When We Moved To Waco, We Never

 

May 2015 – before we knew we would move to Waco just 3 short months later!

We never planned to move to Waco.  It just came about.  When people here ask us “what brought you to Waco?” I think they expect to hear the common answer of “Baylor” or “we grew up here.”  But we say, “God.”  Because the truth is that it didn’t completely make sense to uproot our family from where we had friends, a job, and a place with a ocean view.

When we say we moved here from San Diego, the usual response is “Oh, it’s so pretty there!” or “I love the ocean” or “Why?”.  When we said we were moving to Waco, I know many of our friends, family, acquaintances, and others have said, “You should be on Fixer Upper!” (after some of them said the expected references to the Davidians or the bikers).  I’d guess that 50% of American households have heard of Chip and Joanna by now.  And we know that they are amazing, but they are NOT Waco.  I know people are moving here by the droves.  Literally.  The housing market is booming – the word is that it’s up 25% in just the past year.  Downtown businesses are growing, there will soon be an expanded riverwalk filled with restaurants and new businesses.  There are good things happening in Wacotown.  Magnolia and what Fixer Upper shows America is one of them.

It is fun to watch Waco scenery flash across the tv and see familiar faces we’ve met in our brief year and a half of living here.  What’s really strange about the whole Fixer Upper thing is that we will be seeing our own faces on there, on the next episode, which airs…TONIGHT!

So when I say “when we moved to Waco, we never…,” I really mean that we never thought we’d actually be ON Fixer Upper.  It all just happened.

We have had to be pretty hush-hush about the process (contractual agreements and all), but now that it is about to air…

Our family is so thankful for our home and everything Chip and Joanna have done to make that happen!

So, if you’re a Fixer Upper junkie or you just really want to see us makes fools of ourselves on national television, tune in tonight.

 

Quest for a Home

Last week ended on a note of discouragement.  We came really close to our dream home.  It was in the right neighborhood.  It had enough space.  And the backyard was AMAZING!  And it wasn’t even on the market technically, which seemed like a great situation.  But really, it was just a tease.  It wasn’t just any house.  It was a Fixer Upper house.  As in, Chip and Joanna Gaines had put the “magic” touch on it.  Only thing is that the magic touch will cost you.  We didn’t know how much at first, but in the end, it was more than we could justify.  But in the meantime, I got my hopes up.

I want a home.  I want a place where my family is comfortable; where we can lay our heads at night and not worry about our safety or where we’ll be sleeping next month or even next year.  And I want it to be a place where I will LOVE to be with my family and friends, feeding and entertaining them, hosting youth group and home fellowship groups.  A place where my kids’ friends will want to come and just hang out.

Moving to a place where the cost of living was half as much fooled me into thinking we could snatch up our dream home – even if it was a “fixer” – in a hot second.  But I was wrong.  It’s been a hard, difficult path and we are still on it.  I could blame it on the fact that we’re hard to please or that coming from California has made our standards too high.  But the truth is that I have a yearning for the RIGHT house.  I’m willing to fix it that way, but it has to start with the RIGHT potential.

House hunting is hard work.  I love looking, but after three or four in a day, you start to feel your head throb and your level of expectation and excitement has been watered down by the dread of seeing another cockroach or another atrocious pink striped wallpaper set off by a hideous glass chandelier.  There are those moments, a glimmer of hope, when you see the potential in a space.  Or when you meet that sweet old lady who’s lived in her home for forty-one years and shows you every special cupboard and floral painted sink detail she is obviously so proud of.  Those moments bring to life the whole point – people on a quest for a place to love while they live.

We have seen many houses – I’d guess at least thirty at this point (I’m sure our realtor knows how many).  I think we’ve entered the stage of being on the verge of quitting, ready to just get a rental and worry about other things, like buying a second car, starting a new job, and going to football games and cross country meets.  We need somewhere for our things in storage to be delivered, to be unloaded and set up and for us to be reacquainted with after a long separation.  I’m ready to sit down with our photo albums that I haven’t been able to look at for over a year now.

But the truth is, that when I look at those old photos, I am reminded that God is faithful.  He has brought us through many hard seasons.  Each birth of our children was a miracle, a near death experience in some ways.  And God has granted us each day to breathe and love and give grace to one another.

Different friends back in Cali and here in Waco have been offering me encouragement straight to the heart:

“I know God has a plan for your house since he’s orchestrated the rest of your move.  It’ll all fall in place.”

“I am sure your journey is going to encourage others and be a source of strength for those experiencing uncertainty.  The Lord has the perfect and best path for you and your family.”

My husband just called me after meeting with two of our son’s teachers.  We were concerned about how he is adjusting at a new school and middle school all at the same time.  Everything my husband heard was confirmation that we are in the perfect place.  A place where our children will grow, be challenged, and be able to thrive.  This journey is not over.  I just need to remember over and over that I must “trust the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding.”  This verse in Proverbs has sustained me since I was in middle school but somehow I need it in a new way every day.  Especially this day.  And tomorrow too.

