God is truly good all of the time!

So here’s the update! The past few days and weeks have been a rollercoaster ride for the Griggs family. There have been so many questions and uncertainties that we have been feeling very fragile. But through it all God has shown Himself to be more than faithful. Tomorrow our renters are going to sign the final paperwork to lease our house. They are the family who showed interest within 45 minutes of listing the house. No one else has even gotten past initial inquiry on it. God certainly knows what he is doing. They are moving in on the 12th of August so it’s a very good thing that we got everything out already. Michael and I worked our selves sick getting all our stuff out and the place clean in a week and a half. I never would have thought we could do it. We do still have to empty the stuff from our garage. We were keeping the furniture there until we have to move it. We have had several people offer their garages for temporary storage until we move to our townhouse and we have no shortage of friends here with trucks☺.

Also tomorrow is Michael’s second interview at the seminary. They have already said he is hired but they need to still go over the logistics. They have actually already sent work to Michael to see what he is capable of doing. He will be the marketing director and content manager for the communications dept. That involves media liaison, school paper, advertisement, vendor relations etc. Michael is so thrilled about it. He can’t wait to get in there and start working. His classes start the same day as Megan’s classes. I am still working on getting myself enrolled in the college at Southwestern. I called today for an update and they informed me that I needed high school transcripts as well as all my college ones. I’m going to have to work at a fast pace to meet the admissions deadline now.

After a tense weekend of dealing with a housing assignment error, we have been assigned to our townhouse. It is amazing how exciting it is to us to be moving to a 995 sq ft townhouse. We have been driving by to check on the progress maintenance is making on it. They needed to redo a lot after the previous tenants moved out. It is going to be 5 minutes to Michael’s office, 5 minutes to the pool, gym, workout facility, park, fishpond and right next to loads and loads of kids. It seems like having lots of kids is pretty popular with the seminary types☺.

August will be a tight month for us but we know for certain that God will provide for all of our needs. We are currently staying with friends who are gracious enough to let us crash their place for a few weeks. They live on some property 30 minutes from our “old” house. They have 2 homes on the property, one for them and one for their parents. Their parents are away on missions until August 17th…perfect again eh? So we can move right from here to our new place. Now we are just praying that the townhouse gets finished on time and even…maybe…if it’s not pushing it to much…early!

Thanks for all your prayers!!!

Just a reminder - Rebecca would kill me if she knew that I was posting this, but PLEASE do not forget that tomorrow, August 1st is her birthday. I think she would love a bunch of phone calls since access to email is limited. Again, thanks for all of your support. Michael

Again!!!

Yes again! God is so Good to us. We have had an insane few days with some minor glitches (like me being terribly sick yesterday...I am feeling much better today though.). The house is empty for the most part, we have some misc. stuff to box up. Everything is either in the garage or in storage. We had a VERY successful garage sale. We sold lots of our furniture that we knew we wouldn't need for a while and sold tons and tons of clothes. In fact the clothes were the main attraction here, we sold hardly any in Charlotte when we had yard sales.

The big news for today is that we listed our house for rent about an hour ago. We aren't showing it until tomorrow but the lease sign is in the yard! Even bigger news is that 5 minutes ago we got a call letting us know that there is someone interested in it already! They are building a massive house a few minutes from here (multi-mil neighborhood just down the highway) and need a place for a year. I can't even begin to tell you how good that makes us feel. It is unreal how God blesses you when you truly follow His will. Please keep praying for us! Thanks so much for all your support!!!

Also, please keep my parents in your thoughts and prayers. They will be in Kenya for almost a months on mission work

~Mom and Dad-I hope you are accomplishing great things in Kenya!!! I love you and hope you have a safe journey!!!~

Ahhhhhhh!

Okay, the clock is ticking and we are feeling the pressure! The yard sale is in the morning. We have a lot to do still and will be up pretty late. We just finished our meeting with the property management company lady and it went well. There are lots of fees involved in renting your house out so please pray that God provides for that. The seminary still hasn't gotten back to us on the job. They told Michael to not accept any other positions anywhere but have since left us hanging! After all that has happened over the last few days we know that God has something great in store for us. We just sort of thought it was the seminary job. Anyway, I am off to work again. For those of you who have called/e-mailed thanks so much! Sorry I havent gotten back to some of you but I hope you understand. Today we had to back-track on the packing it seemed for the mngt. co to come take a tour. They had said even pictures might get taken today! Imagine my stress level trying to make a house that has every level of disarray in every corner, presentable! Some wonderful friends took the kids for the day so that we could get things done. Now we have to go to Megan's swimming lessons at the seminary to get the kids and take them to Grandma's so we can get more done tonight. By the way, Megan has turned into quite the fish! she puts on her floaties and swims all over the big pool. I accidentaly saved her yesterday when I thought she needed help in the pool. she was thrashing around and looked like she was having trouble. I quickly grabbed her only to be pushed away. She said, "mommy what are you doing? I am trying to swim!". I found out that she had learned "arms" last lesson and was practicing. Sure looked like frantic thrashing to me:)

God is so incredible!!!

