Ephesian Hydrangeas

"God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine.  He does everything by His power that is working in us."

-Ephesians 3:20

The other day I was talking with a friend about our new house.  I was sharing with her about the hydrangea "trees" in our backyard and how they are almost as tall as I am!! Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers...we used them in our wedding if that gives you an idea of how much I like them! When I was sharing with her about the hydrangeas, I remembered how the first house we made an offer on had six little hydrangea bushes...three on each side of the flower beds by the front door.  And shortly after that, Ephesians 3:20 (see above) came to my mind.  

Then the Spirit started moving, and I realized how I was willing to settle for those six little hydrangea bushes when the Lord wanted to give us SO MUCH MORE!!!  I am thankful that things didn't work out with the other houses...that the Lord protected us...and He led us to the perfect house for our family!  As I was sharing this with my friend, she said, "These are your Ephesian Hydrangeas!"  I fell in love with that saying, so from now on that is what they will be called.  Each year as they bloom, I will remember the great blessings the Lord had waiting for us in this house!

We have been in our house almost a week, and I still can't believe how the Lord has blessed us way beyond we could ever imagine.  Since we have been here, Chris and I have asked ourselves many times..."Is this really our house!?!?"  We are truly humbled and thankful that the Lord poured such goodness and favor on us!   And we are excited about how the Lord is going to use this home to do His ministry...to allow this place to be a place where He is made known...a place where people can feel safe and encouraged on the journey He has them on and how He will allow us to be a part of that. But until then, I am going to stop and enjoy His beautiful creation...my Ephesian Hydrangeas!

Our First Home

As we pursued the Lord's calling for us to accept a call in Wilson, NC, we quickly found out that there isn't much of a rental market.  All of our married life, we have rented.  We have lived in two very expensive places (outside of D.C. and VA Beach) that made it difficult to buy a home. 

As we continued moving forward with the church in Wilson, NC, we began looking to purchase our first home.  I mean it makes a whole lot of sense to take a HUGE pay cut, start a new call and buy a home all at the same time, right!?!?  The beginning of February, we found ourselves back in Wilson for another interview and decided to look at a couple of houses we had found on the internet.  Our realtor had lined up a few houses for us to see on a Friday.  One of the houses that we found was not on his short list, so we asked him if we could add it.  When he called to schedule an appointment, he found out that there was an elderly woman that lived there.  He also found out that the sellers were  requesting a 24-hour appointment notice.  Since we were coming back to Wilson the next day for another interview, we scheduled an appointment to go see the house.  

We went to look at the houses. By the end of the day, I was discouraged...none of the houses fit our family very well.  They were either too small for our family of six or it didn't have options for a classroom and guest room...two spaces we really needed to have. 
 
On the drive over Saturday to see another house, I got a great peace it.  I felt the presence of the Spirit within me.  I told Chris that I felt like the day I gave my life to Jesus...that butterfly in the stomach...heart racing...kind of feeling.  I thought it so strange to feel that way since we were just buying a house.  When we pulled up to the house, we began walking around.  The front flowerbeds had hydrangeas (one of my favorite flowers) in them.  A dad and a son pulled up to the house next door.  The son was about the same age as Josiah and was wearing an Upward basketball jersey.  I really felt like these were signs from the Lord.  We go inside and so many of our needs for a house were being checked off.  The only downside is we were going to need to do some renovations, but in some ways were excited about doing them.  We went ahead and put an offer on the house.  We get to the inspection part and find out that there was about $14,000 worth of stuff that needed to be fixed. I am not talking about updating, but things that needed to be done to get the house safe and up to code.  We began to pray that the Lord would work out all the details and that the sellers would be willing to fix the things that were on the list.  In the early morning of due diligence day, I woke up.  I started praying that the Lord would move in the hearts of the sellers to fix all that needed to be fixed...that they would do the right thing.  I paused long enough before the Lord to hear Him say, "You need to pray for your heart...for you to walk away from this house."  It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear, but I listened and began to pray for my heart.   Later that day we found out that the sellers really didn't want to sell the house and were refusing to fix anything.  The elderly lady had a daughter living with her.  The daughter shared that if her mom sold the house then she would have no place to live.  I surprisingly handled it very well...thanks to the Lord's leading on how to pray that morning. 

