Those of you who follow our Facebook feeds (see the sidebar) already know that we’re back in Pensacola again. It seems that just when we get settled into a place God moves us on. It reminds me of the end of Psalm 55:19, which says, “Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.” I wonder if God wants to keep us on our toes to keep us dependent on Him; I know at this point we’ve moved so often that I have a hard time imagining that we will be here for more than a couple years, and I find myself wondering where He’ll bring us next. Really, it doesn’t matter so long as we know that we’re exactly in the middle of His will: that is the most important thing in all the world.
Along with the move of course comes a new job. I’m still doing Oracle database administration, but now I’m working for Northrop Grumman. It’s extremely convenient that this position is located in Pensacola, since we already know the area and have a number of good friends here. Rachel’s been able to join a homeschool group, which provides fellowship, support, and encouragement for her as well as educational opportunities for the kids like field trips and weekly PE classes. One of the difficulties of homeschooling in this area is A Beka Book‘s embargo on selling their curricula to local homeschoolers. We had already purchased our materials before we moved, so we’re set for this year, but we were wondering what we would do next year. However, the Lord once again provided by using a couple of the ladies at the homeschool group to introduce us to a new classical-education program that is receiving extremely high praise.
Once we determined that the Lord was leading us back down South we found ourselves in the position once again of needing to sell our house, which we had only been living in for two years. This was made even more difficult by the pathetic housing market. After a couple months we realized that we likely wouldn’t be able to sell it for more than a loss, so we began to consider renting. This had several advantages, including keeping the asset in our name (in the long term I believe it will be a good investment), attractive tax breaks, and having a place to move into if God moves us back (you never know). I took a 4-day trip up there in the fall to manage some significant maintenance and upgrades, and met with the representative from the rental management company. The next weekend it went on the listings, and the very next day a couple called about it. To make a long story short, within only a few days of listing the property, we had a signed 3-year contract. I went back up a few weeks later to install some new blinds, and after meeting the tenants I’m confident that they’ll take care of the place and fit in wonderfully with the rest of the neighbors. It was stunning to see God’s confirmation of our decision to rent by giving us good tenants so quickly, especially after having so little interest when we were trying to sell it!
This isn’t the full scope of the changes we’ve faced here in just the last few months, but this post is getting a little long, so I’ll save the biggest news for later. Until then…
The Heinrich Family 