This weekend we made the long trek to Albany, Texas – our soon-to-be new home – to reconnect with the church there and, specifically, to look for a place to live.  We were told that there was little to  no suitable rental housing in the town.  Although Maureen has owned an flat in Singapore for several years, this was my first venture into buying property.  We knew that there would not be a lot to choose from in our price range, but we felt confident that God would provide something.  There was one house on our realtor’s web site that we really liked and would have been a good buy, but it was just beyond our means.  Just a few days before our trip, we heard of a “for sale by owner” house that sounded good. 

Thursday we picked Jeremy up from school at noon and started heading west on I-20.  We had bought a portable video player for the trip and checked out several videos and audio books from the Vestavia Hills Public Library, so the boys did pretty well on the trip, until about 7:30 p.m., when they started to lose it.  At about 8:30 we pulled into the Econo Lodge in Marshall, Texas (not recommended) got a restless night’s sleep, and headed out at 7:00 a.m. Friday for our remaining 6 hours to Albany.

That afternoon, we started looking at homes.  It turned out that this home (click and scroll down), previously for-sale-by-owner, had recently been listed with another realtor, and the price had come down. When we first saw the house, we were a bit disoriented, and didn’t feel that it flowed very well.  We looked at another, smaller home that we could make do with, even though it only had two bedrooms.  We went back and saw both homes on Saturday, and—having gotten some rest, both places looked better.  We began to see more possibilities.  In the end, we made an offer on the larger home and, after a little negotiation, feel that we are able to buy it for a good price.  Somehow we’ve misplaced our camera and the photos we took, but you can see a few shots online by clicking here (and, again, scrolling down—it’s the house, not the ranch).

We spent Sunday night in Arlington, TX with our friends Suzanne and Dale Christiansen (Suzanne was one of Jeremy’s first grade teachers in Togo), and drove back to Alabama in the rain yesterday and last night.  God was gracious and we arrived home safely about 9:00 p.m.

Today I’ve been finalizing negotiations, lining up inspections, getting some ideas on insurance, and trying to figure out what to do for family medical insurance.  One part of me just wants to get through all of the details and focus on living.  Another part of me knows that this is living – that life is in the details, in honoring God and being faithful in the mundane, not just in the grandiose.  God has repeatedly shown himself faithful in working out so many details of this transition.  I’m finally learning to trust him in those that remain, and that, just as the details never stop, neither does his faithfulness.