It’s been a crazy couple of weeks! We finally got our camper moved out to the property where we’ll be living for the bulk of our time before moving to Africa. It’s out in the country on land with only a barn, but we do have electric and water hook-ups! Our closest neighbors are the two horses, two goats, and a dog that inhabit the farm…since I grew up on a farm, I’m excited to move back to rural Indiana (but still only about 15 minutes away from the nearest Starbucks, of course…it’s not that far out in the country!).
We’ve been back and forth between our stick home and the camper for the last couple of weeks, trying to do home-improvement projects on both: to get the house ready to put on the market and to get the camper ready to be lived in. I’ve also been slowly moving things over…little stuff for now, such as off-season clothes, curtains, etc. We want to unclutter our house for showings, and make the moving process easier. I’ve already figured out just how tight storage space is going to be and just how much we’ll be paring down our things in order to make this possible. We’ve made several trips to Goodwill with truck and car loads full of things we won’t be keeping!
I don’t want to lie and say that it’s all fun or exciting, however. The temperatures were right at freezing one night last week (and are supposed to dip several degrees below freezing this week), which means that in late October-early November we are already thinking about freezing pipes, etc. There’s a LOT to think about when you plan to winter in a camper in Indiana! It’s also hard, too, because it’s not a house. It’s not. I can paint the walls (yes, I’ll be painting camper walls) and make it cute and homey, but it’s still not going to be a house. That’s a tough pill to swallow. A few nights this week I have just stopped scrubbing and cried. When the wind blows, the camper rocks a little; we’ve already blown a fuse in the bedroom (a light bulb wattage issue); and it’s not a house.
What I am ridiculously thankful for, however, is that although this process is happening a lot sooner than we thought it would, it is still slow enough for us to digest it. We get to work out at the camper when we can, and then come home and sleep in our stick house. We get to move things over a little at a time, and we get to plan, plan, and plan some more how we will change things and decorate so that it feels like home. Being able to hop back and forth has enabled us to really get used to the idea, and the more we’re there, the more it feels like home. I am thankful that God has given us this grace period to allow the idea to grow on us (mostly me) and for the adjustments to take place. He is a wise God, in case you didn’t know…and He is moving things along at the exact right speed for us.
Here are some interior pictures…
Please pray for us as we move forward…it’s scary!