I wanted to share about our recent move, but quickly realized that it would take too long to talk about all of it, so I’ll share this story about the border crossing.

I had originally planned to be headed to the US border by 2 pm on moving day. “At the latest,” I told my brothers, who looked more and more skeptical with each new box that was packed and stacked in the hallway. Well, they were right. We loaded the last box into the truck and did a walk-through in the apartment at 6:30 pm. I took a moment by myself to thank God for that apartment and the blessing it had been for my family and I, then locked the door for the last time.

After the obligatory visit to DQ, we prayed with our helpers Jodhan and Justin (who were simply awesome and kept everything moving along and fun) and said goodbye. I drove the first leg and by 8pm we arrived at the border. We had prayed a lot for the crossing. We had all our paperwork and we knew we weren’t doing anything wrong, but they could still have us unload the whole truck and look through it all. My older brother Mike said he would walk home in that event.

Maybe we were a little nervous because it had taken my wife 1 1/2 hours to clear customs in the airport.  As we arrived, I think I pulled into the wrong area, because the guard’s window was about 6 feet higher than our moving van and was clearly designed for 18 wheelers. The guard simply looked down at us with an expression I couldn’t clearly read and asked “What are you doing?” While trying to retain a composure that said “I’m not a drug runner, honest!” I quickly explained our situation and handed him our passports. After a moment of running them through his computer he asked us to pull forward a few feet and join him at the back of the truck.

The guard asked me to open the door, and after almost being hit by a mattress and a tricycle, he asked me to close it. Walking back to the cab he asked “So, driving all the way to South Carolina, huh?” My brother Michael replied “Yes sir” as I watched the guard’s eyes quickly read Mike’s shirt. It read: “I’m not just a legendary fisherman, I”m also a chick magnet.”

“You boys have a nice trip,” he said as he handed the passports back.

As we drove away laughing, I realized that the whole ridiculous thing had only taken 10 minutes. Praise the Lord!

We move in less than 24 hours.

Currently, Michael and Donna are taking apart furniture while John and Andrea play with the kids out in the park. By this time tomorrow Andrea, Donna and the kids will be in the air and my brothers and I will be on the road with the uhaul. I’m going to try and do twitter updates regarding the progress of the road trip. You can follow along here www.twitter.com/goteemills or on Facebook.

See you in South Carolina!

My last post spurred many of you to pray and I want to say thank you. God has definitely acted on our behalf. I knew that there was a chance that we would not have to change our plans because of treatment for this infection, but it was a small chance.

On Tuesday, the doctor assessed our situation and prescribed a series of antibiotics for the whole family: 2 antibiotics by mouth for a week, a cream in the nose for 2 weeks and a special soap for 4 weeks.  He also confirmed that Sophie is healing fine and should need no additional intervention.

What all this means is that we are able to leave for South Carolina this Monday, without any changes to our original plan.  All the plans B, C, and D that we spent the last week making are no longer needed, we won’t lose our airline tickets, and we are really get to go!

We really see God’s plan and provision in this time; through all of you who prayed and let us know that you were there for us. Even though this infection came at a difficult time, we see His provision in that too, because if this had happened after we moved, we would have been without health coverage and it would have been quite expensive and difficult to get treatment.

Thanks so much for being there with us!  We look forward to seeing what’s next.

As some of you already know via facebook, our daughter Sophie is currently recovering from a staph infection. Last Monday we noticed a large, hard, painful lump on her bum, a lump that we knew all too well. Andrea took her to the ER that night and returned with antibiotics,  5 hours later. On Friday we had a follow up appointment where the doctor reported that she was healing well and wouldn’t require any surgery, which was exactly what we all had been praying for.

The problem is that Sophie’s infection is just the latest in a string of infections my family and I have endured over the last 7 months. So, this Tuesday the whole family will be seen by an infectious disease specialist, with the hope that we will be able to rid the family of this recurring problem

Between Sophie’s  healing time and the treatment for the four of us, it looks like we may have to delay our move to South Carolina by a few weeks. My brothers and sister-in-law will still come up as planned to drive the U-haul with all our stuff down to SC, but we will remain until we are done with doctor visits. This is a pretty drastic change of plans for us, but we’ve found some new flights and our awesome friends Andy and Suzy have opened their home to us, so we will have a place to stay.

Please pray for us during the next few weeks.

-Pray that we will kick these infections quickly and entirely.

-Pray for the moving process, incluing the U-haul truck border crossing, customs, and the drive down.

-Pray we can find someone to fly with Andrea down to SC to help with the kids.

-Pray for me, because I now have to drive our mini van down, instead of towing it behind the U-haul truck.

We’ve got two weeks left until we move to Spartanburg. Andrea has made it her goal to pack one hour every day and she is doing a great job! We can’t decide if we are packing too slow or too fast– often it feels like both at the same time. Boxes are already starting to pile up along the walls and in the corners of our house. I don’t think our move has ever felt as real as it does now.

The countdown has begun and today it sits at 14 days.