We have a contract

Yes, after being on the market for almost four months, we have a contract on our house. For those of you who have been praying along with us that the house would sell, thank you! The timing is actually perfect as we will be able to move directly into our new house in Greenwood. We will be spending the majority of the next month packing, planning, moving, and closing. Kathryn will be in Atlanta almost every weekend in the month of August while Gary stays in Mississippi for the harvest season. We are very excited to be able to look ahead and anticipate moving into our new house. Praise God with us for this answer to our prayers.

Best Wishes Steve and Rachel!

Thanks to all of you who have been checking our blog. I apologize that there has been a delay in the posts. We just returned from a trip to Lake Norman in North Carolina and Atlanta. Two of our close friends got married last Saturday. We are able to say that we have been a part of their entire relationship (we were with them on their first date) and were so excited to be able to celebrate with them on Saturday. It was also great to get to see and catch up with alot of our Wake friends. Best wishes Steve and Rachel!

We also stopped in Atlanta on our way back home so that Gary could play in the Kennesaw State Men's Basketball Golf Tournament. He played with his dad, brother-in-law Chris, and friend Phillip. They finished 4th place in the first flight. While they were off golfing, I got to spend some quality time with my friend Shannon, Gary's mom, sister Catherine, and our precious nieces Ainsley and Emma. It was a great trip, but we are also very glad to be back home!

A Taste of Mississippi Culture

We have been very busy the past couple of weeks. We went to Memphis to the PCA General Assembly on June 13 to hear R.C. Sproul speak. We sat with our good friends Mike Glass and Matthew Means and were very encouraged to catch up with them and to hear about the great things that God is doing in both of their churches. We were also able to eat some of those famous Rendezvous Ribs for dinner before the service began.


We went to Jackson on June 15 to celebrate our anniversary (5 years!!). We had a great dinner and then went to Jubilee Jam, which is a music festival that features both local and national artists. We heard several bands, including Black Stone Cherry, Galactic, and The Black Crowes. It had been awhile since either of us had been to a concert, and we had a great time.

Gary has been busy at work and he has been bringing some delicious corn home for us to enjoy. The picture of a corn field that I have attached is not one of ours, but I promise to get some pictures of Gary's crops on here soon. I am waiting for the cotton bolls to open so that you can tell the difference between the cotton and the soybeans (I still have a hard time distinguishing between the two plants). And Gary has found continued success in his task of bringing the rain - we had a big storm earlier this week, and were even concerned that we may get too much. Now that he has learned how to turn the rain "on", he needs to find the "off" switch!

Last night we went out for dinner and theater. We went with a group of friends to a new restaurant in town to eat fried and grilled quail. Neither of us had ever tried quail before and we were not disappointed - it was very good! Then we went to the Greenwood Little Theater's The Music Man. It was a great performance.

We have quickly discovered that, just because we have moved away from Atlanta, we continue to have many opportunities to be culturally enriched.

In the Swing of Things

Now that we've been in Mississippi for almost four weeks, we're starting to get into the swing of things. Gary has been working hard at perfecting his rain dance as we are in a drought and have desperately needed rain on the farm. We had a great rain last week and Gary takes full credit. He's already demanding a raise.

I spent last week helping out with Vacation Bible School at our church. We had 104 children attend (27 in my 5-K class). It was a tiring week, but I enjoyed getting to know the children and seeing them get excited about the gospel. Although Gary and I aren't in many pictures, you can go to http://www.wpcgreenwood.org/Photo/PhotoAlbum.aspx?guid=5380e281-378b-478a-93f2-4103a6a22909&pagenum= to see the children and the decorations.

The PCA General Conference is in Memphis this week, which is only a couple of hours away. We are planning to go on Wednesday night to hear R.C. Sproul speak. Although we miss Atlanta, we are making some great friends and enjoying our time here. Please continue to pray that our house in Atlanta would sell quickly so that we can get moved into our new house in Greenwood.

Sweet Home Mississippi

We arrived in Greenwood, MS on Friday, May 18th, and are officially living in small town USA. I started work today (Monday, May 21st), and Kathryn is busy trying to settle in our spacious one room apartment on Grand Blvd. For those of you who are not aware, we have officially moved in with the parents until our house sells in Atlanta. Thankfully, Kathryn's parents (Walker & Lanie) don't mind hosting us for a short while during this period of homelessness.

Speaking of our home in Atlanta: we have had solid but unspectacular interest from visitors to our home in the past several weeks. As the school year ends, we are hoping that the number of people interested will increase, and that God will provide a purchaser for our lovely home. We miss it already. We have already put a contract on a home in Greenwood, and fortunately we were able to work out a contingency that allows us to wait until our previous home sells, before having to purchase the new one. Regardless, we are looking forward to completing the move from Atlanta, and truly starting to make our home in Mississippi.

We were greeted with a significant surprise upon our arrival to our church home this past Sunday. At the end of our first church service as Mississippians, the pastor made the announcement that he would be resigning from his post as teaching elder of the congregation. Obviously we did not see this coming, and based on our experiences with him on the pulpit, we are sad to see him go. Despite this shock, we are very excited with the Grace based gospel that is preached both on the pulpit and in the relationships that we have already been able to form.

All in all it has been an eventful weekend, and we look forward to some normalcy in the coming weeks. Here is hoping that our house sells soon, and that within the next month or so we are able to finalize our move to the great state of Mississippi.