Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Big Move- an Update

I've been chattin' it up about Heath so much I figured I better give an update about where we are on our journey to Ukraine.  I haven't written much about our move in this space recently just because there is so much still up in the air.  I'm coming to realize that is pretty much our new reality though, so I better document it anyway. 

This past weekend we had a massive garage sale.  It was great!  We sold a ton of stuff.  Remember we'd already had one garage sale earlier in the summer, and now we had another massive one.  I look around my house and I still feel like we have too much stuff.  Seriously!!  Anyway, we made great headway in whittling away at all our things.  Like now the girls are sharing a dresser and Jed and I are sharing a dresser, so we sold the other 2 dressers.  We sold non"essential" kitchen items, more books, book shelves, paired down our stuffed animal collection a bit, tools...it felt good.  

The next step is to get out of our house so we can put our mortgage payment toward paying off student loans.  Good riddance Sallie Mae!!  We'd love to sell our house, but we're upside down in our loan, so we have to rent it out.  We're planning on moving out of our house in October and then getting it rental-ready.  We've had a very generous offer from a friend concerning our living situation that I can share when it's all finalized.  Let's just say, God is doing just what He said He'd do!  As we take steps forward He opens up the path before us.  It's been nothing short of miraculous.  

Right now the main focus is our living situation.  Once we get out of our house, get it rented and start putting money away we'll shift our focus to how God wants to finance this dream.  There's talk of mission support raising, non-profit starting, grant writing, business plan making...all stuff that is much more Jed's area of expertise!

We've contacted a few different organizations in Ukraine that do work similar to what God has put in our hearts to do and asked about partnering.  These are mostly people and organizations we visited while in Ukraine.  We aren't sure exactly how it will all look, but we just step forward in obedience and I'm confident God will work it out.  

To people who don't know the Lord this all sounds CRAZY.  Believe me, sometimes it feels crazy to be living it!  But, in the midst of the craziness we have peace.  We have peace that we are exactly where God wants us in this moment.  We have peace that He is paving the way and making paths straight. 

So that's a brief update about where we're at.  Thank you for your prayers and support!!

8 comments:

  1. CANT Wait to see you get there!!!!! Cant wait to someday Visit and see the work first hand!!! Yipppeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! And of course cant wait to see ya`ll Sooon :)!

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  2. You could try crowdfunding to raise money for your venture. Indiegogo might be good for your purposes. Good luck!

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    1. Jessica, thank you so much for that idea! I had never heard of Indiegogo or anything like it. Wow, it looks really interesting! I'm going to look into it further.
      Thanks again!!

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  3. Thanks for the update! How exciting but scary at the same time. There are so many things to think about and I can't wait to see what your future holds. I agree that it feels great to sell all the excess "stuff" but then you start looking around and want to keep selling more and keep streamlining! It's a bit addicting.

    I will support you in whatever way I can once you get things finalized.

    I want to also share this organization that I just learned of recently. It may not be an exact match for you and Jed but with your nursing background I thought you would appreciate their work:

    http://www.teamworksukraine.com/mission/teamworks-ukraine/

    Sue H.

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    1. Thank you for your support Sue! I really appreciate it so much. :) You know, now I think I maybe read about Team Works on another blog...I'll definitely check them out. I'm super interested in learning about all types of work that is being done in Ukraine. Every bit of info helps. Thanks for sharing!

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  4. So happy to see you guys making all those steps forwards!! Can't wait for you to get to this side of the ocean... i'm already planning in my head to visit & help out whenever & wherever i can ;)

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  5. hmmm... posting my comment a second time...
    So happy to see you guys taking steps forwards. Can't wait for you to get to this side of the ocean. i'm already planning in my head to visit & help whenever & wherever i can... ;)

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