Beautiful Sunshine

Can I just say, after being in northern Illinois for a few weeks, spending four days in Orlando was heaven! Honestly, the weather had been fairly nice the few days prior to our trip but the warm Orlando sunshine was wonderful.

Mike and I had been planning for several months now to attend Exponential (the National New Church Conference) in Orlando. We just got back late last week and the conference was awesome! Not only were we able to see my parents and my brother John but Troy Bayne, my youth minister growing up, also came with them and we were able to meet Ben, their tech guy. My mom found a great condo for an unbeatable price so we all got to spend a lot of time together in the evenings. Mom actually came along to babysit Sarai while the rest of us attended the conference. So the two of them got to do a lot of fun stuff like bake cookies, go on walks and watch movies. I stuck around the condo the first day during the pre-conference and we got to go swimming! It was Sarai's first time in a kiddy pool and at first she wasn't sure what to think of it. Not to mention the water was a bit cool since we went in the morning and the sun hadn't warmed it up yet. But within about 15 minutes she was splashing and letting me show her how to swim on her belly. Once she got comfortable, she would not get out of the pool! I'm glad mom got to have some special time with Sarai and I really enjoyed spending some much needed time with my family.

As far as the conference, all I can say is "AWESOME!" I knew it was going to be a great week but it was better than I had anticipated. Exponential is a conference specifically geared toward church planters and church planting churches. This year they offered for the first time, a track for spouses of church planters. It was so encouraging and uplifting for me. All of the women who spoke challenged me in some way and they all gave me so much to think about. More than anything, it was encouraging to sit in a room with 130 other women who have either gone through or are going through all the same thoughts and feelings that I am. We also ran into lots of friends which is always fun. We unexpectantly ran into a couple we meet almost 5 years ago when we first began our journey towards church planting. Matt and Jackie Berry were one of the four couples in our group that was assessed in California with NCEA before they became part of STADIA. And they just happen to have the Sarai that our very own Sarai was named after! Now their Sarai is in kindergarten. When we met her, she was only five months old! It was so fun to spend some time with them and hear what God is doing in their life. We were also able to see Dave and Anne Milam, the planting family of the church we attended in Charlotte for 6 months before moving to Chicago. They are a wonderful couple and have been such a great source of encouragement to us. All in all it was a great week and a wonderful mini-vacation. Enjoy the pics from our trip and pray for warmer weather here in Chi-town!

Nana let Sarai help with all the aspects of baking the cookies. Sarai thought she was pretty special and now when she sees these pictures she says, "cookie dough, cookie dough." I think it was big hit mom! Thanks :-)

Nana and Sarai enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Eating spaghetti with Papa. Good thing dad had on a red shirt!

Swimming with mommy and Uncle John.

Family pic time! Nana was hiding behind the camera :-)

Home Sweet Home

Well, here it is! We finally got our DSL hooked up at home so I can now post pics of our place. For those of you who don't know the story, this house was definately an answered prayer in my book. The week Mike flew up here to find us housing was frustrating. The first house we thought we might rent fell through (probably a good thing now in hindsight) and apartments wanted $1400-$1500 in rent for a 6 month lease. So halfway through the housing hunt, things weren't looking good. Then a family in the church contacted Mike and said they might have a place that would work for us. It was a cozy home located in Gurnee (the exact area where we want to plant), close to Gurnee Mills mall (yeah for me!), 3 bedroom/1 and half bath (bigger than any old apartment), a one car garage (great for storage) and a big backyard for Sarai to play. And they were asking a much more reasonable amount for rent compared to apartment options. So I was very excited when Mike called and told me about this possiblilty. The catch was the previous renters had pretty much trashed the place and our landlord, Jeff Robinson, was redoing just about everything inside. Nice for us because we would get all new stuff but Jeff now only had a week and half to get a majority of it done rather than the month he had anticipated. And boy did he work his tail off! I added some of the before pics at the end of this post just so you could see the amazing transformation. He put new floor in the entire house minus the laundry room (he wants to eventually do that). He gutted the kitchen and put in new cabinets and countertops. Love it! So much fun to cook in a brand new kitchen. And he gutted the bathrooms. He still has a few things he wants to do but the house has come a long way. We have already met several of our neighbors and they are all great. And we have a wonderful neighborhood park only blocks from our house. So needless to say, you can understand why I believe God wanted us to be in this house. Enjoy the pics!

Oh and you can literally run circles in the house! You come into the living room, walk into the kitchen/dining room, through the laundry room, into the Master's halfbath, into the Master bedroom, out to the hall, past the two other bedrooms and full bath, and back into the living room! Crazy huh! And I actually like it :-) And please excuse the mess of boxes. We are still moving in.

The back bedroom is currently our storage/office space. We need to get the garage cleaned up so we can move this stuff out there. This is literally as far as you can walk into the room! The chair to the left of the pic is at the desk and we can get to it.


This is the full bath. It is tiny so I couldn't get an angle on the tub. It is to the right of the pic behind the door.

