We will be living in community with our good friends Kris, Nikki, Jennika (age 2), and Korban (age 3 months) Zyp. We have been contemplating and praying about this decision for a while. It started a few months ago when the idea came about (almost jokingly!) between Jesse and Kris Zyp, that if we had the opportunity to experience community living between our families, then we would love to do it. After some thought and prayer, all four of us (Jesse, me, Kris, and Nikki) felt that this was the direction that God was leading us and we should pursue it. Kris and Nikki have had much more experience than we have living in community with others, and we are excited to experience it with them (Zyp's community living). Don't worry, we're not crazy (well...maybe we are!), we're not swingers, and we're not moving onto a compound. =)
We have intentionally made this decision and are hoping to experience a life with a little less individualism, materialism, and consumerism than the way society expects us to live. There are many things we are looking forward to: we will be sharing a house, sharing our lives (our strengths and our weaknesses), eating together, deepening friendships, switching off weekly date nights and babysitting, the benefits of living in a large family (while still maintaining a 1:1 parent to child ratio!!), spurring each other on spiritually, and I'm sure God will show all of us things that we aren't expecting. There are also significant financial benefits for both of our families (maybe we can get those student loans paid off faster?!), but that is really secondary to everything else for us. It is not a life-long commitment, but we are all prepared to work through the tough times (and we know they will be coming) for this season in our lives.
In order to do this, we knew we had to sell our house. Any home owner is aware of the current housing market, and we were prepared for it to take 3-6 months and to not make any profit on the sale. We prayed (and I think the Zyps prayed even more than us!) that our house would sell quickly and for the right price since we didn't have a lot of equity to play with. Two weeks ago we put our house on the market, and we had a signed offer within the first week from the first people that looked at the house! Our realtor called it nothing short of a miracle! We see it as confirmation of God's sovereignty. We are on track to close on October 13. It is all happening much faster than any of us expected, but we are excited for this new chapter in our lives.