we made a mistake in moving here, maybe we weren’t supposed to move to North Carolina. No, we still have a sense of peace knowing that for some reason this is where we need to be, and we are doing what we can to make the best of it until God reveals his plan. So far he has already taught us plenty about patience, selflessness and contentment. We know these experiences, lessons and tests are breaking us and growing us to take us to the point where God can really use us.

Thanks so much for all who have been praying for us. We welcome your continued prayers as we still have much to do to settle in and begin our lives here. The weather is nice and so are the people, so how bad can it be!