A couple of days later, I woke up really early again.  I decided to start looking at houses again.  There was this house that came up that was well above our budget.  I wanted to scroll past it...I have seen enough "House Hunters" to know not to look out of your price range. But the Lord was persistent and nudged me to look at the house anyways.  As I was reading about the house, I saw a section where the sellers wrote what they loved about the house.  They talked about raising their kids there.  The husband shared how he listened to the creek from his office as he wrote sermons.  And the very last thing they wrote was how they were praying for another family to come love their house as much as they have.  I showed Chris this listing, and I asked him if we should write a letter to the sellers explaining our situation...being first time homeowners, taking a pay cut, etc.  and see if they would be willing to come down in price.  Chris thought it was worth trying, so he wrote the letter and we asked the sellers to come down $20,000.  To our surprise they were willing to do so.  Now, we did something unconventional.  We took a tour of the house via Face Time and we fell in love with the house.  We put an offer on the house and started the process once again.  Since we were still living in VA Beach, we scheduled a trip to Wilson to see the house in person.  When we got there, I realized how deceiving pictures can be.  I really started having second thoughts about the house, but Chris felt like we still needed to pursue the house.  I wanted to dig my heels in, but I felt the Lord saying that I needed to step back and let Him work with Chris.  I shared honestly how I felt like we should walk away from the house and then left it at that.  It took a lot of trust in the Lord to not nag Chris and try to persuade him to change his mind, but I knew that is what I needed to do.  We had the inspection done and the results came back with $34,000 worth of stuff to be fixed.  Again, this wasn't updating, but things that needed to be done to make the house safe and up to code.  I wanted to walk away, but Chris felt like we should still pursue this as an option.  I think part of our continued pursuit of this house was because we thought it would be a cool story to tell and allow God to be glorified in working out such an amazing testimony. Ultimately, what happened was the sellers felt like if they fixed all the things that needed to be fixed they could set a higher asking price even though three realtors told them that they couldn't do that.  And the irony of it all...the sellers called us a few days later and gave us an offer to buy their house.  It wasn't much of an offer because they were asking us to pay more so they could get things fixed and they were going to try to fix as much as they could themselves and only hire out as needed.  We graciously told them no.  

I was completely discouraged with this whole house buying thing.  In my mind I thought, "This is NOTHING like what is on 'House Hunters!'"  Our realtor sent us some listings, and I honestly didn't want to look at any of them.  But Sunday night, I decided to get back in the game and began looking again.  I found a house that I liked on the internet back in February, but it was out of our budget.  Here we were a few weeks later and the price had been reduced...it was in our budget!!  Chris calls our realtor Monday and asks him about this house.  He makes a phone call to the selling agent to find out that an offer had been put on it over the weekend.  I was SO sad, but realized that there was nothing we could do.  We finished up our last week in VA Beach spending time with friends and packing.  A few more houses popped up on the market that we felt might work for our family.  We had scheduled a time on Friday to meet with our realtor to look at more houses.  As the week went on, we had a pretty decent list to chose from.  On Thursday as we were driving to NC, Chris gets a phone call from our realtor letting us know where and when we would meet on Friday.  Before they hung up, our realtor asked if we were still interested in the house we called about on Monday.  Chris said that we were definitely interested and asked him to add it to the list.  We found out that the buyers decided to walk away from their contract because they were moving into Wilson for the first time and decided to rent instead of buy!  

We started our day off looking at some houses...I was definitely thinking about seeing this particular house.  None of the houses felt right.  We would have to give up our classroom or go without a guest room  or our dining room table that sits eight wouldn't fit or there wasn't a place for the kids' toys or it was a lot further from the church than we really wanted.  And then we finally get to the house that I had been waiting to see.  We walked in, and I just knew that this was the house for us.  It has three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms...perfect for our family.  It has an open kitchen and living room for entertaining.  It has a big enough dining room for our table.  It has a room for the kids to put their toys and Wii in.  It has a room for our classroom with a utility sink so we can do fun art and science projects and not track through the house.  It has a room for our guests.  It has a fenced in backyard with a koi pond.  There are HUGE hydrangea bushes with buds galore.  It has a garage with plenty of storage space and a separate tool shed for Chris' lawn equipment. There is even a place for the kids to have a basketball hoop.  It is located in a quiet neighborhood where we can ride bikes and run.  And on top of all that...we are about 3 minutes from the church!!!  This house literally has EVERYTHING we could desire!!  

