Cathing Up

Well it's been once month since we moved up here to Maryland but it feels like we've been here forever. The Lord has been so kind to our family in allowing this huge uprooting and transition to go so well.

A quick history of how we got here (for Laura Lynn). For the past eleven years Eric has served as an associate pastor and then as executive pastor under Keith Breault but has always wondered if he was gifted and/or called to lead a church in a senior pastor position. So, to keep this brief, the other pastors and men who oversee our church agreed yes and Eric will be most likely planting a church in Charlottesville, VA. Since he never attended Sovereign Grace's pastor's college they also thought that it would be a great opportunity and timing for him to go now. This has all happened very quickly -two months from the time of finding out till moving up here. I cannot be more grateful though for the faith that God has given me and our family. Although this all seemed to come out of nowhere there has been a peace and a definite strong sense that the Lord was leading us to do this. So we put our house up for sale, cried a little, packed up, cried a lot, said goodbye to our dear family, friends and church and here we are.

After being in Maryland for less than a week our family went down to Nags Head for our annual vacation with the Williams and Waskos. It is always great to be together but especially this year. both Laura, Melanie and their families had been away the last week we were in town but the Lord provided special time at the beach house. To see a slide show of our week you can go to Melanie's blog: http://www.waskolife.blogspot.com/

Sarah in the sand

All eleven kids

Ryan skim boardingMatthew on the boogie board
The boys
Taylor and Rachel

Since being back life has been very full. Eric had actually started classes during our vacation so sent back and forth. Once the kids and I were back too we jumped into our new school schedule. It's wonderful!! My husband is a new man and it's all good. Eric now is the one getting up first, making the coffee and overseeing the kids morning "stuff" which includes their quiet time, breakfast and going through First Steps of Faith with Rachel and Ryan. This now gives me time to go walking (which is absolutely beautiful here), have quiet time, shower and get ready for the day. I must confess though that I've been enjoying Eric "lording" over the morning a bit too much and have been sleeping in most days. I'm gonna change all that - tomorrow. Those first couple of weeks I spent getting the house unpacked and set up along with jumping into home schooling. We are pretty much settled now around the house and into the groove of school. Eric has also got into a groove with his school too. Pastors college is way more involved than I think either one of us expected. He has classes Tuesday through Friday from 9 till at least 4. He stays to study until about 6-6:30. We have dinner, spend time with the kids and then studies again after they've gone to bed. On Fridays he stays all evening to study and take his weekly exam. The exam doesn't need to be done until Monday night but he prefers taking it immediately and then using the weekend to do his reading for the upcoming week. That also allows for us to take Monday afternoons as a family day. We have some evening meetings throughout the month and Eric and I are trying to get out on dates to as many ethnic restaurants as possible.

A huge part of our experience here has been our neighborhood. I don't even know how to describe the wonderful experience but I am so amazed at God's kindness in providing for our family. There are five other pastor college families on our street along with other families from the church. There are kids, lots of them, for all my kids to play with. Three o'clock every school day is when playtime begins and they long for it. There is a common area and a little playground behind our house where they play football, or go across the street to the "field" to play, ride skateboards down the bike path or climb trees. When the kids are out the moms are usually hanging out too. I've described the people here as very friendly and very social. It really is hard to believe that most of us have only been here for a month and have grown so close to one another.

Well that's all for now. I do have pictures from our trips into DC and to the zoo that I want to post but I'll do those later. I promise it'll be soon.