We have arrived in Thief River Falls and are quickly getting settled. Our move went remarkably smooth thanks to lots of good helpers. A crew came down from Epiphany Station with a semi truck on June 28th. We also had friends come up from Owatonna and the Twin Cities as well as friends from the Cushing area. With all those able helpers we loaded that semi in about 2 hours!
The highlight of the day for was that our van was having some serious issues and I didn’t want to drive it all the way to Thief River Falls. I had it in two different shops in the days leading up but neither could fix the problem. As soon as this was discovered, Jared and Darren from TRF got on the phone to their dad, Alvin (another epiphanist) who was in the area delivering hay. He just happened to have a huge flatbed trailer because of the hay and they immediately began scheming as to how they could get our van onto their trailer. Mike knew of a loading ramp in Staples behind his shop so plans were made to drive my van off the ramp and onto the trailer. I couldn’t watch as Mike did the driving. Apparently it’s a lot easier to drive someone else’s car off a ramp then your own. It was a lot of fun to just watch these guys go to work and “git-r-done,” as they say ’round these parts.
We drove our other vehichle up on Sunday and were met with a moving crew at our new home and lots of food and beverages. To top it off, Alvin took our van into the shop on Monday and took care of the bill. We were so overwhelmed with blessings!
We have now been here for two weeks and we are rapidly getting settled into our new life here. Almost every day I say to Heidi, “I really like this place.” It is just so exciting for me to be in a community that is small enough to have a real neighborly feel, but yet be large enough to not feel incredibly isolated. Just getting out and meeting neighbors has been a real joy for me.
Tonight I will preach my first sermon as pastor of Epiphany Station. I will be sharing about the road that led us here. It’s really quite an amazing story. You can listen to it on the Epiphany Station website after Sunday night.
Mike driving my van onto Alvin's truck
