General Update

There's been so many things going on in our lives the last couple of months that now felt like a good time to write you all a general update. The life events have been coming fast and furious, so buckle up!

Land

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a month since we bought our property. We have already done so many things with it.

As you probably already know, Gretchen and I bought on a house last month. It’s a rustic log cabin set on 10 acres of land, about 45 minutes outside of Spokane Washington, nestled up in the hills. It’s mostly forested, but there’s also an open meadow and a pond. There’s trails already on it that I walk my dogs on every day underneath the pines and spruce. The number of pine cones is approximately ten million, five hundred and o

ne.

I’ve already talked a little about the AirBNB that we are getting ready to use the main floors of the house for. But the big project the last two weeks has been the basement apartment, where Gretchen and I are going to live. The basement of the house has a separate entrance and was already half finished when we bought the place, with a bathroom and laundry room. So we have been renovating the space into a little apartment for us to live in by putting in a kitchen.

Project Kitchen

Here’s some pictures of the phases of Project Kitchen.

Phase One

In phase one, we built out the basic structure of the wall (the vertical two-by-fours), wired electrical through them, and plumbed the water supply lines and drains (only partially shown). The cabinets were temporarily placed there, unattached to anything, just to help us with planning.

Phase Two

In phase two, we first installed insulation in the walls, and then installed white shiplap over that. Then we put in the electrical boxes.

On the far right you can see the 30-amp outlet for where the future dryer will be put. That area is going to have a stackable washer and dryer.

We also started building out a wall to separate the kitchen from the bedroom, including French doors in the middle of the wall. There were two supporting posts there already, and it worked out perfectly to position the doors right between them.

Phase Three

In phase three, we installed the cabinets and created a partition for the microwave (top left) and a partition for the stackable washer/dryer (far right).

We also finished off the partition wall with the outer shiplap and electrical boxes on the side facing the bedroom (no picture).

Phase Four

Yesterday we cut down our butcher block countertops and began the process of refinishing them. Today we’re painting the partition walls and then installing the countertops, sink, and appliances. After that it will be pretty much ready to move in.

Phase Five

Well, we also need to install the Murphy bed.

And the radon mitigation system.

And some acoustic foam on the ceiling for noise canceling.

But besides all those things, it’s basically done! Haha.

Story Time: Djembe

We had our first large gathering in our house on Good Friday. We had a large communion meal to bring in the sabbath with family and friends. We dedicated the house and had a time of worship.

Halfway through the first song, Gretchen pantomimed drumming to me and we had a little lip-reading conversation. I normally suck at lip-reading, but this was the one time in life where I knew exactly what she wanted.

I went downstairs into the basement, where we had haphazardly stashed some things a when our pod was delivered. Sitting on the ground, jammed between a couch, lamp shades, and a microwave was our djembe.

I used its long strap to sling the tall drum over my back and walked back out of the basement apartment, outside, up the hill, and then back into the gathering. I slipped it to Gretchen—as surreptitiously as one can slip a three foot tall drum—and next thing you knew, a deep but subtle bass joined the voices and guitar.

That djembe had sat unused in our previous house for years. Last year we purged the house of the vast majority of our stuff. We were about to move across the country and it didn’t make sense to pay for the shipping and storage of most things. Plus, I was on a minimalism kick and had gotten Gretchen enlisted with the cause to simplify, rid yourself of your materialistic chains, be free! And so we got rid of two thirds of our things. We sold, we trashed, we gave away. Our dogs thought they were next. We pushed each other to consider getting rid of things we never had considered getting rid of before. I got rid of scores of board games.

But for some reason, we never even considered getting rid of the djembe. It was never even a discussion. We never said why, but I think it was because the djembe represented something to us, something that fit too perfectly into this season of life: deferred vision coming to reality.

One of the visions Gretchen and I have talked about for years was having some kind of house church or small spiritual group in our house. But it was never quite the right time. To be honest, we were both waiting to get on the same page spiritually for a while. And so we launched other hospitality endeavors but never that one.

And so the djembe remained unused for a long time. I think for both of us it fit subconsciously into the category of “we will use this when we start a house church,” probably because of the djembes that we played at the house church that Gretchen and I met at seventeen years ago.

When I handed Gretchen that djembe last Friday night and she started playing, I looked around. There were sixteen people singing together, crammed snugly into our living room in a log cabin with a wood stove and huge log rafters. There were windows looking out over a setting sun casting orange light on hills and valleys of farm and forest. And I thought: this is surreal. I own this. We own this. And we have my brother Moses and my niece Hannah and my brother Luke and all their spouses, we have my Mom, my grand-nephews, plus some really special friends all together in one place. And not just together as a one-off, but together because we're all part of the same community now. Because I actually get to see my brother Moses and my niece Hannah (among others) regularly. I grew up taking trips from Nashville to Idaho once per three years or so, and always wishing I could see the rest of my family more than just as a once-per-three-year kind of thing. And now we can--now we do. And here we are, all together worshipping, out in the middle of nature in a log cabin that we own, and Gretchen is playing the djembe...this is surreal. I can’t believe this is happening.

There's still so much to build. So much we still aren't doing yet. We still don’t have a spiritual group meeting in our house regularly. But step by step, visions are coming to fruition. And now, I'm embracing the fact that in "so much we aren't doing yet," the operative word truly is just: yet.

I'm so future-oriented that it takes conscious effort to slow down and take moments to actually notice and appreciate all that is happening, right now, in this present moment. Now.

So this is that. Me just taking a moment to take it in. And sharing it with you.

Thanks for being on this journey with us. Here's a toast to you, to us, to a step on a journey. Wherever this finds you, may it encourage you to enjoy your current step.