A whole lot going on

I am sorry for the lack of posts in the past few weeks, we are in the midst of a crazy time right now. Christmas is always a crazy, busy time of year anyway, but we are also packing up a house for a  move to Louisville, KY in just a few days.  After praying and praying and waiting and waiting, we are confident that the Lord is calling us to move to Louisville for a new job opportunity for Tom. He will be taking the reigns as the Executive Director for the Louisville Center for Neighborhoods, a non-profit that does neighborhood revitalization and community development. He is excited about the opportunity. Our house is still on the market and we would like for it to sell soon, but we are fully trusting the Lord to provide all our needs financially, relationally and spiritually and we are confident He will. It is incredibly hard to leave friends here because they are family to us and we are so sad to leave them. We are super sad as well to leave the ministry we have been running at our church for the past 6 years. We have served along side some wonderful people and know that the Lord's hand will continue to work in the lives of the kids and family we serve each week. Cross Culture is near and dear to our heart and it was a hard decision to leave the kids. We also LOVE our church and are praying hard for the Lord to provide another body for us to serve with and worship with. We have heard from many people who have left before that it is HARD to replace Community Bible Church and we know that it will be a tall order.

So here is an awesome God story for you....... We spent almost 2 months trying to figure out if the Lord wanted us to move to Louisville for this job. The organization has provided temporary housing and moving help so that encouraged us that the Lord wanted us there. Tom had been saying since we first started thinking about it that he didn't want to move unless we had an offer on our house. Well we put it on the market, had some showings but no offers. The organization was being super patient for Tom to make his decision because they really wanted him to come there. A few weeks after Caroline was born they were having their monthly board meeting and wanted to see if Tom had made his mind up yet. This was on a Wednesday. Tom was dragging his feet leaving for work because he still didn't know what to do. We had a showing scheduled for that afternoon and he joked that he wanted me to call and see if they wanted to make an offer by noon because that is when he was going to call the board chair. I laughed and said they hadn't even seen the house yet. About 20 minutes after he left for work our realtor called and said we had an offer coming in and it was supposed to be to us by noon. I laughed and cried a little. I called Tom and I think he did the same thing. The Lord provided us what Tom had been requesting all along, an offer on our house at the exact time when we needed it. The offer actually didn't work out, but we are completely confident that the Lord just provided that as an answer to prayer to give us clarity about what He wanted for our family. I love how the Lord provides what we need when we need it and not before. We are leaving with a house unsold and praying that the Lord would again provide what we need when we need it. It has been so awesome to see the Lord work and to be a witness of His goodness and love for us to our kiddos. We are humbled to be able to see the Lord's hand working so clearly.

On top of that we went to the doctor on Monday morning  and Isaiah officially has the flu so we are bracing for what will happen if we all come down with it, yikes! So far Savannah we think has it and Ellie puked from the Tamiflu last night in her sleep. I am not feeling great but no fever so we are praying hard that we are all healthy soon. Caroline is a little fussy today so we are hoping its not her getting sick as well.

We took a trip about a week and a half  ago to visit my grandmother, aunt and uncle and cousins in Tallahassee, FL. It was a great long weekend and we are so thankful for our time with them. We will miss being so close to them and getting down there to visit so often but we are looking forward to planning a trip sooner rather than later after we get settled wherever we are going to live!

 My grandmother (Nana) with 4 of her 10 great grands.
 

 It was so special to watch Nana holding sweet Caroline. She LOVES holding babies and she was so happy to get to meet Caroline. Caroline did great and slept the whole time in her nice comfy spot.

Merry Christmas from the Stephens Family!