The Extravamovinganza

I'm sitting at our dining room table-- listening to Chopin and basking in the sweet memories of yesterday. Is it really possible for Moving Day to be fun?! Yesterday was-- yet another reminder of God's goodness to us throughout this whole moving process.

Our moving team showed up just after 9am. We had to move on a Friday, so we were worried about finding enough people to help us. But Steve was off that day, Ellen and Tim took off, three of the bussers from Alice's agreed to help, Josh came over, Alex took off work and came down from Connecticut, Candice and Chris used one of their vacation days and came up from Philly, and Chris was working from home and came over to join the crew as they carried our belongings up six flights of stairs.

"I've never seen such a big moving team," Alex said to me. "You are really lucky.... really blessed."

Yes, blessed. Not only did this team show up, but they were beasts about moving! The truck was packed in an hour. An hour!! Josh even had time to count the many many china plates that were lining the staircase (over 580! and yes, we had to take down the ones that were low enough to be affected by the furniture....). Ellen stayed behind and helped me clean the apartment and put the plates back in place, while Gretchen and Steve drove the truck-- with the stuff and the helpers in the back!-- over to Manhattan. Just as Ellen and I were finishing up, Tim called--

"I don't see a moving truck yet; where are you guys?"
Oh! They should be there soon; they left here about twenty minutes ago.
"Wait, where are you?"
Ellen and I are cleaning the apartment; we'll be over as soon as we finished.
"Wait. What? I'm in Brooklyn. You guys are done already?!"

And so Tim drove Ellen and me over to Manhattan. We got there just as they opened the back of the moving truck (turns out it takes a while to drive a 24' truck through Manhattan!). And the amazingness began. Correction: the amazingness continued.

I'm not sure how no one passed out after making all those trips to and from the sixth floor (no, there isn't an elevator). I'm not sure how everyone stayed good-natured. And I'm really not sure how they managed to get that leather couch (yes, the one we'd claimed from the Brooklyn sidewalk back in August) into our apartment. But I do know this: I could not have asked for a better moving team.

1:22pm, and we were finished. Completely finished. They'd unloaded everything into the lobby and then brought it up to the sixth floor. Once it was into the lobby, Gretchen took the truck back. By the time she made it back to the apartment, everything was inside and we'd already rearranged the furniture at least six times trying to find the optimal layout. We thought we were going to have to lose the futon, but we finally found a way to make it all fit. The guys assembled our beds, moved furniture around in our rooms to make sure we could fit everything, and provided comic relief throughout the whole process.

For dinner, we walked downstairs to Joy Burger Bar-- which is a) just below us and b) possibly the best burger joint I've ever been to (translation: deadly)-- and ordered burgers to bring back upstairs. A few more friends joined us, and we spent the evening hanging out, laughing, and watching Social Network.

I didn't know Moving Day could be fun, but it was. At one point I was so exhausted that I excused myself to lay down for a half hour. But after ten minutes I gave up-- not because I wasn't tired, but because I could hear everyone having fun in the living room and I didn't want to miss out!

So this morning, I am still tired. But I am also still happy. As we drank coffee at our dining room table this morning, Gretchen said "I just can't get over how good God is to us." And that's exactly it-- from start to finish in this whole (what could have been awful) moving process, God has guided, directed, and provided for each detail. We have an apartment now that we can use for showing hospitality to others-- for sharing the love that Jesus has shown to us.

To whom much is given, much will be required.

So here goes! Lord, you have given us much. So, so much. Help us to bless others as you have blessed us.