Looking back down the hallway from the living room. Oh, and I didn't get any pics of Sarai's room. She was napping when I put this post together.

And here are the BEFORE pictures!

And just for fun I thought you might like to see what the house looked like with snow! The week Mike was here, it snowed! Go figure.

Adventures in Moving

Anyone who has every moved knows that no matter how much you plan and plan, there are always things that come up you never can anticipate. That has been the story of the Foster Family this past week.

Mike returned on Wednesday, a week and half ago, to load the truck and move us to Gurnee, IL. The adventure began on Saturday morning as we tried to pick up our U-Haul. We were supposed to be getting it from a local towing business. As Mike and I followed the directions the this business, we found ourselves going down a dirt road in a residential area and stopping just on the outside of a home surrounded by a chain link fence with a "No Trespassing" sign on it. Talk about scary. Mike preceded to call the business phone number several times but no one seemed to want to take our calls. He attempted to go knock on the front door but only got about halfway when a not so nice looking dog appeared. So we ended up calling U-Haul and they luckily had another 26 foot truck just a few miles up the road from where we were currently. So our morning started out a bit behind schedule. Mike and several guys met up at our storage facility and began the packing process. I went over around one to bring them lunch and had to remove myself after about two hours when they began asking me what stuff was "expendable." Translation, we probably aren't going to get everything on the truck. But miracles do happen, and a few hours later, Mike called me to tell me everything was on the truck and he was on his way back to the Hawleys. Whew! One task down! Saturday evening and Sunday we enjoyed our last few hours with the Hawleys and also had the opportunity to say good-bye to many of our other friends in Charlotte. We love you all!

Monday morning we threw the last few boxes in the truck, packed the car, picked up Katie Willett (our dear friend who gave up part of her spring break to help us move) and began the 15 hour drive to Chicago. Besides leaving a little later than we had hoped, Monday's leg of the trip went well. We were able to stay the night in Louisville, KY at the home of the Glen and Wendy Gibson. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see them as they were on their spring break vacation. We all had a good nights rest and got back on the road Tuesday morning. And until about noon on Tuesday, we were having great trip. Then the drive shaft on our U-Haul decided to fall off the truck. God was definitely protecting Katie, Sarai and I as we were following Mike behind the truck. Mike had noticed something didn't feel right with the truck so he had pulled over to the side of the road. We looked around the truck and then decided to cautiously get back on the interstate. He was probably only going about 15-20 mph when the drive shaft then fell off the truck. If he had been going much faster, it could have been much worse for those of us behind him. So we then had the privilege of having our truck towed into West Lafayette, IN home of Purdue University. We actually decided to go check out the campus while the U-Haul mechanic put a new drive shaft on our truck. We figured we had nothing better to do :-) And four hours later, we were back on the road and scheduled to hit Chicago during rush hour in the rain. We couldn't have planned it better! Mike skillfully maneuvered the truck through traffic and we arrived at our rental house around 7. For those of you don't know, the previous renters had done a number on the house and our landlord had been working the entire week and a half before to get the house ready for us. He had actually been there more than 50 hours straight when we arrived. There are still some little things to be done but we are just excited to have a place to call our own. Oh, and we got to unload the truck in the poring rain. By this time in our moving adventure, nothing surprised me.

So now, five days after moving in, we are starting to feel more at home. We have found our couches so we now have a place to sit, Sarai's room is all but done, and I can cook in my newly remodeled kitchen. It has been like Christmas finding all the things we had packed away over six months ago. Now don't go back to the guest bedroom because that is where we are hiding all the boxes that still need to be unpacked! Hehe!!

Closing One Chapter To Begin A New One

Well, we are finally down to our last five days in Charlotte, NC. It almost seems surreal as I have avoided facing reality until now. I have begun the good-byes and the packing of final items. Mike has been in Chicago this past week securing us temporary housing and Sarai and I have missed him greatly. But God has definitely been going before us. We had one house possibility fall through and the apartments wanted way too much for a six month lease. Then another home became available through a family in the church and it just happens to be right in the area where we will be planting and a great fit for our needs until we can purchase our own home. God's timing is perfect and I am learning that more and more through this experience. So Mike will fly "home" tomorrow, we will pack the moving truck on Saturday and begin the journey to our new home in Chicago on Monday, April 7th. As we close this chapter of our life in Charlotte, we are feeling so thankful and so very blessed. We would not trade the relationships nor the memories we have made here for anything. But we are excited about the new chapter God has been preparing us for in Illinois.

Here are few pictures of Sarai enjoying her last few weeks in sunny, warm North Carolina!

Slide girl

Playing with bubbles! She loves to try to pop them in the air!

Lazy morning in mom and dad's bed

Supposedly helping mom with the laundry

Our last Tuesday night with Sarai's friend Lilly

Dyeing Easter eggs!

Opps! We got a little excited about the green dye.

Now we are dyeing feet?

Excited about her Elmo's World DVD in her Easter basket

Kissing the sweet bunny the Hawley's got her for Easter