Two prayers answered at once ...

In late August, we purchased a '97 Suburban with low miles, at a good price. Even though we've loved our '00 Honda Odyssey, we knew that once the baby's born next year we won't all fit into it anymore, so we kept our eye open for a good buy and purchased the Suburban. Our plan was to then sell the Odyssey to pay off the Suburban loan -- so we immediately started advertising the van for free on Craig'sList.com, in the Seattle area (there isn't a CL closer to Ellensburg). We got quite a few inquiries, and even an offer or two (with contingencies of selling another car first); but no commitment to purchase. It was getting frustrating because we'd have to drive over to the Seattle area to show the car -- which was doing nothing but adding miles on to it.

So we started praying "Lord, send us a buyer -- any buyer!". Meanwhile, we'd also been praying for some divine appointments with international students. In mid-October, we finally listed the Odyssey for a fee at AutoTrader.com and within a week we got an email from someone right here in Ellensburg. It turns out he is an international student from Japan, studying at Central! The next week, he test drove the vechicle and made an offer to buy it (which we accepted). It took another week for the sale to go through -- but now those two prayers have been answered all at once; and God didn't have just "any buyer" in mind, He had a very specific plan in process. The night Hajime picked up the van, we shared a dinner with him, which he really seemed to appreciate. We're hoping to get together with him again.

Six months later ...

We are now in Ellensburg, Neil's been working for JVG Construction since May and I'm now officially part of ISI as a Ministry Representative! We did purchase the house from the friends I mentioned in the previous post, and are enjoying our new-to-us, older home. It's located just three blocks from campus and across the street from the city pool and large public park. Just before moving, we learned that we're going to have another baby (!), so it took longer than usual to get settled, but we've begun having friends and new acquaintances over now and are enjoying an Ellensburg autumn.

In late August we bought a different vehicle because we will no longer fit in our Honda Odyssey come Spring. We tried to sell the Odyssey for two months by listing it on a free classified-type website based over in Seattle, with no success. Finally, we listed it on AutoTrader, and within a week got an email from someone here in Ellensburg. It turned out to be an international student studying at Central, which we found to be a wonderful "coincidence" considering the reasons we moved over here! We had Hajime to dinner, and enjoyed getting to know him. We have plans to try and get together again. (He did buy the van, by the way.)

Lately we've been hearing other ISI buzz about a new work getting started at GRCC -- the community college we were interested in working at before we moved (where nothing really got going despite our efforts). It's amazing how God times things -- after we left, seven churches in all have now come forward to work together there. Praise the Lord!