I’m Back

Posted on February 7th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

Well, I’m back from my trip to Pennsylvania. What a week and a half! It took me two days to recover from the drive home (an all nighter through snow infested Massechusetts). I drove the teen that I teach English and History to down to my in-laws - she’s like family to my family. Highlights of my trip: talking about anything and everything on the car ride, snowboarding, touring Westminster with my parents, having my mosaics accepted into a show, taking a ballet class, and finding awesome deals on a shopping trip.

And now life is back to the grind. But it is good. We’ve been going to a church in Sangerville for the past couple of weeks now, and it is quite refreshing. I don’t know that we’ll stay there long term, but it is a good place for us to settle for now. I really hope we can someday come back to the church here in Greenville.

But it does look as if we will be here for some time to come. We’ve thought a lot and prayed as we seem to have reached a crossroads in our life yet again. Where should we go? What should we do? For now, it seems as if all the doors are open to us staying in Maine. Éva has a good doctor and her health is excellent up here (she always gets sick whenever we travel to another place). Phil has a great job where he is learning life-long skills that he can take wherever we go. I have a great opportunity to get my business off to a good start. And we still have a ministry to the kids in this town - albeit unofficial. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to start a Bible study. Many of our teens are interested, but I want to be careful to not look like I am starting a counter-revolution to the church. I think I’d like to go through the New Tribes Phase One materials that we have. Even though I don’t agree with some of the eschatology, you can’t beat the solid foundation that this material brings to those who follow it through. Here’s a testimony of a recent convert from Tsoi in Papua New Guinea (working with some missionaries that we know) who has gone through the teaching:

Graham:
New life (salvation) can never come to me if I don’t look to this cross and put my faith in Christ who hung here 2000 years ago. I have no strength to nail my book, the record that is against me, to this cross. Only God alone could do it for me. I have seen how that in my life I have struggled, thinking I had the strength to deal with all my sins. But I had no strength. I must have faith in Christ’s death. I want to say that my happiness is not in Wade [the missionary], it’s in God for sending Jesus. He has made my spirit to understand that He alone is able to take me to this new life, this new birth. Jesus did all the work on His cross. I must have faith in Christ’s work on the cross in order to have new life.

So here we stay for now. And if we are here for a time, we are faced with some decisions. Where we are living is wonderful for the short term. It is a huge blessing - a nice-sized house, furniture, a huge field… the downside is that while we are living here, we have to keep up with the maintenance. Parts of this house are over 150 years old. Needless to say, it requires a lot of work… and a lot of money. So if we were to stay here for a long time, we’d end up putting a lot of money into this house.

So right now, we are looking at building. We have a plot of land that we can build on down in the woods. We’ve designed a little cabin - and hopefully we’ll be able to find a loan to make it happen. The design is very basic. On the first floor, there’s a bedroom with a bathroom and the rest of the floor is an open el design - with one end having the kitchen and the other the livingroom. Over the bedroom and kitchen, there will be a loft with two bedrooms and a bathroom for the kids. We’d like to eventually make the basement a guest room, but for simplicity’s sake, we’d probably only finish off part of it and make it a play room/ guest room for now. The rest of the basement could be used for wood storage and a wood shop. We’re looking into costs now and figuring out if this could be a reality. If it is, we’d like to build over the summer and fall (we’d do all the building ourselves), and move in before next winter. Could be exciting!

9 comments.