Miracles

So, back in August we had new neighbors move down below us. They were mildly annoying to say the least. The guy had a bunch of his friends over for his lunch break most days and they always talked REALLY LOUDLY ( with one particular word that starts with F being their favorite) and would periodically wake Ransom up from his nap...
The wife was also super cool and bought this sign for outside...

What makes this EVEN better is that our house is next door to an Elementary School...so the sign was able to scar young children on a daily basis. 

Then Halloween time came and the guy spent days on end sawing and hacking outside their front door ( for some reason they didn't seem to realize they had a whole patio and garage BEHIND the house...) which was directly under our living room. We were puzzled at WHAT he could possibly be doing until one day he erected a large wooden witch outside their door...also for their children. *sigh* 

Now, one of the kind of cool (?) things about living on a "training" Army Post is that if you know what school a person is doing you know how long, give or take, they will be at Fort Benning. These people were here for the Infantry Basic Officers Course and therefore I had a pretty good idea of how long we would be graced with their amazing presence downstairs.....too long. 

And now to change scenes: 

Our good friend the Fones have been planning to come to Fort Benning for a while now for the Captains Career Course. Lindsay lived with me before she and Isaac where married and while Brett was deployed. Now, she's married and has a baby of her own and I was SO excited about living near her again in this new stage of both our lives...

I was excited about them being close by, but I was incredulous when I heard that Lindsay and Isaac were praying that they'd get to move into the same building ( each "house" has four different homes in each one, two upstairs, two down stairs. On each side, the upstairs and downstairs share a back door and the stairs leading down to the basement. Essentially you could both open your kitchen doors, lock the back door and you'd have one, very large house.).  I knew all of our surrounding neighbors and I knew that none of them were planning on moving any time soon. I was sad, especially since I was not such a big fan of our perviously described downstairs neighbors...But I felt sure that there was no way living that close to our friends was possible. I secretly felt that those prayers wouldn't be answered....

As the time for the Fones to arrive got closer I started to get excited and take multiple walks around the block to check for empty houses. There were several that were pretty close by and I thought that this must be the answer to our prayers about living near our friends. 

Then a month before they headed to Benning, I was on my way to the grocery store one morning and I noticed some workmen heading into our downstairs neighbor's house...and being the crazy stalker neighbor that I am, I looked closer and LOW AND BEHOLD they had MOVED OUT.  Oddly enough, we never saw them move and we're guessing it was some time when we were out of town. But all that really mattered is that what I thought was IMPOSSIBLE had happened! The home directly under ours, the one that shares our back door, that shares our patio, that shares our very roof...it was available!

But the Doubting-Thomas in me was still not sure...we still had a month to go before our friends arrived and I knew that there were quite a few schools starting at Benning in the intervening month and that there would be a lot of people moving in. The odds that this particular house would stay open a whole month, they were slim. However, by now my faith was rising a little bit ( thank goodness..) and I shot out a facebook status asking people to pray that the house would stay open for a month....

As each week passed and moving trucks came and went, filled up and poured out all over the neighborhood-we prayed hard for our downstairs house. Slowly weeks went by and it stayed empty! Finally Isaac arrived to being their moving in process. It took a few days ( whoa are they busy!) but he finally got an appointment with the housing office. As he made his appointment on the phone he mentioned that he was staying with some friends and that the house below us was free and that he'd really like to move in...The lady replied with, "Is that on M- street? Because those are the only keys I have and the only house I'll be able to show you...."

That's right. There are no other houses available. The only house? 

The one right below us. 

And so, as you can see I under estimated God's ability in a big way. I forgot the greatness of our God. I forgot that a little matter of having Close Fellowship with friends is but a small thing to Him. He delivered.