Hi Everyone,

As I said in my last post, I have not blogged because nothing was going on in our lives.  I have not blogged because things were happening so fast that I could not keep up!  I am going to pick up at the point where our children moved to Hawaii in 2013. 

After they left, we found out that my (Jan's) brother, Paul, had a brain tumor and lung cancer and he went home to Jesus in June 2014.  We lost my father to cancer the next year in July 2015.  We were no longer able to care for my mom at home and she would not allow anyone to move into her home with her, so we sold her home and she is now living at Celebration Way Assisted Living facility.  My sister in law works there so she is happy there and doing well.  

In April of 2016, Tom's dad decided to move into Carriage House Assisted Living facility near Tom's mom.  He asked us to move into their house on the farm so we began remodeling the house.  On June 6, 2016, Tom's mom went home to be with the Lord.  She had been at The Heart Remembers, memory care facility for three years to the day she died.  On June 26, we spent our first night in the house and on June 27 we had to put down Layne and Zeke's German Shepherd, Hamlet due to a brain tumor.  Seven months later, on January 29, 2017, Tom's dad went home to be with the Lord very unexpectedly and quickly.  

Now you can see why I have not written a blog post.  I have not had the energy, time, or brain power to do so.  Oh and in the midst of all this, Tom and I both got our Master's Degrees and I began my new career as a counselor.  

The church that Zeke and Layne helped to start in Hawaii, Ohana Church is doing very well now and at Easter this year saw over 200 attend their services.  They have had a part in planting 9 other churches from their church.   They are now looking to plant churches in Japan!  They have made their first trips to Japan to make connections and see the needs there.  They will take their first mission team in the fall.

Most of you know that Layne and Zeke have adopted three beautiful boys so we are now grandparents and loving every minute of that!!  Kaimana, Kainalu, and Kainakoa are the most precious result of our decision to move to Las Vegas back in 1999.  We love getting Facetime calls from them although most of the time they leave us looking at the ceiling when they lay the phone down and run off to do something else and forget us!  That is ok though, at least they call!

My counseling career is going very well.  I have shifted almost entirely to the Shelbyville office now, however, the Shelbyville office has shifted!  Due to construction at the bank building, I have had to relocate my office temporarily to First Baptist Church in Shelbyville.  They had an unused prayer room that met my needs perfectly!  It is also great having another church interested in mental health in the community, as they all should be.

Tom is in the middle of helping to build a new home for Lifeway Corporate in downtown Nashville.  As Engineering Manager, this falls to his department to manage.  Convincing people that they do not need an office to work in and that they can get rid of "their stuff" has been no easy task.  He has posted a couple of time lapse photos of the building if you are interested in seeing it.  It is really going to be a pretty building.

Speaking of building, we have some news that we would like to share with you!  After months of remodeling, and looking at spending quite a bit more to add on to Tom's mom and dad's home to "make it our own", we have decided to build another house!  This may come as a shock to some of you because it is a total 180 from what you have expected to happen we know!  Let me explain.

Over the last few months, we have wandered aimlessly.  We have sought God but gotten no answers except "be still".  We have discussed how to make this house our home and get no answers.  We have prayed over if we are to move to Hawaii and get a "No" answer amidst a lot of tears.  We have discussed whether or not we are to move back to Vegas and get a "No" answer, again, amidst a lot of tears.  (The tears are mine in case you did not know! JL)

As I was driving down the road that we live on about a month ago, I passed by the house that we built in 1997.  Each time that I have gone by that house over the last few months, I have screamed in my head, "Get out of my house!".    This time God changed my heart to praying for them to want to sell the house!  They did not accept our offer so long story short, this lead to a decision to keep the sentimental land (Tom's Grandfather's farm) that surrounds this house, build on the spot that we have wanted to build on since we first got married, and sell off the rest of the land either as building lots or farmland.  

So, over the next few months, I will take you on this journey with us through this blog if you would like to follow along.  We have ordered a house plan, we are looking for a builder (I think after today we have one), and we are excited (except for the part where we are not moving to Hawaii but we are choosing to believe that is a "not now" type thing).  For those of you who are close by, we are building between the last house we built and the little white house that Granddaddy Lamb lived in before he went to the nursing home.  It will be back on the hill in the middle of what is now a cornfield.  

So this is your invitation to join us on this next leg of our journey and see what God has in store for this season of our life!


In Him,
Tom & Jan