The rest of the houses we looked at that day just didn't compare to this house.  I kept saying things weren't as good compared to this house.  At that point, I think Chris knew that I was sold on this house.  So, in short, we put an offer on this house.  We were excited, but cautious at the same time.  We had been here two other times and nothing came of it.  I think we were both anxious about the whole inspection part.  The selling agent did share with us the inspection that was done in February and there was nothing major that needed to be done.  She also shared that she had a big heart to heart with seller and told him that he will need to fix things since the house has been on the market for almost a year.  He agreed that he would need to.  Even though we had this verbal agreement, I think Chris and I wouldn't believe it until we had a signature. We went ahead and had our inspection done and then our contractor came over to give some estimates.  We finally got a reasonable number to send to the seller...and then we waited. The couple of days we waited seemed like forever, but we knew we just needed to trust the Lord.  Our realtor called us Tuesday afternoon and informed us that the seller will be paying for EVERYTHING on the list with the stipulation that we actually show up to the closing!! 😁  Ummm, this guy has no idea what we will do to get that closing!! 😂   

So, we are excited to say the least!  It has definitely been a trial buying our first home, but the Lord knew that He had this particular house waiting for us.  I think about all the details leading up to seeing this house.  For so long it was priced high...if it had been lower, then the house might have sold before we even had a chance to move.  I feel like the Lord had it come off the market with that couple to give us time to get to NC to see it in person.  I believe the Lord moved in the couple's heart to rent instead of buy a house.  All I can do is praise the Lord for working out all of the details with this house...for blessing us with way more than we deserve...for knowing the perfect house to raise our family in and do the ministry He has called us to.  

So, without further delay...here is our house:

There will be another blog in the near future as we get unpacked and settled into our new home.  I am sure it will contain LOTS of before and after pictures...especially when it comes to the yard! 😆

Easter 2018

Easter 2018

Well, Christmas has come and gone without our yearly Greenwood CHRISTmas Letter!  During Christmas, there were a lot of conversations about possible changes happening concerning our family, so we decided to wait and see what settled out.  We are doing things a little differently this year…instead of mailing all of our letters, we are going to use social media and email. Instead of a CHRISTmas letter we are doing an Easter letter. The Lord has really been working on me to simplify things since the Bible study I did last summer with the women of our church.  So here goes to change…something I don’t often embrace, but as the Lord continues to fine tune me, I find it better to embrace Him and His ways instead of fighting Him. And another added bonus…it is saving us TONS of money!! Can I get an “Amen” from my Dave Ramsey friends?

So, the BIG news we have been sitting on for a couple of weeks now is that we are MOVING!!  Yes, you read that correctly. There are many reasons for our move, but the biggest reason is our desire to be obedient to the Lord’s calling on our lives.  Chris will be the new Sr. Pastor at Forest Hills EPC in Wilson, NC. We are excited about how the Lord will use us in this area of our country to further His kingdom’s work.  With this move, it puts us within 45 minutes of one set of grandparents and a few hours closer to our South Georgia grandparents. I know ALL the grandparents are excited to have us a bit closer.  As we have been preparing to move to Wilson, we have been trying to figure out our living situation. We quickly found out that Wilson doesn’t have much of a rental market. Because of this, we have found ourselves buying our FIRST home!!  We had put an offer in on a house, but the sellers were not willing to fix the inspection repairs. So, we walked away from that house and are trusting the Lord to provide the home He wants us to raise our kiddos in and do the ministry He has called us to.  2018 is full of many changes…leaving our church and friends, self-packing our home and having our stuff moved across state lines in less than a month, Chris starting a new call as a Sr. Pastor, Sara getting the Hootie Hoos adjusted and settled into a new home and community, and buying our first home.  I told Chris that we must believe in going BIG or going home!!

