Lots of Changes

This post could be alot longer than it's going to be - but I just don't have the time or mental capacity! I'll try to break down our past couple months for you....

Christmas was great. I think I posted about all that already :)

Jared continued to lead worship at a local church through January and his last Sunday there will be this coming weekend (we knew when he signed on to do it it was only temporary)

Jared did some marketing for an online project and was contracted for the month of January. That is done now.

Still no permanent job. God has been so faithful in taking care of us and we have lasted FAR longer than we ever thought we would without Jared having a full time job. We can still see some time ahead of us that we have the funds for and are thankful for that as well. I try not to get caught up in thinking about the day our money could run out :)

We have made a big decision. Very big. Hard yet exciting all at the same time. We've decided to move our family across the country to North Carolina. This is where I grew up (and Jared lived for a couple years). While there are things we love about the area we currently live in we've always known we probably wouldn't want to live here forever and we've often considered making the move to NC. Now that Jared does not have a job, our kids are young, and there are many things going on in our life now that seem to be coming to an end we thought it was a "good" time to make the move. This decision does not come without hardship. The hardest is leaving Jared's family. I'm thankful for travel and technology that makes distances seem smaller these days - but even so, we will still be 3000 miles away and that will be very hard and very sad. :( It's hard to leave our friends and it's hard to leave our home. But we will get a new home (and home isn't about the building of course - it's about the people inside it) and (again thanks to technology) be able to keep in touch with friends (though we will miss them terribly and noone can replace them). Jared does NOT have a job there yet. He does have a couple of possibilities but nothing for sure by any means. Here are some things you could be praying for for us.....

God's continued provision
Peace
Doors to open for us in many areas in NC
A great job for Jared, even one that he can truly enjoy
The transition to be as smooth as possible
That this will be more fun than hard on the kids (their big child-like concern right now is that we'll have to leave their toys behind) They don't really grasp something as big as this and I realize it could go well or really not for them. We need wisdom on how to move them through it.
Wisdom about our pets. So sad but we cannot take the dog and probably not the cat
That our house will sell very quickly. Since our bank account will run out at some point we really need this to happen soon. It's not a great market for that but God is in charge.
That our house will sell for as much as possible :) Again not a great market for that and we definitely won't walk away with what we put in but any cash in hand would obviously be a huge help.
That people will want to buy our stuff :)
That we will find a good, inexpensive place to live and a vehicle before we get there.

Our plan is to start in Raleigh. We could start out in Charlotte if we find a better temporary housing option there. After that it all depends on where Jared works (and a few other things). We hope it's either the Raleigh or Charlotte area but again - God is in charge :)

I could probably go on and on about this but I need to get going. Thank you all for your love and support!