Home Sweet Home

This past week has been a whirlwind.  A family from church offered to come with our family to Missouri to help move the Newmans from their rotted trailer.  Owen arrived last Friday with his three horses and put them in our pasture here.  He looked at his new home and could hardly believe it was theirs!!!  Next morning, we all crammed into two vehicles with Owen, all the kids, another family and a young man who wanted to help.  It took about 4-5 hours in the very dark early morning to get to the moving truck place to first pick up the truck.

We arrived about 9 am and greeted Evie in front of the trailer.  She was so happy to see everyone.  Hugs went all around.  As she held me tight, she had tears in her eyes, like finally, someone is rescuing them!

Here is their bedroom, which really is not a bedroom because their is no separation from the kitchen, no door.  The bed is what you see, just a box spring on top of cement blocks, a piece of plywood and a foam pad to top it.  Owen tells us stories to where their was a waterfall that ran down the wall behind the bed and like a river beneath their feet.  He would suck up the water with a shop vac and he said he stopped counting after 50 gallons.

This shows the water damage on the ceiling, it is everywhere!  Just rotting and molding every where you look.

This is the bathroom.  The floor is peeling off and a bucket sits there to collect water, but you can see the water damage is beyond repair.

Another photo of the water damage in just the bathroom.

This is the kitchen area which you can see is very tight.  Miss Evie canned thousands of jars here where the counter top will bend if you press on it with your hand.  It is very unstable.  It makes me appreciate having such a beautiful kitchen whenever I canned my food.

This is just a little picture of all the stuff they have.  We did not realize that there was so much tucked away in such a small space.  The floors were rotten and just covered in OSB boards.  Holes chewed through and mushy spots when you would walk.  Every box we picked up was essentially like playing Russian Roulette.  Brown recluse spiders were under nearly every box.  We even killed a black widow.  Owen told us how they would have mice crawl over them during the night and spiders land on them while they were asleep.  Can you imagine?

Everyone made an assembly line to move all the many many boxes out of the trailer.  The building behind them was there but the Newmans were never allowed to use it.  It just stands there empty.  They had to use their trailer to store things.

Even the little ones were helping carry boxes.  What good little helpers.

Owen is trying to figure out where to go with everything.

My lovely friend and her baby helping with the move.  We could not have done it without all their hard work.  Their family has some hard workers.

The men stacked two trailers full of tools and old fashioned stuff.

The baby made sure we did not forget Grandma Evie’s hand washing machine.

We did not get home until 10 pm so thankfully, we had bought a new bed for the Newmans, set it up nice so they could get a good nights rest in their new home.  Sunday morning, they walked over to our home which is right next door and had a nice breakfast together.

After a great meeting at the Cane Creek Church Sunday morning, all the youth and some married men came to our aide.  We had two families from the Homestead Community Post that were visiting and offered to help as well.  It was such an act of love the way everyone worked as a team to get the truck unloaded and the next day to get boxes unpacked.

Strong men, just hauling box after box until the whole truck was swept clean.  They all sat in a circle around Owen as he did some show and tell.  He showed them all the things they made like knives, boots, leather clothing, baskets, and many other things.  All the boys and men were hoping for lessons.  It was really neat to see the interest people had.

Here is Grandma Evie in her beautiful new country kitchen.  She already started canning tomatoes that Shalom (Pearl) Brandt gave to us that were from her and Debi’s garden over yonder.  Evie is so happy.  She hardly stops smiling.  It is truly like she has been pulled from the rubble.  Rescued.

They can happily sit in their home that overlooks the rolling hills, trees, and pastures of Tennessee.  Owen is feeling better and better every day with his breathing.  He is still having a lot of issues, but now that they are not in that moldy, rotten trailer, they are only going to improve.

They have 3 bedrooms upstairs, 1 downstairs, a bed!!!, furniture!!!, a root cellar!!!, a front porch!!!, this view is of the dining area!!!  Everything is coming together, they have light shining into the big windows, hard wood floors, NO spiders!!!!, NO mice!!!!, NO mold!!!!, and they finally have people who love them!

The girls enjoy baking with Grandma Evie.  She sure loves the girls.  I never see so many smiles and giggles.

The boys are over for a visit, as usual.  They are learning how to sharpen knives with rocks from Owen.  I am sure they will learn a lot.  Thank you all so much for praying, we are so glad that they are safe.
Many, Many, thanks to my dear husband Mark.  He nearly broke himself physically, and mentally, trying to pull this all together.  Many sleepless nights he spent getting it all to fall into place.  He is truly a HERO.  He laid his self down to help another brother in his misery.  There are not too many people out there that would sacrifice that much to help someone like this.  I am so thankful to have such a loving, caring, compassionate husband and father to my children.  And many thanks to all the families that also sacrificed vacation time, gas money, and back breaking work to help my husband and Owen get this job to happen.  Mark could not have done any of this without the many hands that helped along the way.  We also thank you all for joining us in prayer.  We know that God was giving us a greater measure of grace this past week.  To God be all the glory!!!!  Thank you God for your endless outpouring of mercy and provision!