I did a little moving update a while ago, but then life kicked my butt so I guess I'm due for yet another one. These are the questions I'm getting a lot of, and none of them have straightforward answers. Sigh.
When Are You Leaving?
There is a long answer and a short answer to this.
Okay, so technically our contract ends in August. That's the short answer. There's no need for us to leave before the end of our contract, theoretically.
The long answer is: We wanted to give the congregation time to refresh the parsonage. Repaint, fix things, that sort of stuff. The district recommended that we give a leaving date a few months ahead of our end of contract. So we told the church we would be gone at the end of June. The new minister is now arriving mid-July, which is early than we anticipated. The church, then, has approximately 2 weeks to do whatever it is they are going to do to the parsonage. This means that we pretty much HAVE to be gone at the end of June, whereas before there was a certain amount of casual flexibililty where we wouldn't be paid or do work, but if we were a day or two into July or something it wasn't the end of the world. Now June 30th is a firm, hard stop.
We could leave earlier, though. In Ontario churches are still not open to the public so all of our in-person services are suspended. This may end in the next week or so, but it may not. Since the church doesn't need us for anything, and there is no in-person programming, they would probably be just as happy to stop paying us for the month of June and have us leave earlier and also get more time in the parsonage to work.
Therefore the answer is that we leave sometime in June, no later than the 30th.
Are You Going to Another Church?
I feel pretty confident in saying no. Or, rather, not right now. The Wesleyan denomination has a yearly general conference for the district which happens in early summer. In preparation for this, most transitions (ministers moving around to different churches) happens in the spring. That time has pretty much passed, and almost no church positions opened up, so there wasn't anything to put our name in to. What this means is that when we leave here we will no longer be serving actively in ministry. That will be...weird. It will be weird.
Where Are You Moving?
People are still asking me this, and I still don't have an answer. Although I imagine my facial expression is slowly changing with each enquiry. Here's the best answer I have - David's mother lives in a city 10 hours away from us in Southern Ontario. Staying in her house is our default plan right now. We have other applications in the works, and if one of those ends up working out then we might not be with her, and that's quite possible. But if we leave her without any employment whatsoever, then that is where we are going.
Where Will Your Pets Go?
They will go with us.
Where Will Your Stuff Go?
It will be put in storage. Our initial plan was to put it in storage in the city where my mother-in-law lives, but actually that's very expensive so we're considering a much cheaper option that is a few hours away.
How Will You Move Everything??
This one is a much asked question, so I'll try to be thorough. The plan is that our friend A will come to us on Day 1. He will arrive probably in the afternoon, maybe with his wife K, on his motorcycle, and pick up the moving truck from the depot and bring it to our house. We'll have supper, and pack the truck, put the motocycle in the moving truck, and then get a decent night's sleep. In the morning we'll get up early. David and I will load the kids and pets into our van, and do a last sweep of the parsonage to make sure we've cleaned everything out. Then we'll start the convoy! Some combination of peoples will drive various vehicles, probably with A and K in the truck and us in our van, and drive down to the city where A and K live. They are about 3 hours away from David's mother's home city. We'll unload the moving truck into a pre-arranged storage facility, and return the truck. Then we'll all go to A and K's house, and sleep there for the night. In the morning we'll get up, say goodbye, stick everyone in the van again, and drive to Mother-in-law's house, arriving there before lunch.
Yes, that does sound stressful.
No, I don't want you to help me find a 'less stressful option'.
Then What?
Well, it will be the very end of June/very beginning of July at this point. We will get work, and then move out of Mother-in-law's house and into our own place. Then we will go get our things from storage and set up our new home.
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