The picture above vividly illustrates the reward for long days (and the better part of the nights) of packing all our worldly goods into boxes, loading them all into a rented truck and driving for 14 hours, then unloading everything into storage space and our kids’ garage.
The Clampetts had nothing on us. All we lacked was Granny in the rocking chair on top of the truck.
We pulled in front of Art & Lenn’s home in Cedar Park (a suburb north of Austin) Friday night about 10 pm in the U-Haul truck, pulling our ’95 Taurus on a car carrier trailer and Eida following in the ’01 Explorer.
Everything had gone pretty smoothly (although not very speedily) on the highway until we passed Burnet and ran into a monumental thunderstorm. It was like being sprayed full on with a firehose!
Although the wipers were in good shape and flying back and forth at impressive speed, they just couldn’t keep up! But by God’s grace, and in response to very earnest prayer, we were just barely able to make out the white line on the edge of the road. And every little bit, the lightning would light up the landscape like daylight. That really helped! We were glad to emerge from it and find that the streets were dry here.
Yesterday was unloading day. The humid heat really hit us while we were carrying boxes. It felt almost like being back in the Colombian lowlands. We’re not in the desert anymore.
There was a mix-up at the self-storage place and they first had us unloading our stuff into two different cubicles on the second floor, with a useful but quite deliberate elevator. Then the manager said he’d finally found a ground floor unit for us, so we relocated, but it was worth it. After filling that space, we brought the rest to our son’s house and filled the garage space they’d offered us.
Then we could finally relax a bit and enjoy our family. 🙂
We’ve been able to spend two nights here with the kids, but the toddlers that Lenn provides day care for will show up early tomorrow morning, so to avoid being in the way, we’ll be taking advantage of an offer of hospitality in the home of another Christian family.
Then on Thursday evening, we’ll move into a condominium that belongs to a missionary couple who make it available to other missionaries for super low rent while they themselves are serving overseas in Asia. What a wonderful provision of the Lord!
The purchase of the house we’re buying is supposed to close on September 7th — that’s a week from Wednesday! We’re praying that the promised repairs will have been done by then and that we can have a few improvements made to it ourselves before we move in.
We promise not to send you an Update every other day, but so many people have been praying for us, asking that God’s hand would be on us through this move that we wanted to be sure to let you know how things went. Please praise and thank the Lord with us for his loving care.
Just one more thing… Eida’s dad in Laredo is not able to swallow, possibly because of the fractured C1 vertebra. So they’ve inserted a feeding tube into his side surgically. We’re happy to report that he’s responding well.
Thank you for your loving support and encouragement,
Steve & Eida Irwin
NTM Spanish Language Resources
steve_irwin@ntm.org
Voice & Text: 408-515-1721
Mail: P.O.Box 1077, Cedar Park TX 78630
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