Blessings & Decisions

Right now I am feeling overwhelmed with blessings. Everything in our life has been going so well and life just seems imperfectly wonderful (if that makes sense... like our life is wonderful, but the imperfections and trials add to that, so I am not trying to say we are perfect or our life is perfect, but just that I am grateful).

Anyway, so Jeff has received an amazing job promotion opportunity. He has been offered the offensive coordinator position at Screven County High School in South Georgia.

First off the reasons why this is so wonderful:

1. He is now a quarterback coach, in order to be a head coach here in GA you have to be a coordinator first, so it is the next step up.

2. He will have more control over the decisions made and the outcomes of the game, which will make coaching more fun and meaningful to us all.

3. The reason why we came to the South was mainly because football coaches make more money here and he will make more money with this job and it opens the windows of opportunity for higher paying coaching jobs in the future.

4. It is always all about who you know and the current Defensive Coordinator at ECCHS, is the one who just got the head coaching job at Screven. He is a really good coach and therefore the chances of the program being successful are higher. He also wants to Jeff to run an offense that Jeff likes, so that is another big thing.

5. Jeff would make more than we make now with Jeff coaching two sports and with me coaching volleyball. He is rarely home right now and he is getting worn down. This job would give him more time home. And we would live right by the school if we moved there so we would hopefully save a lot on gas.

Now the reasons why it is hard:

1. First and foremost our beautiful house! I have too much of an emotional relationship with this house. I love every single bit of it! I don't want to leave it and I could totally live here forever! We would have to rent it out and that scares me! First of all, I don't want anyone destroying it, and second of all what if we can't find renters for a couple months? We could lose thousands of dollars in mortgage, and/or if we can't pay it, we could lose our house! Including our down payment and good credit!

2. My volleyball coaching job. I LOVE coaching club. I love every second of it. I would really miss that. I already found out there is no volleyball club remotely close to where we would go.

3. The job is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It is between Statesboro (Georgia Southern University is here, and it is a town smaller than Athens and about 25 minutes away) and Savannah (Savannah is about an hour or more away). It would be like living in Elberton again, but they have a cute little recreation center with gymnastics classes, tball leagues and I think soccer too. As well as adult co-ed volleyball league and a men's basketball league, but of course still no women's sports leagues.

4. We would be renting, which I am sure would not be as nice of a place as we are living in now, but hopefully it would be cheaper.

5. There is no branch, but there is a ward in Statesboro that we would attend. I LOVE our ward here and have made so many friends and there are so many young families here, it will be so sad not to have that. We drove by the church building in Statesboro and it was teeny, so I am assuming the ward isn't very big.

I feel so blessed to be able to choose between two jobs when so many are having a hard time finding a job, it really is a blessing, so I am not complaining. This is just the hardest decision for us. I completely see the benefits for Jeff's career and our future and Jeff's time with us at home, but at the same time, if we decide to go, it will be hard. I will really miss a lot. I love it here. However, we are counseled to bloom where we are planted and I believe when we are together as a family, I really will be happy no matter where we are.

Yesterday we went to Screven to check it out. It was very similar to Elberton. We met with the principal and AD and they were excited about Jeff's spanish certification (Thank you Heavenly Father for sending him on a mission to Mexico and for helping pass the GACE test!). We drove around the city and then headed to Statesboro and looked around there quickly, then we went back to Sylvania (the city the school is in) for dinner.

They had this adorable Mexican restaurant that was really new and so good. We sit down and these other people sat across the aisle from us in another booth. Jeff leaned over and said, "watch everyone's going to be talking about Ron Duncan (the DC at ECCHS that will be the Head Coach at Screven who offered Jeff the position)." We laughed, because he was joking. Sure enough about 30 seconds later, another guy comes in and starts talking to the guy about Ron Duncan. The guy sitting next to us was apparently on the staff already at Screven and had just met with him, so they were talking about him and what their thoughts were about him as a coach, etc. I was so nervous the whole time, and felt so uncomfortable like we should not be hearing this! Luckily, they only had good things to say about him, or I would have been really uncomfortable! They had no idea who we were or that we even knew what they were talking about! That just goes to show, you always have to be careful what you say!

Anyway, please keep us in your prayers that we will be able to make the best decision for our family and our future and that we will follow the Lord's will in this decision. Also, if you have any advice to offer on renting out a home or ways to save on moving expenses, send it our way! We are so excited that this opportunity has come so quickly, everyone around here made it sound like it would take longer.

We have been praying about the decision, right now I just feel like we would be fine either way, it is more about what we/Jeff want in our lives/career. However, we still have more thinking, praying, fasting, researching, etc. to do, so perhaps we have not found our answer yet.

Oh and our blog is private which is why I posted this, so if you happen to know anyone in Elbert County, this is not a subject that needs to be shared:)

P.S. Their mascot is a gamecock... I am not a fan... Screven County Gamecocks...