Does the title of today’s post give you any ideas???

If you guessed “the Workentin’s are on the move again?” you are correct!!

And I’m sure y’all have lots of questions…so let’s see if I can answer them before you ask ~

Ron explained to our co~worker (he hates to be called boss) that we (Ron and I AND Providence Home) are like two gears trying to work together. One gear has 14 teeth and one has 15 teeth and they are just not meshing together quite like they should. Neither gear is bad or wrong, they are just not working as they should. Again, nothing bad has happened, we just don’t feel we are doing exactly what the Lord has called us to do.

On our last trip to Florida to spend a few days with Brandon and his family we realized how much we miss being near and involved with their family and getting and giving Grammy hugs!!! And as we always do while traveling we had some great conversations. I shared with Ron how I felt like I couldn’t be ALL of me here at Providence Home…I love to have the kids helping in the kitchen, learning how to cook and trying new recipes. One thing we have found is that if the kids are able to help prepare the meals they are more likely to try new foods. As well it is a great life skill ~ being able to cook for yourself! Ron mentioned that he often feels like he has nothing to do ~ you can only mow the lawn so often, there is no workshop, no animals to care for and light bulbs only burn out once in awhile so don’t need to be changed every day. About that time in our conversation we drove pass a sign that said “Rodeheaver Boys Ranch” and so we checked them out online and talked about possibly looking for a new position in a setting more like BlueBonnet Youth Ranch.

Providence Home is a great place and we provide a necessary service for kids who need a short term, emergency placement but these kids don’t need a mama or a papa and that’s what we love to do. So we started praying about what should we do. Some of you may wonder how we find places to be Home Parents…we use the House Parent.net website to see what positions are out there. We have a few “must haves” in our search on where to work…the two biggies are health care insurance and working a 7 day on/7 day off schedule. And specifically we wanted to stay on the east coast (we have lots of places to check out) and no farther away then we already are from Land O’ Lakes, FL where Brandon and his family live.

Thus began the search for a new place to plant some seeds…we did contact Rodeheaver Boys Ranch as well as a couple of other places: St. Augustine Youth Services in St. Augustine, FL and A Kid’s Place in Brandon, FL (I smile every time I say that name because last time we were in Land O’Lakes, Ron saw that Brandon, FL was not too far from where Danalyn and Brandon live and had said…we need to visit Brandon, FL!)

Phone calls and emails commenced between the two agencies and then a zoom interview and then a job offer was presented to us from A Kid’s Place. A little about them, they are only about 31 miles from where Danalyn, Brandon and the little boys live! That means we get to go to football games, basketball games and spend more time being actively involved in their lives…which we always enjoy!

The set up at A Kid’s Place (AKP) is very similar to BlueBonnet Youth Ranch in that most of the kids are there for a long term placement, have sibling groups and have the 7 day on/7 day off schedule that we have come to enjoy. There are five cottages onsite, 10 sets of home parents with 5 sets working each week + YCW (Youth Care Workers) assigned to each cottage so there is always help with the children. We will once again live onsite while we are working and we found a sweet little campground which is only about 8 miles from AKP where we will park our little home on wheels for our off time. Though we expect like we have been doing here in NC that we will be doing a lot of traveling on our off time checking out places we have never been, seeing family and friends ~ now that traveling is opening up again and just enjoying our life wherever the Lord plants us.

Our last day here at Providence Home is June 4th. On Saturday, June 5th we will have lunch and fellowship with our “stalker” friends, Jen & Lee (there is a story there) and then begin our travels to Florida on Sunday, June 6th. We will first be going to Savannah, GA for two nights and then onto Orlando, FL for two nights and then arrive in Brandon, FL at Bethesda RV Park on Thursday, June 10th. Our tentative first day at AKP is Monday, June 14.

The word we have shared a lot this past week has been AMBIVALENT – we are excited for this new adventure, like a friend mentioned to me…time to sow more seeds in a new location ~ we may never know the impact we have made on the kids we have cared for or the people we have met but we know our garden has grown immensely. We are definitely excited to be closer to family or at least part of our family and yet there is sadness as we leave NC. We have met some wonderful people and look forward to continuing those relationships and love being near the beach so we are sure we will be back to visit as the Lord opens doors.

Blessings to each of you who has traveled this crazy journey with us!! We look forward to sharing more of our lives, what we do and who we meet with y’all!!

Have a beautiful day!!!