In case you didn’t know it, God is pretty awesome. I am amazed at how he works and am a true believer that when one door closes, another opens.
I heard about the opening in Hamilton at the perfect time. We came down for our tryout weekend and fell in love with the people. Honestly, we were not excited about the town at first. We both grew up in smaller towns but not near as small as Hamilton. It was November and all of the trees and grass was dead. It was raining and we never saw the sun until we left on Monday. We were full of mixed emotions.
On one hand we loved the people. The small town atmosphere was great and we were excited about the possibility of being in a place like that. My first impression was that were in a high school football movie. On the other hand, what would we do in a town this small. The closest big city is 45 minutes away in Tupelo and we really didn’t want to have to drive that far for entertainment. We lived in Pensacola where anything you can imagine is within 5 minutes of you and Cleveland, Tennessee which is much smaller, but still has it all. How would we handle a town this small.
Once Sunday morning rolled around all of our worries disappeared. We were gathered together with the greatest group of people we could imagine. I taught the guys and their dads and Kaycee taught the girls and moms. After Bible class we were both smiling. We liked it. Who cares how small this place is if we get to be with this group. I led singing for worship that morning and at the High Rise devotional that afternoon. Then Kaycee and I both met with the elders and some of the deacons and I preached that night. Then we went to the Warner’s house for a devotional. It was one of the longest “tryout” days I cold imagine. I slept great that night.
We left Hamilton on Monday feeling great. The sun was shining and we were able to see a little more of the town before we drove back to Tennessee. We talked the whole way back about the kids and parents in Hamilton and how great they were. We loved it. A couple of days later I got the phone call offering me the opportunity to work with them. There was no way to pass up this opportunity.
I was going to graduate from Lee University in a couple of weeks and we decided to finish the year in Cleveland and move after the first of January. I made one of the toughest announcements I have had to make and told them that we wold be moving to Hamilton, Alabama. We were overwhelmed with love from our Cleveland family. The last month was tough. We were really excited about the move but also sad to leave so many great people. Add to that the idea of looking for a new place to live and trying to pack your entire house the week of Christmas while also visiting family for the holidays and taking a group to Huntsville for Exposure Youth Camp. We survived!
Thanks to some help from some great friends (and three trips to Cracker Barrel in one day) we got everything loaded on the truck and we were ready to go. We didn’t have a house to go to yet but thankfully we had a basement apartment waiting on us. We arrived in Hamilton and had a small army of people there to help unload our stuff into our storage units and my office. We were home.
To Be Continued...
I heard about the opening in Hamilton at the perfect time. We came down for our tryout weekend and fell in love with the people. Honestly, we were not excited about the town at first. We both grew up in smaller towns but not near as small as Hamilton. It was November and all of the trees and grass was dead. It was raining and we never saw the sun until we left on Monday. We were full of mixed emotions.
On one hand we loved the people. The small town atmosphere was great and we were excited about the possibility of being in a place like that. My first impression was that were in a high school football movie. On the other hand, what would we do in a town this small. The closest big city is 45 minutes away in Tupelo and we really didn’t want to have to drive that far for entertainment. We lived in Pensacola where anything you can imagine is within 5 minutes of you and Cleveland, Tennessee which is much smaller, but still has it all. How would we handle a town this small.
Once Sunday morning rolled around all of our worries disappeared. We were gathered together with the greatest group of people we could imagine. I taught the guys and their dads and Kaycee taught the girls and moms. After Bible class we were both smiling. We liked it. Who cares how small this place is if we get to be with this group. I led singing for worship that morning and at the High Rise devotional that afternoon. Then Kaycee and I both met with the elders and some of the deacons and I preached that night. Then we went to the Warner’s house for a devotional. It was one of the longest “tryout” days I cold imagine. I slept great that night.
We left Hamilton on Monday feeling great. The sun was shining and we were able to see a little more of the town before we drove back to Tennessee. We talked the whole way back about the kids and parents in Hamilton and how great they were. We loved it. A couple of days later I got the phone call offering me the opportunity to work with them. There was no way to pass up this opportunity.
I was going to graduate from Lee University in a couple of weeks and we decided to finish the year in Cleveland and move after the first of January. I made one of the toughest announcements I have had to make and told them that we wold be moving to Hamilton, Alabama. We were overwhelmed with love from our Cleveland family. The last month was tough. We were really excited about the move but also sad to leave so many great people. Add to that the idea of looking for a new place to live and trying to pack your entire house the week of Christmas while also visiting family for the holidays and taking a group to Huntsville for Exposure Youth Camp. We survived!
Thanks to some help from some great friends (and three trips to Cracker Barrel in one day) we got everything loaded on the truck and we were ready to go. We didn’t have a house to go to yet but thankfully we had a basement apartment waiting on us. We arrived in Hamilton and had a small army of people there to help unload our stuff into our storage units and my office. We were home.
To Be Continued...