Dear Family & Friends,
With the end of 2011, we look back at the blessings and challenges thanking the Lord for all He has done. Andy still works full-time with Gaylord Opryland through the nights and part-time at Publix Supermarket in the afternoons. Sharon is enjoying being a stay-at-home mom to David and the new opportunity to truly be a homemaker in our new home. While we had looked for a house in 2010, we began searching with determination again in late summer. We grew a lot in the process and looked through a lot of very nice houses here in Middle Tennessee. Any home (even if you're building it from the foundation up I've heard) has pluses and minuses, and so we looked at a lot of area properties in our price range. In the process, we trusted that the Lord had a home in mind for us and we found encouragement seeking His guiding hand from the promise of scripture:
“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NASB)
We found one that seemed to have everything we needed, and began packing up to move in August. It is a beautiful home in a great established neighborhood. We received down payment assistance through a program for first-time home buyers through THDA, but a rescheduling of a class required by the program caused our closing to be delayed from Sept. 28th until late on Sept. 29th (which actually meant we didn't get the key until Sept. 30th). We had everything arranged to have help, rental truck and time away from work for Andy based upon moving the evening of closing and the entire following day. It caused hassles with missing an additional night of work and spending a night at Sharon's parents' home with nearly all of our things locked in a moving van. But it all worked out and we got everything moved in with help from our First Baptist Church Gallatin family and coworkers from Publix.
So not only was October a big month with both Sharon’s and Andy’s birthday, but it was the beginning of the adventure of home ownership. We knew from the beginning that we were going to be taking some time to move the back yard fences out to the property lines, but added more work as we found out about some plumbing issues that needed urgent attention. There is no maintenance man to call like at the apartments; it had to be addressed, so it was up to us. Not having any real maintenance know-how ourselves, Sharon’s father, Ron Hoffman, was invaluable in getting the problems fixed. Mom & Dad Hoffman also surprised us with housewarming / birthday gifts of a storage shed, additional fencing and screen doors (with assembly assistance – Dad with labor, tools, and expertise & Mom with loving care for David and wonderful food).
Not everything on the upgrade and repairs list is complete (though I fear no fifty-year-old home ever has maintenance “complete”), but with furniture finding places, opportunity for Sharon and David to meet some of our new neighbors during trick-or-treat, and most of the household items finding places other than boxes, the house was beginning to feel like home. And just in time to prepare for Carl Jentes to fly down from Ohio for Thanksgiving with us in our guestroom. We thought it important to have Dad come to get to spend time with his family (especially his grandson) in this, the first full year without Pat. Though she is greatly missed, we know she moved to her Father’s house and we will be together again. As we look forward to our first full year in our new home and the joys of planting flowers and a garden in the rebirth that is Spring, we know that her joy is complete now in her new home that her walk with her Lord is can now be side-by-side and unclouded by pain.
We are so blessed to have a great church home at First Baptist Church Gallatin where Sharon
In His Service and Only By His Grace,
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