It's not so easy to answer! God was kind to give us guardrails as we've muddled through the last thirty years. Clear callings to raise and nurture six children in the Lord, and then to homeschool them to the best of our ability, which led to writing Tapestry of Grace, which made us entrepreneurs and, at one scary point, near bankrupts! Tis God's grace that has led us safe thus far through many dangers, toils, and snares, and He will lead us home! As John Piper says, because we're on the road, we're sure of our destination."
Early in September, God clearly gave us the go-ahead signal to move to Frederick, MD. He had a role for us there. This was exciting! Yay! A guardrail for us!
In the last three or four months, there has been a ton of discussion about what our ministry was. The housing opportunities are so varied in kind. We've seriously looked at everything from center-city living to 218-acre farms. We've very seriously explored living out the next two years in an RV. It's a puzzle, and there are financial pieces, ministry pieces, and social pieces. And then there are simply the emotional desires of our hearts, personal preferences, etc. Again, may I say, "whew!"?
Last week, we think we may have found the answer to our quest. It is a burned-out house in Braddock Heights on a 9-acre lot that fronts Jefferson Blvd. The lot is in the last stages of being subdivided roughly according to the picture below; there would be three lots in all if the process were completed, one behind the others. (You can click on each of the pictures in this post to see them bigger.) The yellow line outlines the whole property. The red lines divide it into the proposed future subdivided lots.
To orient you, that's Jefferson Blvd running down on the left, and Old Swimming Pool Rd. running down on the right. The lots that abut the property are all developed. The lot forms an interesting "valley interior" that has accesses at the top. The front of the Lot is on Jefferson Blvd. and is located between the Volunteer Fire Station and what was recently a Montessouri school (now appears bankrupt, sadly).
The front lot is zoned "VC"-- Village Center--which means that we can build a house with a Victorian facade that will house a homeschool center downstairs that will be a place where area homeschoolers can hold classes, and then we can live above it in a generous apartment. The subdivision approval is not currently complete, and we are not thinking that we'll ever finish the process. Rather, we'd plan to live on the front lot and farm the back 8 acres. (A lot of the land is steeply sloping, so "farming" means "messing around with animals as much as we'd like to." Ponies, greenhouses, some veggies, etc. Mostly, we want homeschoolers to have the opportunity to do some community farming, maybe.)
The house plan I like best so far is this one:
I think this pretty house would bless the neighborhood! It beats what's there! (See "Pictures" post of this blog--#4.) The idea that we have is to make the lower level "public," where we can host homeschooling classes for area homeschoolers and Scott can hold science classes as he develops his new Natural History curriculum.
This ground floor plan has three large rooms (labeled Dining, Living, and Family rooms) that we'd install pocket doors to isolate from one another during class periods. The portion labeled "garage" would become Lampstand Press offices, and the Screen Porch would be converted into an away room/office/mother's waiting room/sunroom. Take a look by clicking on this sketch~
On the second floor, there's lots of room for us in the Master Suite, and there are two more bedrooms for the girls to come and go. Clicky click!
Finally, there's a third floor, which we'd probably make into a two-room suite: bedroom and study, since the perk will be for four bedrooms:
So, that's the back story for November. Next post will begin the "blow by blow" that this blog was created to record! We know we're in for a long process, given the VC zoning and the fact that there's a house outstanding, not to mention that we've got to untangle our finances sufficiently to make the purchase. But, Scott feels God saying, "C'mon." He's seldom wrong when he gets that feeling. The rest is details!
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