During Covid, when others were staying at home and catching up on projects, Paul’s job at UPS got CRAZY busy. It was like peak season times 5 with no end in sight. This meant that his usual 4-6 hour workday was now 10-14, depending on the day and week. That was a huge adjustment for all of us with some serious scrambling on other work schedules.
In the midst of that, in March, we felt like the Lord was leading us to look at property in…wait for it…ARKANSAS of all places. Don’t get me wrong, it is GORGEOUS and the people are lovely but it wasn’t a place we’d ever pictured living. In May we closed on 25 acres in the middle of the Ozark National Forest. This place is 40 minutes from a Walmart and the second we turn off the steep curvy highway we lose all connection with the outside world (ie. Zero cell service for ANY carrier).
Even as we closed on the property, we had no idea what we were doing or why. It has been a God leading us one day at a time, one step at a time kind of thing. That is always SCARY and AWESOME. What we did know is there was a ton of hard work up ahead. God said go, gave us the date of October 17, and confirmed it through a very specific dream and numerous words from friends who love us and would rather we not go.
So we spent the summer and early fall going down every other weekend with some of our stuff and supplies to turn some trashed buildings into living spaces and each time brought back a dump-truck worth of trash and junk. When we arrived in May the grass had grown from ankle-high to waist-high and we put on our boots and started stomping some paths. Some wonderful neighbors helped the next time by weed-eating paths to all the buildings and hauling off a huge pile of trash while we were gone once. That’s kind of the way things work down here.
Through summer we fought the heat and ticks and chiggers and an initial living plan began to form. As we hit September, some of the plans had to change because of timing and we bought a 25 ft. travel trailer to help with the transition.
And then on October 17 we took our final load to Arkansas and began living the country life.
Much to our sadness, we left our youngest daughter behind in KC and we seriously do not like having our baby 4+ hours away. However, before long, she will be a Mrs. instead of Miss so we are going to add a wonderful son-in-love to our family!
