New House, New Life

So, we bought a house, or at least almost. We are supposed to close on October 30th and if all goes well with re-finishing the floors, we'll move in the first weekend of November. But buying a house isn't the main thing we are doing. Primarily, Joseph is starting a church, as Church of the Good Shepherd's first church-plant in Indianapolis. The end of this year marks some big changes for us and fulfillment of many hopes deferred. We waited for a baby for 5 years, specifically for our adoption to be completed for almost 2. We waited for God's calling on planting a church or going into an existing church. We waited to move to Indianapolis until our adoption was completed and now, suddenly everything is fulfilled! God has been good and we trust He will continue to be good. We do covet your prayers though, especially that Tate will transition well.

In Tate's one year of life, he has already moved more than I did in my first eighteen years. Transitioning to a new country, new language, new parents is pretty serious business and now it's time for another change. So, pray that we are faithful parents and to see his needs. If that means it takes me two months to unpack, so be it.

Our house is a pretty typical three bedroom brick ranch with some serious character in the basement. I unfortunately do not have any pictures of the exterior, but if you've seen a brick ranch, you've pretty much seen our house :-) Here are some pictures for you though.

Yes, that is fake brick in the kitchen. I think it looks kind of cool, but will eventually paint it and the cabinets white. We're also working on getting appliances.
This is the basement. The original owners were apparently big fans of fake stone. They used this fake limestone in the basement.

Ah, and here we have the lovely shag carpeting on the wall. It's a good half inch shag and I'm a little scared to touch it. Right now I'm weighing whether it is better to leave it up, or rip it down and have just a bare concrete wall. What do you think?