Let’s get started with the Hootie Hoos update!  As always, we will start with our oldest, Josiah.  He turned nine this summer. I still can’t believe it!  It seems just like yesterday we were celebrating his first Easter with him.  He started 4th grade this year…yes, 4th grade!  His favorite subjects are science and art.  This kid loves to explore…create…figure out how things work.  I am thankful for the great science curriculum we got this year.  It has SUPER easy science experiments for each lesson. Most of the stuff that needs to be used is stuff I already have lying around the house.  To see him in action and come to life when he does these science experiments brings great joy to my heart. He has been into drawing for awhile now.  His grandparents gifted him an art camp for his birthday this past summer. Each day he was SO excited to share his creation when he was picked up. We have a couple of his pieces hanging up.  He spent a few days last fall drawing different animals with pencil. Man, I couldn’t believe that my child had drawn these pictures! He played soccer in the fall and basketball this past winter. He likes both sports, but he continues to say that basketball is his favorite.  He continues to do AWANA this year and does an amazing job of storing God’s Word in his heart. Because of our upcoming move, his AWANA teachers are allowing him to work at his own pace to complete his book because we will not transfer to a new AWANA program to finish off this year.  I have been SUPER impressed with his perseverance to finish his book ahead of the rest of his group. We have enjoyed seeing him to continue to grow in his gentleness and kindness. We have been working with him to take initiative around the house and in situations…to be the humble leader that we can see he has the potential of being.  He has definitely accepted the challenge (on most days) and is stepping up and taking initiative and it makes this mom and dad proud. These kinds of things make us excited to see how the Lord is going to use Josiah to further His kingdom’s work.

Next, we have Sophie.  She turned eight in January! She is in 2nd grade this year and is doing a lot of the same work as Josiah.  The subjects they do together are history, Bible, science, Latin and reading.  She is doing her own grade in math, English, spelling and art. Her favorite subjects this year are English and art. This girl is VERY creative when it comes to writing stories and illustrating them.  And she LOVES to read. Often times, I find her curled up in her bed or on the couch in our front room reading a book. Library Day is one of her favorite days. Most times she has her library book bag filled to the top and can barely carry it on her own!  She continues to be our “cautiously observant” child. BUT when she is comfortable with someone, she comes to life! She has quite the funny personality. She likes to make up her own jokes/puns. And my favorite thing is when she changes her voice when telling us a story. This fall she played soccer and was able to move up an age bracket.  She also did basketball in January and improved tremendously from last year! She continues to be very competitive…I have NO IDEA where she gets that from! 😊  She is continuing with AWANA and is doing an amazing job of memorizing God’s Word. She has completed her book for the year and has started on a bonus book that she is currently tearing through!  It is amazing how much these kiddos can absorb on a daily basis! The last few weeks, Chris and I have both noticed how grown up she is looking and acting. A few times, I was caught off guard by the emotions I felt when watching her comb her hair or putting a necklace on and thinking about her growing up and possibly getting married one day.  But I digress. We have also noticed that serving others is becoming a passion of her heart. When I am doing things at the church, she wants to be right there helping me. When I am cooking and cleaning around the house, she is the first to volunteer to help me. She will secretly make beds for her siblings and sometimes for us. We can’t wait to see how God is going to use her heart of serving others to show others how much Jesus loves them.  

Now, time for Kyrie. She turned six in November and started kindergarten this year.  Her favorite subjects are science and math. In science, we have recently been learning about animals.  This girl has such a tender heart towards animals. She desperately wants to have a dog to the point that she has an imaginary dog named Astra. 😊 She keeps mentioning that since we will be buying a house, we can finally get a dog. For the longest time, renting our house has been my reason to not get a dog.  She is a smart one! She has really picked up on her math skills figuring out math problems that she hasn’t even been taught yet. The beginning of the year, she wasn’t very excited about school.  Up to this point, I didn’t overly stress about her doing school. If she wanted to play with Tobias, then I would let them play. It was a bit of an adjustment for her, but now she gets right to her school work before we have even officially started our school day.  She has also begun to like reading and will choose to read instead of always being asked to read. She has also gotten more into acting out little plays that she has created in her mind. It is a good day in her book when she can get her siblings to participate in her play.  A year ago January, she did cheerleading while the two older ones played basketball. She decided that she didn’t want to cheer this year, but would rather try soccer. She did a great job considering last year she didn’t want to play because she didn’t want to get sweaty! 😊  I think Chris coaching her team helped her tremendously with feeling comfortable on learning a new sport.  Kyrie moved up in AWANA and is doing full Bible verses this year instead of shortened verses like she did last year.  We are so proud of her taking the time each week to memorize her Bible verses and storing God’s Word in her heart. She just finished her book for the year which she is super excited about!  We continue to admire her nurturing heart…the way she gets joy from taking care of people, stuffed animals, and baby dolls brings joy to this momma’s heart. We can’t wait to see how the Lord will fine tune these character traits in Kyrie to make His name known.