Wow! That can sum up today for you! The day started out not so good. I had guys come to my door (ringing the doorbell about 15 times in rapid fire mode no less) at 2:15. They were there to finish fixing my laundry room floor but no one had called to tell me they were coming today at all. I was so angry, I spoke to his boss on the phone and voiced my disapproval maybe a bit to harshly. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, literally, and he bore the brunt of probably more than his fair share. I haven't had the use of my washer and dryer for 5 days now and have laundry piled up so high! I would have turned them away until tomorrow but I am so desperate to have clean laundry that I let them in after checking their work order several times. Anyway, an hour later Michael got home from his interview and quickly noted that they had brought the wrong flooring! So, they will be coming tomorrow to finish the job now anyway.

Then I finally had the chance to talk to Michael. I learned that the job he interviewed for REQUIRES overtime, its an 8-6:30 sort of job everyday anyway, and one weekend per month is required as well. That pretty much rules out all opportunity to take any classes at all. Michael and I sat down, almost at our wits end. We felt like we were at a dead end. Here we are with our 6 month old house 1/2 packed, no idea where we were going to live (I had spoken this morning to the housing dept at the seminary and they said it might be September before they would have anything for us.) our hefty savings now depleted to next to nothing and seemingly no good job prospects. The job Michael had applied for at the seminary hadn't called him back despite what we thought was a great interview on Wednesday.

Then it happened...a phone call letting us know that we had been overpaying on our car insurance since we sold our car a few months ago. We do not owe on it at all this month and next month is discounted. I am just remembering right now that a week ago we got our power bill, known to be quite large here in TX, and we only owed $4 because they overestimated it the previous month! Then as Michael hung up the phone and we were both a bit teary (it's been an emotional few days/weeks) and my cell started ringing. I practically broke my neck getting to the phone and I just missed it. I saw that it was the seminary # and started yelling at the phone to ring again...it did. It was the housing department lady letting me know that this morning when we spoke she hadn't seen the files yet for the daily assignments but now she has them and we have a place!!! I could hardly contain myself! She went on to tell me that it is an apartment that is 2 bed, 1 bath and 675 sq. ft. and we can hopefully move in by Aug. 10th. I was in tears again. After thanking her profusely I ran in to tell Michael. He was speechless. We sat down again in much different spirits and thanked God for providing at the right moment. 675 sq. ft. is do-able, we started planning out the space, what to take what to store where to place the couches. Then we called to see if we could tour the apartment or on like it. The lady said we could come right now and get the key to check it out. So we rushed over since it was so close to closing time. I ran into the office and introduced myself to Amy; she shook my hand and said, "I think I am going to be your new best friend!" I said "what?” She proceeded to tell me that she had worked some magic and needed to talk to someone. She disappeared for a few minutes then came back out to talk to me. She went on to explain that they had accidentally assigned a town home to a couple that had no children. The townhouses are reserved for families with kids. She then asked if we would be willing to trade the 675 apartment for a 996 town home. I almost yelled/cried YES! Of course! Square footage aside they have washer and dryer hookups, walk in closets, dishwasher, and many more wonderful things that the apartment didn't offer. It was almost as if God needed us to be happy with the least in order to let us have the best. 6 months ago the apartment would have gotten a nose turned up at it by me. I wasn't prepared to make that sacrifice. It was too much. I wanted the house, I wanted the neighborhood, and I guess I wanted it more than I wanted Michael to be in school. But today is much different. Michael and I were rejoicing at God's goodness for giving us the wonderful tiny apartment with coin laundry and tiny sink to hand wash dishes in. God can really make you change your perspectives in a quick period of time.

Wait, I'm not done with the day! I called my friend who is allowing us to stay in the very nice doublewide on their property while we wait for our housing to be ready. I asked if Aug. 17 was okay, it was a week longer than we had planned. It turns out that her parents, who live in the trailer, are coming home on the 16th! It couldn't be more perfect! [I know I am using a lot of exclamation points but that's how I am feeling!!!!!!!!!]

