The Trailer is Finished! (Almost)

After putting nearly a month's worth of work into a travel trailer we bought earlier this year, I have finally finished rebuilding the rotten framing and re-paneling the walls. And, after taking it for a test run last night, we have found that almost everything works. So, we are ready to start packing up and heading out on our grand adventure into the great unknown!

In case you haven't heard, I will tell you the story of why we are leaving. It is actually something that has been on my heart for the last 6+ years or so. As a young bachelor, I felt called to pack up the few things I owned and head out on an adventure to find my place in the world, as well as experience a full dependency upon God. At one point, I even had a dream that I was playing in the dirt like a child and I heard someone calling my name. Eventually, I turned around and found that it was Jesus, standing by a very shiny car, shaped like some sort of hatchback.

"Justin, get in the car!" He said. I woke up then, but felt that this was some sort of confirmation of my calling. I had a few close friends who encouraged this idea, though others would ridicule it; calling it foolish. One of these was a pastor (who most likely wanted me to stay because I was helping his church at the time), so--despite my better judgment--I listened to him and I stayed.

A few years passed and I ended up marrying and having children, but the desire never went away. I ended up stuck at a job working full-time plus on-call hours. I was well into overtime by the end of every week, and I was feeling tired and going nowhere. It took awhile, but eventually my wife warmed up to the idea of just packing our stuff and leaving as well, but with two young boys, she reasonably wanted a better plan than simply, "driving until the car broke down and living there."

So, we started searching for travel trailers. The original plan was to take a few months and simply travel through the entirety of the United States, searching for the perfect place. I remember thinking to myself that if this was really supposed to happen--if it really was God's will for us--some opportunity would arise that would tempt me into staying longer. This was last year.

I decided to try to quit my job so we could focus on the trip. Shortly after turning in my two weeks' notice to my supervisor, the company owner tracked me down in the field to beg me to stay. She offered me anything, the opportunity I predicted would arise, though not one I was expecting. Of course I refused...to decline her offer. I received a long vacation, a pay raise, three-day weekends and I was permanently taken off of the on-call list.

But, of course that wasn't enough. The desire still lingered, as it always had. We still needed to leave, but my wife wanted to have a little more direction. If you know me at all, you would know that I'm no good when it comes to planning. I'm more the type to believe that it will all work out in the end, and if it doesn't, improvise! I had no idea where we were supposed to go.

So I prayed the next day at work, and I'm pretty sure I heard, in the back of my head somewhere, "Alabaster."

And I said, "Where in the world is Alabaster?"

Immediately I heard, "Alabama."

I was almost certain that there would be a city of Alabaster in Alaska and Arkansas, and maybe a few other states, and that my brain was just playing an odd trick with alliterative words, and making something up. So, I looked it up later and found to my surprise that the only city of Alabaster happens to be located in Alabama. It wasn't made up, after all, but that would be an odd coincidence. We decided it wouldn't hurt to check out the town anyways, so we took a week vacation and flew down there.

Alabaster is about half an hour south of Birmingham, AL.

Now, we ended up getting stranded in Texas for a night, because of a delayed flight, but I almost feel like God intended for us to land on Monday instead. He does things like that, which is why I don't care much for planning. That day we picked up our rental car, which was a shiny, dark grey Nissan Versa hatchback. Kind of like the one Jesus told me to get into in that dream. We drove it to the hotel, and when my wife went to check us into the hotel, I decided to see what Alabamians listened to. I turned the radio on as one song was just ending, and then "Sweet Home Alabama" started to play. Just as it was fading out at the end of the song, my wife returned with the card keys for our room.

"You'll never guess what song just played," I said.

"Was it Sweet Home Alabama?" She guessed.

"Yeah... But it seems like a weird coincidence that it's the first song that I hear all the way through."

"They probably play it all the time here in Alabama."

"Okay, well, if I hear it one more time this week, I'll dismiss it as a coincidence, but if that's the only time it plays, then it must be a sign."

Needless to say, we didn't hear it at all for the rest of the week. Perhaps it sounds like I am searching for signs, but for someone who had felt called to leave the Olympic Peninsula behind for years, it is hard to ignore so many coincidences in rapid succession.

It started raining as we unloaded the vehicle, and right as I walked through the front door of the Hotel room for the first time, lightning boomed behind me, like one last obnoxious call of "Welcome to Alabama!"