Put Up or Shut Up

It’s true. The time has come for Mr. Patient and me to put our money where our mouths are. For the love of Pete, put up or shut up.

Maybe I need to backtrack a bit for our new friends. Well, as you read in post: “Loss and Gain”  we had a revelation, if you will, in June of 2017. You might wish to read that post as a prelude to this one.

You see, when Mr. Patient lost his job of 18 years to an overseas buy-out in 2009 our family of five went through quite an interesting season of unemployment, under-employment and self-employment. Some time I’ll write about that but for now I’ll skip over the life lessons we learned during that season of life. I’ll just say that we had decided to put our family homestead on the market and full-time RV while working with a group called Sojourners out of Marshall, TX. We had considered living on the family Ohio farm after some traveling. We prayed for direction and the service group accepted us as members but our home didn’t sell due to the poor market and location. We were disappointed; however,  now we can see the Hand of the Almighty and His plan for our family to expand in three sweet little ways whom we refer to as “the littles”. Since that time, He doubled our family size and moved us to a different area of middle TN into another great home which we have enjoyed using to show hospitality.

Back to June of last year…Mr. Patient and I had been considering a change of location to reduce some expenses and simplify our lives a bit more. In fact, we had been looking at various land listings for eight months so the decision had already been made to move from our current home. The home was becoming larger than our needs. As we traveled those mountainous backroads of WV and VA to lose ourselves in the mountain air and refresh our spirits from losing two parents, seeing a son off to the Army and other life-altering events,  we did a lot of soul-searching, talking, thinking, praying. The thought occurred to us that the time had possibly come for us to make THE move. The move we had attempted in 2009. Hit the road, Jack. Explore the Nation with our “little family” (our three youngest children). We were already planning to move anyway to a place undecided. Hmmmm…..were we crazy? Well, yes, but that’s beside the point. One thing we had learned by now was that life is short.

What rule says we must be working “for the man” until we retire and die? What is ***really*** keeping us from living our dreams? What is **really** keeping you? Yes…mortgage, kids’ college (or your own college debt), utility bills, credit card bills…but what if?

What IF??

What IF we could think outside the box?? What IF there might be a way?? We wonder.

Our hearts’ desires are to live in community with others, to visit and serve others. We trust our Heavenly Father and we believe His Direction and Provision will be enough. He is Enough. He will open doors. He will close doors. We believe.

**video explaining our decision**

**video showing the RV we think we want**

**showing the RV to the kids, at the RV lot**

**video explaining our spiritual goals, purpose of full-timing for a while**

 

Our hope and prayer request is that He will allow us to hand our house keys to a new owner at a decent price later this year, that He’ll allow us to explore our Nation and learn so much while serving others. We humbly ask that He will allow us to meet so many of you, our friends. We ask that He’ll allow us to be a part of something big–His World, His People, He-only-knows! We ask that He’ll lead us to establish a simple, reduced-grid homestead somewhere in the Nation when we have had enough of RV living. We pray He’ll provide the means and service opportunities. We pray.

So, it is time. Put up or shut up.

Today is the day. I am referring to the list we made–the plan we outlined–to completely clean out our belongings and ready the house to sell later in the year. I begin today. Perhaps it is the warmer weather which allows me to look around in the storage shop, or the moon’s phases that often make me want to purge junk, or just the Spirit’s motivation, either way, here we go.

We’re puttin’ up….

Won’t you ride along with us? Our HERITAGE HOMESTEAD JOURNEY may be followed on our YouTube channel under that playlist name. Quick Link to that Playlist is here 🙂

 

Postscript for Full-time Families and RVers: It is our desire to not just publish what is going on with our family on this website (blog) but to walk life with folks, to share in life (chat). We would love to hear what your first steps were when you decided to downsize, simplify, greatly reduce your home goods in order to move into an RV–whether temporarily like we plan to do, or permanently?? Please share your wisdom and experiences. What worked and what didn’t? What do you wish you had done up front and what do you regret doing?