True Confessions

I will admit I have an addiction. I am addicted to home improvement shows. I grew up going into open houses with my parents which led to constant dreaming of what might be our next home. It was fun. And disappointing. But still fun. Then that cable channel HGTV opened a whole new world of showing other people looking at houses and actually buying them! So, by the time I’m actually a grown married woman, I can’t wait to buy, renovate, and decorate my own fixer upper. Speaking of Fixer Upper…there’s this show. Have you heard of it? It’s actually called Fixer Upper, and it’s where this hilarious couple Chip and Joanna Gaines help the non-Davidian, non-biker gang members but still actual Waco, Texas residents buy and fix up sad homes. But it’s not the homes and it’s not just that these homes range in price from $25,000 to $400,000, but it’s the fact that these two in just the matter of a year, draw people into their world of silliness and obvious mutual affection for each other, their four little children, and their menagerie of animals. And instead of watching homeowners struggle with DIY renovation disasters, here was a show that showed “experts” doing it all for these people who were a part of their community – they went to their church, or taught or had gone to the nearby university (Baylor) Chip graduated from. And each of these homes was idyllic – an urban farmhouse, reinvented shabby chic styling with Texas sized flair. But seriously, it’s still Waco, right?

Well, one day, out of the blue (which happens pretty easily thanks to world of email and technological inventions of networking sites like Facebook or Linked In), my husband received the typical recruiter contact for a job in his specialty in – you guessed it – Waco, Texas. He forwarded me the email because he thought it was funny, and he knows I love Chip and Jojo. (He loves Chip too and actually watches to see what funny thing he will eat, say, or do next.) I had literally just posted to my Facebook page the day before a shared link of Joanna Gaines sharing how she listened to God guiding her over the years into her calling. It caught my attention beyond the who was saying it and felt that WHAT she was saying resonated deeply as it was the same topic that I’d been studying and searching God for in my Bible study small group. One of the women on the teaching team at our church had been speaking about looking at our passions as women and seeing where God wants to use that for our Calling. Well, my passions are writing and dreaming about home decorating (insert Pinterest addiction phase here). This heart searching and sharing of my passions in my small group led to God bringing a woman into my life who wanted me to write a book of her life story. Every word of it has brought me to my knees over how God orchestrates everything, even the craziest outwardly appearing messes for His future plans. It’s an amazing story that covers everything from San Bernadino to Austria and to the beaches of SoCal, even including an appearance on The Bachelor (hers, not mine). But you’ll have to buy the book.

Anyway, here I am heading down the path of book writing and chasing my calling through my passion. But I’m still thinking in my head (which is hard because when I’m writing in my bedroom, there is a lot of freeway noise outside my open window – no air conditioning, remember?) but where are we CALLED to live? What is God calling us to do? We’ve realized that our hopes of buying a house here in North County San Diego is not really an option (winning the lottery probably won’t happen since we don’t buy tickets and neither of us has the hopes of some inheritance coming our way) and this stinking noisy rental with electrical outlets that only sometimes work and will probably catch the house on fire from their sparks isn’t really a longterm living situation. I mean we are 40 years old now – did I say that yet? Oh yeah, we are officially mid-life crisis mode. We’ve got uninvited back pain, need reading glasses, and can’t seem to ever fit into the size jeans we used to. Oh wait, that’s just me at 40. My husband is an amazingly fit triathlete who rides his bike at least 50 miles a week and runs 10 miles just for fun. But his mid-life crisis looks more like wondering will he be able to give our children a stable home to remember instead of all these places we’ve hopped around to? And how will he be able to make it to their school events if his commute gets any longer and he already doesn’t get to see them more than an hour or two most weeknights? Oh, and that “perfect” job he’s been at for seven years – yeah, it’s not so perfect. And not just because it’s physically hard holding up the leg of a 300lb woman who’s getting a hip replacement, but hard because all the hours and extra work he doesn’t get paid for have left him realizing he’s not able to pursue the leadership level he’s hoped to achieve as he’s learned so many things in healthcare that come naturally to him in terms of efficiency and productivity.

That brings me back to the recruiter’s job email. In Waco. So, it turns out that we were headed to Texas for a family wedding, something that was booked months before and we’d added a few extra days onto our vacation, so we could see my grandmother. Well, suddenly these hospital people in Waco wanted to meet with my husband, and it just so happens that we’ll be 90 minutes away from that hospital. Here’s the point where the reader asks, “why would you ever give up a job in San Diego for Waco?” Well, here’s the tidbit that really got our attention – the job paid exactly the same as he’s making in sunny CA. So…with a cost of living that’s half what Carlsbad costs, it’s like getting paid double. To live in a small town in Texas of course. A LOT smaller. But it turns out that instead of a government run union-ruled (aka excuses to be lazy at work) bureaucratic mess of a hospital, this Texas hospital “exists to serve all people by providing personalized healthcare and wellness through exemplary care, education, and research as a Christian ministry of healing.” Say what? Are they even allowed to say that? Where we live now, progressives rule, so most of the work propaganda is centered around making sure employees celebrate diversity and find ways to increase productivity and efficiency, but not actually institute those findings because that would mean reinventing the wheel. You could ask your union rep, but he probably won’t get back to you anytime soon. So, why not explore this mythical utopia of a missions-minded healthcare system and talk to some folks, right?

I’ll cut to the chase here. Three hours of meetings later, my husband came outside all starry-eyed and filled with a bit of disbelief at what he heard and witnessed. A Bible in every meeting room, doctors who spoke about how much they valued their families, churches, and time to enjoy outdoors and vacations. Oh, and everything he’d been doing above and beyond his actual job description at his current job (and not getting a dime extra for) are things they are specifically in need of…and all fall under his dream of potential healthcare executive. So, influenced by the effects of a Chip-and-JoJo-tinted-Waco, we both start imagining what God might be doing here. Dreams, passions, timing, opportunity, AND affordability all colliding…were they all intersecting into the shape of a star – a Texas star?