March 28-April 11 THE MOVE

The last few weeks have been consumed with THE BIG MOVE that my sister, Ruthanne, and my brother-in-law, Terry, are making to Georgia. You see, their health issues are rather complicated and my niece andfamily live in a very nice house with a "cottage" on their same property--this is where they are moving.

The details and some of the preliminary organizing took place weeks before they returned here to Michigan for the actual physical move to Georgia. They have been down in Georgia since the end of January, trying decide what exactly to do: permanently move to Georgia, or ... stay there a few months at a time and keep their permanent residence here.

All things carefully considered, everyone decided that a permanent move to Georgia was in their best interest. I spent a few weeks just removing outdated canned goods from their kitchen cupboards, donating unused items to charity, and doing a bit of organizing. When they moved to Grand Rapids from Detroit two years ago, they took a LOT of stuff they weren't really using. Terry gave me the go-ahead to donate a bunch of that stuff--there really isn't adequate storage at the house in Georgia for unnecessary items.

I picked them up from the airport Sunday night, March 28. We enjoyed some homemade peach pie in their dining room.

Monday through Thursday of that first week, the three of us packed boxes of books, kitchen items, and basically emptied out the cupboards and closets.

I picked my brother, David, up from the airport Thursday evening. He offered to come and help us with the move. Since he can work remotely, this did not interfere with his job. He brought his portable Star-Link with him and was able to do exactly what he does from Florida, right here in my dining room!

Terry ordered and reserved a U-Haul from Tuesday through Saturday, so we began the loading process Tuesday. We hired two young gentleman from Calvary's Young Adult ministry (Aven and Drew) to help us load the heaviest items onto the truck. They were such nice kids! We could not have gotten this accomplished without their help--at least not without damaging our backs.

Terry also ordered a dumpster to get rid of trash ... it filled up rather quickly! I had no idea you could "rent" these dumpsters like this--$200 including delivery and pickup! It was certainly helpful to have it parked right in front of their house and just take trash and throw it in instead of having to bag it all up.

We had a pretty tight plan in mind with just what day had to accomplish what goal, etc. Everything worked out very smoothly! David drove the U-Haul down to Georgia, leaving Friday morning at 6:00 am. I drove Terry and Ruthanne to the airport by 10:00 that same morning, and they flew down to Atlanta. David arrived the next morning by about 10:30 and the truck was unloaded in two hour's time!

A lot of prayer went into all of these rather emotional days. My sister has either dementia or Alzheimer's and has been progressively losing her memory for more than eight years now. This move was terribly confusing for her and I felt so badly for her ... for Terry too. I am thankful, though, that their house sold at nearly the price they were asking for it; and that we had all the help we needed to get everything packed and moved. The buyers of their house here moved into it less than two hours after I took Ruthanne and Terry to the airport.

Thank you, Lord, for all of Your mercy and provision to us throughout this entire move.