Lastly, we have Tobias.  He turned four this summer and started K-4 this year.  Most days he is excited about school, but there are days when he just wants to play.  Most of the time when he wants to play I let him since full-time school will be here before we know it!  His reading is improving tremendously. He is enjoying reading Dick+Jane books. I can’t believe he is the last one to use these books. ☹  His favorite subjects in school are math and handwriting. He is also doing a great job counting to 100 by 1’s. Around 50 he needs help with the transition number (50, 60, etc.), but he continues to count the rest of the numbers on his own.  He is trying so hard to count by 10’s like his big sister and is getting closer to doing it. His handwriting his improved tremendously in the last month or so. He enjoys writing his name and the letters that he learns each week. This past fall Tobias played soccer and had a BLAST.  Most weeks while he was waiting for his soccer practice, he would be found with the older kids running around and kicking the ball. He definitely has no fear and believes that his age and size can’t hold him back! The basketball season has been hard for him because he wants to be out on the court.  Often times, we find him practicing with the two big Hooties. I don’t know how many times he has gotten hurt trying to keep up with them! This kid is FULL of personality! It is safe to say that he is by far our most extroverted child. Last winter, he got it in his head that he wanted to sing in our church’s talent show.  We honestly thought that as it got closer, he would want to back out. But as he practiced on the stage, it gave him an even bigger desire to sing. He did an AMAZING job for a three-year-old singing “10, 000 Reasons” by Matt Redman. He has been planning for his next big performance where he is singing by himself (and some days) with Sophie and Kyrie as his backup dancers! 😊  There are many days that this momma gets way more emotional with this guy.  I guess it is because he is the baby of the family and there are LOTS of lasts with him.  But we love watching him grow into who God wants him to be. We can’t wait to see how God uses Tobias’ love of life, joyful spirit and giving heart to further His kingdom.

In case you’re wondering about mom and dad, we are doing well. Right now, life is a bit busy…to say the least.  This past year we have been disciplers, life group leaders, and marriage counselors just to name a few. Chris has been a flurry of activity at the church working with and developing current and new leaders, laying the foundation for new discipleship programs, and maintaining his other pastoral duties. Sara has matched him in the pace of life as a homeschool mom, an active part of the women’s ministry, and a wonderful helpmate to me (Chris).  We are sad to see this season end here are VA Beach, but the Lord has amazingly made all this fall into place in about three months…a normal pastor search can take anywhere from 6-12 months!!! The next few weeks will be hard emotionally as we pack up our home and spend time with our dear friends. We know that the Lord has been working this move out. Our greatest desire is to be obedient to Him and to teach our kiddos to be obedient as He leads us.  A couple of days ago, I shared with someone that it is so easy to teach on obedience during discipleship time, but how hard it can be to live that out. It is really easy to obey when the Lord asks you to pay for a meal or pay for groceries. It is easy when He asks you to reach out to someone. But this is hard...leaving a church where you love the people you are ministering to...leaving a “dream job” to do something unfamiliar…taking a big pay cut…buying your first home.  In our mind, none of this makes sense, but what makes sense is for us to obey Him…to trust Him. A few weeks ago, the Lord gave me an image of a bird nest. I told Him I wasn’t ready to leave the nest…that I liked it here…that it was comfortable and familiar. And then He told me that I needed to trust Him and the wings that He has given us. Gentle He has been gathering us to the edge of the nest. He is saying it is time to spread our wings and fly.

"Yet those who wait for the Lord

Will gain new strength;

They will mount up with wings like eagles,

They will run and not get tired,

They will walk and not become weary."

Isaiah 40:31

So, that is what has been going on in the Greenwood Family.  We hope that this letter finds you well. Once we find a home, we will let you know our new address.  

Continuing to learn to live and love like Jesus,

Chris, Sara, Josiah, Sophie, Kyrie and Tobias

Family website:

http://toliveandlovelikejesus.blogspot.com/

Mathetes 268 Ministries website:

http://mathetes268.com/

Forest Hills Presbyterian Church website:

http://www.foresthillsepc.com/