"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." -- 2 Corinthians 5:1 (ESV)
It's been several months since we wrote in March about our house fire in February. God has continued to be faithful and is providing for us every day. Praise God! Thank you for all your prayers and for continuing to support the mission of getting God's Word into the hearts of people who need it, in a language they can clearly understand!
This year my work with the Digital Bible Library (DBL) has been mostly in "maintenance mode" since I remain the only software developer on the DBL team. I have been able to add a few new improvements, though. One was allowing archivists to upload revised, consultant-checked books of the Bible to the Digital Bible Library, while keeping previously uploaded books the same. Another was to enable DBL licensers to review each of their license decisions before granting the use of their version of the Bible to a publisher. That way they don't accidentally confirm default choices that are not correct in their case. I also improved big-file (e.g. audio, video) uploading to the DBL so that the user can resume the upload later if their upload gets interrupted.
Praise God that in May we purchased a new home (1544 Hamilton Dr, Cedar Hill, TX 75104) a couple of miles down the road from our old home! We are hoping to be able to move there by the beginning of November. The new home has a lot of what we were looking for in a home: single story, a little more room for our family, somewhere not physically connected to other homes, close to a park for our kids, not far from Eric's work or people and other places we are connected to daily, like dance and school, and not much farther from church.
We are so thankful that the home insurance money we received (plus money from the sale of our property) enabled us to purchase a new home in this crazy seller's market! The house we bought was not as competitive since it needed a lot of work. (The owner had vacated it after a plumbing issue flooded it a year ago.) So, we were able to buy it for $20K less than the original asking price! That meant, however, that we would need to make a lot of repairs before we could move in.
Praise God that the abundant personal donations we received from many people after the fire helped us not only to make the many needed repairs, but also enabled us to do things like paint the house to make it feel more like "our home" and less like someone else's home we're moving into. It has been coming together wonderfully! We were also able to help some others who were affected by the winter freeze and other weather events.
Providentially, the shipping delays for our flooring (from May until August) bought us time to make changes and to find volunteers willing to help us with a lot of things. After the flooring was installed, we were able to begin looking for and/or ordering some of the furniture we need, like bedroom sets. Several friends and family have been helping us assemble furniture and doing odds and ends for us. Now that our appliances are installed and our mattresses have arrived, it feels like we are on the final stretch for moving into our new home!
Our former townhouse used to rest here where the ground has been leveled in this picture. It will take a while before the new owner even starts rebuilding since a neighboring townhouse has yet to be demolished. While we don't severely miss most of the "things" in the home, there is a sharp sadness any time we view a photograph of our kids in the old house just knowing it no longer exists in any form. A home, after all, is greater than the sum of its parts. Our son Jonah is the one who says most often, "I miss our old house." We know that many of you share our grief, especially those who have visited us there over the years and made your own memories with us there.
Personal Updates:
This year, on top of the loss of our house, Eric has grieved other losses as well: His biological father passed away, and the house he and his sister grew up in as children was sold. Health-wise, Eric's neurologist thinks his numbness issues in his lips and face (possibly due to cervical spine degeneration) may be independent from his hands (possibly due to carpal tunnel). He also began seeing a urologist for another issue. Hello mid-40s! :) Please pray conditions get better or don't worsen!
On the bright side, over the past year, Eric has supported a Tanzanian pastor (who was our pastor while we were there) who organized a small group of pastors to kick-start a new denomination in the Mara region of Tanzania. For more info, you may visit https://www.facebook.com/MaraPresbyterianChurchInTanzaniaPlease pray for this church to grow in grace and truth, and to show Christ's love to many.
Allison turned 38 in September. She has been very active in teaching for a dance studio where our kids also take dance and karate. Allison continues to be on a low-histamine (and low-FODMAP) diet for her health. Colonoscopy, endoscopy, and parasite tests have not shown any obvious causes for her issues. All in all, she does seem to be improving and has more energy than a year ago, but she's still not where she hopes to be.
Caleb (6) started kindergarten at an affordable Christian school nearby, and Sarah (8!) is being homeschooled this semester together with a friend. Jonah (4) is in pre-K after graduating potty-training (although it's still a work in progress at times).
Please pray for setting up our new house to be ready for us to move in soon.
Please pray for Allison's vitamin B12 and D levels to increase. She may need to get B12 shots.
Continue to pray for Eric's work project, the Digital Bible Library, to be better staffed and that services will remain operational.
Praise: We were finally able to get our first draft of our lost contents inventory to insurance, so we hope to be able to get more insurance money after they review that!
