Transitions

Our house in Lincoln. The balloons are attached to a For Sale By Owner sign to draw people in for an open house.  Plus, at this angle, it looks like they are attached to the house and ready for take-off.

This is the part of life called transitions.  Moving. Selling. Changing. Change. Transitioning by it's very nature is unsettling. Here's a quick run-down of life since we returned back the US on April 7th.

- Visited 2 universities to decide where I would return to pursue a PhD (which is also to say we had to decide if that was what we were going to do at this point in time). We finally decided on the University of Florida in Gainesville....a really long ways from our families once again.

- Traveled thousands (literally) of miles to visit family and friends to catch up. Slept on couches and in spare rooms. Would never stay too long at any one place...would only ever stay long enough to "catch up" then fly off the next spot.

- Presented conferences for the FFA called NLCSO. Lisa and I didn't see each other for a month in June/July. I finally finished mine around July 10th and returned to see Lisa in Bushnell. She still has one more to do.  

- Selling our house and pickup. This is where we are now.  I'm in Lincoln right now. We're trying to do it "for sale by owner."  

- Moving to Florida soon.

F.S.B.O.

For sale by owner means you take on all the responsibility for making that sale happen. We've posted the pickup on Craigslist, Facebook, the local newspapers... I would have sent a plan up to do skywriting if I thought it would help. I've received scams from Craigslist..."send a money order and we'll send someone to come get the truck..." I've received anxious calls from pushy people. I've received calls from car salesmen wanting the pickup in their lot 65 miles away right now.  I've received help from my uncle. But, I havn't received an offer. 

Selling a house is also interesting, to say the least.  We've had stress keeping the place picked up. How much maintenance do you do? We also have two extra people living here....which means two extra relationships to manage...two extra people's things to make sure are picked up.  Our garage is FULL.   

Our first showing was supposed to happen at 5:00 PM on a Monday.  I get really nervous showing our house. Lots of nervous energy. I have to busy myself with just about anything that will keep my mind off of "oh, I hope they buy our house...."

Before the showing I went downstairs to ask our renter to pick up a bit. He did (with my help) and I left.  He was sick so I bought him a can of soup to warm up and eat. At 4:58 (no joke) he poked his head up the stairs and said "hey, can I get a little help here?"  I'm thinking he is trying to do some additional cleaning so I sprung down the stairs to help. NOPE! Turns out he had tried to warm up the soup but had accidently turned on the wrong burner. And, since his kitchen was so full of dirty dishes, some of them were sitting on the other burners.   The culprit was a large plastic bowl which was actually filled with water to soak some dirty silverware. The burner had melted the plastic causing an acrid smoke to fill the entire downstairs as well as empty the water all over the stove top.  Super.

I grabbed a towel, opened the doors, and tried to fan the smoke out.  I had to lock the top screen door open with the small metal tab that holds open the  hydraulic closure bar.  Just then, Lisa came by to do some laundry.  She noticed the open door and inquired about it. I explained the situation and she replied that I was letting in flies.  She asked if we could shut the doors and I said yes.  I continued to towel out the smoke and get more anxious that the prospective customer would walk through the door at any minute and run away because of the scene.

Just when I thought the chaos had simmered a bit, Lisa found me and said casually "that back door is broken."  "WHAAAT?" I bellowed?  Turns out Lisa hadn't noticed the closure bar being locked open and yanked the door shut only to rip out the screws from the closure bar leaving them and it hanging there like a limp appendage. Super.

Somewhere above us I believe there are angels without television.  They don't need television.  They just lounge on clouds with their heads propped up on their hands and watch the scenes unfold down below them.  I imagine the viewing on that Monday at 2810 Franklin Street was pretty funny.  It is to me now. Wasn't at the time.

Well, thank goodness the prospect was late. I got the door screwed back together. We fanned out enough smoke and lit a few candles.  Everything was right with the world once again.

Since then we've had a couple of open houses and lots of "thanks and we'll let you know." I'm working on keeping myself distracted because if I think too much about all this I get a bit crazy.  

Questions

This is the part that haunts us.  Is Florida the right place? Why am I working on a PhD...I don't really even know how to teach. Why are we moving again?  Will the house sell? Do we have what it takes to sell the house on our own? Why did we leave Tanzania? Why are we so far away from our families?

The short answer to all this... I DON'T KNOW.

Tanzania

We miss you.  We miss your children. We miss your chaos. We miss your freedom. We miss your opportunities for our involvement in helping to create a brighter tomorrow.  We miss your purpose in our lives.  We miss your sense of community.  

The Future

 Well, it might go like this...we sell the house and the pickup....rent an apartment in Gainesville and drive Grandma Nelson's car (which she sold to us and has been gracious enough to wait until we get the money from the sale of the pickup!). We might love it down in Florida and I will see that teaching at a University is EXACTLY what God designed me for.  Or not.  Maybe none of that will work out.  

I keep praying for clarity and confidence that we're moving in the right direction.  I think as of now, God just wants us to take a step.  If we keep trying to listen, He's going to tell us if it's right or not.