So then we stopped by our house on the way home from the TOWNHOUSE tour to pick up hotdogs to take to Michael's brother for dinner and Michael decided to check his e-mail. He had e-mailed the seminary to follow up on his interview earlier this morning. We they had replied saying at one point, "please don't accept any other offers or positions:) "! They asked him to send some more info about his beliefs and his history and understanding of the SBC (those who know Michael know that this is not a hard assignment for him). We feel like this is a confirmation that this job is a shoe-in. Through this job God is providing for us beyond our needs. It will cover everything and give us surplus.

What God did today was incredible. We had to be broken from our good life so that it could become great in Christ alone.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement. It really means so much that we have so many of you out there rooting for us.

Our last need is to find a renter for the house quickly. I know God can do it and I feel like he is going to make it better than we could have imagined. We love you all! Rebecca

Update

First of all, thank you all for your e-mails and encouragement. I didn't realize there were so many of you keeping up with us! Secondly, Michael's interview at the seminary went well, we think. It was supposed to be only 1 hour and it ended up that the kids and I waited for 2 hours! (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we sold our civic so we are down to one car. I do love the van though! There are lots of families here driving around in 100+ degree weather in unairconditioned 15 year old mini-vans! ) He really hit it off with the interviewer, who would be his boss. It pays more than we had budgeted for basic survival needs while living on campus. It even would allow for us to stay in our house for a month longer than we planned so that we don't have to rush-pack everything and find good renters. Also, we will be able to pay for Megan's pre-school. We enrolled her before we got into this situation and the school won't let us out of our contract. So she will be attending one of the best pre-schools around!!! We have no choice in the matter:)

Since we made the decision to rent the house out I feel like a burden has been lifted. Michael shares the feeling. We have felt like we are sort of left out of the community at the seminary, set apart because we live off campus and also because we weren't "suffering for Jesus". Well, now we can join the club :) It is sad though. I have planted gardens, my tomatoes are just starting to really come into their own. I have all the herbs I've planted and the crepe myrtle tree's transplanted from Charlotte are starting to bloom. These are the things I am sad about. Michael is so proud of the great grass he has worked hard on since we moved in. I love the space we have here. My wood floors, my beautiful bathroom, michael's office/cave are all things we will miss. We talked about it today and agreed that tomatoes, green grass, and bathroom fixtures are nothing in comparison to what God has for us. We are willing to do what we need to in order to follow God's plan for us. I really don't think I was willing to take that step 6 months ago. It was too much to think of moving into the campus housing and leaving Zeke somewhere as well. A lot has changed in my willingness to do whatever it takes. I don't think that means I have to be jumping for joy about it. Hopefully my willingness is enough.

On another note, God has provided some very good friends here. We have known each other for such a short amount of time, maybe 2 months, but we have already become so close. She and I share backgrounds, passion for organic foods, and naturalist "granola" tendensies, and our children are the same ages and get along like a dream. Her little boy is Megan's age and her little girl is Jake's age. Her husband cycles just like Michael and is also in seminary. They don't live on campus and have faced almost identical challenges as we have. God has blessed us with them!

Michael has another interview on Monday at 1pm. This time it's in the financial world. It might pay more but we are really hoping for the job on campus. If we get the seminary one then we can have lunch with Michael, he can take classes during the day (a limited amount of credit hours), he can ride his bike to work (no extra car needed!), and we will have all the benifits covered. Plus he can attend night classes because he can finish work and go straight to class across campus.

Thanks for all your love and support. Please pass the prayer request on to everyone! Thanks! ~R

Wow!

So, we have a lot going on now. Here it is in the short version:

~Michael hasn't been able to find a job
~We are looking to rent our house out for a year and move into seminary housing
~Seminary housing may or may not have something available right now that we actually like. That means we might be living in the 2 bedroom, 600 square foot place surrounded by razor wire topped fences for 6 months or longer. Whatever it takes for something like a 1000+ square foot townhouse to come up on the list.
~It could be as early as next week when I need to pack up the house (2500 sq ft of stuff!) and move most of what we have to storage or sell some of it off.
~Michael and I have a vast array of feelings. We know we are where God wants us...Texas/seminary but we don't know why the job thing isn't working out. We are doing fine though. This should be the time we are flipping out and going nuts trying to figure out what to do... and we have had our moments believe me! But, we are oddly at ease with the whole thing. It has almost lightened the mood around here now that we have decided to rent the house out.

I'll have to add more later but this is all I have time for right now. For all of you out there that are keeping up with us and our adventure here in TX PLEASE pray for us. Michael has an interview on campus tomorrow at 4pm so please keep us in mind. I am sure Michael wouldn't mind some e-mails of encouragement.

Lots of love, R

P.S. Photos are from our recent trip to Myrtle Beach and Megan on her 4th Birthday