Ok, Lord, we will go to Hartford! Next question, School?

I know I just updated this website for the first time in a while today, but here is the next part of the story. The school part. We had been talking with the principal of the school where they are now in Bloomfield and the CFO of Bloomfield Schools about the possibility of if we moved, keeping the kids there for the remainder of the school year and then applying to magnet schools for the fall so that the kids would not have to go to Hartford Public Schools.

Today, when we visited the Kinsella Fine Arts Magnet School as part of of researching options for next year, Dave and I both immediately loved the school. There were kids getting ready for a production they put together themselves, practice rooms full of music, brightly colored welcoming classrooms, and to top it off, reports of increasingly high test scores the last three years! We knew the boys (who are always creating their own plays, singing and dancing at home) would love it, but we tried to hold back our excitement of the possibility because it is a lottery system, they might not even get in....etc. During the tour, I kind of felt like the woman was talking right to us and was really interested in our situation (moving, the grades of our kids, etc.) but figured she was just being nice.

Well, at the end of the tour, she asked us to stay behind after the other parents left. I figured it was because we were the only elementary aged parents in the group (vs. preschool), but she pulled us into the office and asked us, "Would you be interested in the kids finishing out the year here if we had the spots?" Dave and I looked at each other with huge grins on our faces and said we would definitely! They were offered spots there for the remainder of the school year and therefore, automatic admission in the fall! God knew that was our biggest stress about moving, and it is amazing how he totally removed that and in an unusual way! They do not normally offer spots once the year starts! So, we go back to sign paperwork tomorrow, Noah will visit there for the am (they do not let K kids visit) and then Friday will be the boys last day at Bloomfield!

Our life is crazy, but in a good way! We never would have expected this, but it is an amazing answer to prayer! Just wanted to share it with all of you since you have been praying for us and our transitional life! Please join us in giving God all the credit for this amazing opportunity and open door!

We ask for prayer though, for Noah and Josh as this is a quick transition and they will not have a lot of time to say good-bye to their friends. We will be telling them at dinner tonight, so please pray for that conversation. We expect them to be excited as we have talking about it as an option for next year, but a little apprehensive about the fast pace. Pray that God gives us sensitivity as they need it!

Thank for being prayer partners with us in this! Love, Danielle and Dave

Our new adventure! Are you ready for this one?

I am sorry that it has been a LONG LONG LONG LONG time since I have written, but we have been inspired to change the direction of our blog...we are starting a new adventure!

As many of you know (and sorry if this is a shock to others who are not as involved in our daily lives), God has been opening doors wide for us to move to Hartford...so much so that we feel that we have not even been totally proactive in the process and things keep dropping into our laps!

Dave has been involved over the last few years with an amazing outreach called The Hartford Project http://www.thehartfordproject.org and our heart for the city has grown each summer along with THP. We have been proactive about helping our children and Wintonbury's youth to become comfortable in various situations and locations throughout our capital city.

I (Danielle), knew that this desire and love for Hartford (both the city and it's people) was growing inside Dave, but really did not grasp the hugeness of it until we finished the week of THP last summer and he started to explain how he felt "alive" serving there with the youth. I encouraged him but also played the "wait until you get off the mountain top" card, telling him to slow down and think and pray about what that would mean for him and our family! He went to the Dominican Republic two weeks later for two weeks and came back even more sure that God was calling us to something bigger in the city! Dave went on to tell me that he felt we were to move there in this coming year!

I was really overwhelmed at first, making him promise not to make any quick changes to our life etc...but as I prayed and spent time reading and studying God's word it was revealed to me that this was indeed what God wanted our family to do. All I knew was that as long as Dave promised me that we would not be leaving Wintonbury and WE ARE NOT, I could go with this. But the biggest hold back for me was what to do with the kids schooling. I knew that we could not put them in the public schools and we were too late for the deadline for the magnet schools this year.

We just kept praying about it, talking to friends in Hartford and casually looking at the housing market. Well, we started thinking that maybe the Blue Hills neighborhood was the place for us...it was minutes away from where we live now, not really any farther from Wintonbury (our church and Dave's job) but as we drove around the neighborhoods, we did not really see anything that made us feel like this was it.

We stopped looking for a little while, then I went back on to look at some houses that our friends, John and Sarah were looking at, and I saw that a new house had popped up on the list in the Asylum Hill neighborhood. It was gorgeous, and a little out of our price range but we felt drawn to it for some reason. We knew that some new friends that we had made through the Hartford Project lived in that area for some of the same reasons that we felt drawn there and realized immediately, that this fit the call Dave felt earlier in the summer much more. This section of Hartford was more in the Heart of the city and met more of what Dave felt God had called him to specifically, to get out of our comfort zone. We knew that this neighborhood was it, so we started praying for the right house to drop in our laps.

Dave and Noah were on their way to a party in Newington for one of Noah's friends about a month back and drove by the house I mentioned above, even though we knew it was out of our price range, but the pics were so nice he wanted to see where it was in the neighborhood. There "happened" to be a open house there and he toured the new construction and was told of another (more in our price range) house that was a few houses away for sale. He did not have time to see it that day, but after some more praying we called to see it the next week. Both houses had been renovated by a non-profit business that was really trying to revitalize the neighborhood and bring life back to the city. The values and goals of the non-profit really fit with some of the major goals and hopes that Dave and the rest of The Hartford Project team have! We looked at the house, really liked it, took my parents for a look when they were here a few weekends back and waited on hearing on our pre-approval for a mortgage.

God opened another door by helping me to stumble upon website called HouseHartford, which gives down payment assistance to families wanting to move into Hartford! We are currently waiting to hear on our acceptance to that program, but we got our pre-approval even without that...and placed a offer on the house! Our offer and terms were accepted, now we just wait on the details! We hope to close at the end of the December/early Jan!

That is the beginning of our crazy ride....stay tuned for more adventures of following in faith! Next up on the updates, "Where in the world will these boys go to school?"