Perfect Timing

When I was in high school our church youth choir took a musical on tour that included choreography to go along with all the songs.  As I sat here thinking about God's perfect timing and provision over the past few weeks I found the words from one of the songs popping into my head.  And 19 years later I could still stand up and perform the moves, too.

"He's got perfect timing, He's never a moment too late.

He's got perfect timing no matter how long you must wait.

You think your life is on hold, but God is still in control.

And while you're biding your time, keep his promise in mind,

and be faithful to know who you are!" 

Shout-out to all my Arab FBC youth group peeps.  

But truly God's timing has been incredibly perfect this week!  We needed to move out of Gerald's apartment the last week in June, and the guest house we're moving to was emptied of furniture and a sink installed, along with plumbing for a washing machine just before that.  The very week the guest house was empty a team of college students from Missouri were scheduled to be in Paris ready to complete a service project for our church.  When K.J. contacted the moving company storing our belongings in England they said they could deliver the first week in July, just after the mission team left.  Great is his faithfulness in all these details.  

And how could we thank the team from Hannibal LaGrange University enough!  I now know more people from Missouri than I ever have before, and they were all such a joy to meet.  

If you follow me on Instagram you've already seen a few before and afters, but I thought I'd share the progress made here.

This is the biggest bedroom of two, which the kids will share.  I took this picture on our first visit to the house.

Our hostess's sons cleaned out furniture and packed away books.  K.J. and a friend pulled up the carpet one day, and the team sanded, stained, and varnished the wood floor, as well as cleaned, dusted, and touched up paint on the trim.  This week it looks like this, and it's just gorgeous.

I can't take my eyes off those floors.  It feels appropriate to thank the grand organizer of all this work again for providing all the plans and tools and materials.  Nicky, you are amazing!  This is the room that will soon be filled with Legos and school books.  

This room was being used as a guest room but is going to be our living room.  Furniture was cleared out, and carpet was removed, and look what we discovered under the carpet!

It's such fun tile, isn't it?  

The walls had a texture similar to stucco, but it was a lot pointier.  The team manually sanded it down making it a little less dangerous and a little easier to paint.

The light isn't good in this last picture, but we painted the walls and the trim white, and we'll probably spend the next month watching Netflix while we scrape old glue and such off the tile.  This room gets really good light when you open the shutters, and it will be our living room and most likely dining room, too.

The kitchen needed the most work, mostly because it didn't really exist as a kitchen!  The walls were covered with a fabric you can still see in the picture below.  K.J. and Ryan (who helped rip up the carpet) took it all down, and we scraped off two layers of wallpaper, plastered, and painted.  It was a great transformation!  

Day two, and things were looking better...

By the end of Day 3 it was looking much more like a kitchen!  The built-in cupboards got a fresh coat of paint as well as a little pop of color.

We plan to buy a stove to go to the left of the cabinets, and there is a refrigerator to the left of that space.  I forgot to take a picture of it.  Another kind provision from the Lord was buying a fridge, washer, dryer, and microwave from one British family moving back to the U.K.  It was a bargain and we got it all in one place.

We got word today that the moving company will be arriving at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, so the next pictures will be boxes everywhere.  Woo-hoo!!