Moving Day

Tomorrow we move. No, not back to Virginia. At least not yet anyway. Some new friends we met at church are actually vacating their house and going "camping" for the next 7 weeks to let us have a house of our own. Yes, I said camping. They're actually excited about the prospect of camping in Oregon in the spring in a fifth-wheel trailer -- all six of them. God bless them. Needless to say, our friends Lee & Dana and their four children ages 9 and under have rocketed to the top of our "Really, really good friends" list. (Editor's note: Do we actually have a list like that? Author's reply: Well, no. But if we did they'd be up there, right?) The kingdom of God is a wonderful place. We've had one family, the Langs, let us live with them for six months. Another family who we've just met is opening up their home to us for two months. The generosity of our brothers and sisters in the faith is truly humbling. And what an encouragement.

Before we left Virginia to come to Oregon, the Lord had spoke to Brenton in II Kings 8 in the story of the Shunamite woman. Brenton had left for his last semester of Bible college but called us to say he had read something that applied to our lives as we were preparing to move to Oregon. The passage of Scripture describes the Shunammite woman, who was told to "go with your household and sojourn wherever you can sojourn..." for a famine was going to be in the land for seven years. Now, we at Team Sabo weren't facing a famine per se, but it described our situation as we were heading out to the "Beaver State" to stay where we could, counting on the Lord to provide for us. It also described how at the end of the seven-year famine the Shunammite woman returned to her homeland and the king ordered, "Restore all that was hers and all the produce of the field from the day that she left the land even until now." We left behind our house in Gloucester, a job and so much else in faith that we will receive it when we get back, as we see how the Lord took care of the Shunammite woman thousands of years ago. We say Scripture is alive and it's alive with stories of faith that are our sustenance today.