Guest Post- Sarah from the Fontenot Four

Good morning! Today, I have asked Sarah from the Fontenot Four to do a post on the ins and outs of moving to a new city. Sadly, she moved away from Houston about two months after we moved here, so I only “know” her in the blogosphere. I am also posting for her today on her blog on the topic of encouraging those with chronically ill children. If you’re visiting from the Fontenot Four, welcome to my little corner of the web. 


Hi everyone!  My name is Sarah and I’m hopping over today from my blog, The Fontenot Four!  I do try {not as often as I’d like} to be a little more frugal, so I really do appreciate Kelli’s posts on saving my family money and reducing debt!  I am also encouraged by her posts on the everyday life of her family.

I have two girls, ages 7 and 5.  Our 5 year old, Peyton, was born with multiple disabilities.  We weren’t aware that this was going to happen before she was born.  It was a shock to say the least.  You can follow her story over on her CaringBridge page.  Our family was not in a financial position for me to stay at home with our children after Peyton was born, so I struggled to work a full time job and deal with the increasing special medical needs of Peyton at the same time.  By mid-2008, it was evident that I had to quit my job – not just for my own emotional and physical healthy, but in order to actually meet Peyton’s needs.  So, by May 2008, shortly after Peyton’s 2^nd birthday, I left my job.

Were we finally in a financial position for this??  Not on your life!!  The job my husband held in Houston, TX was with a company that was kind of “famous” for underpaying employees.  They were also not a very family-oriented company. Emphasis on “not”.  Looking back, I believe my husband missed opportunities because of our unique and demanding family situation.  I had a good paying job for a multi-national real estate development company in Houston, TX.  It was administrative/book-keeping, but the company treated its employees well and for what I did, I made a nice second income for our family.  In an instant, that was gone when I left my job.  Ron’s income just wasn’t enough to support the four of us, so he searched in vain for a new job in Houston.  It didn’t come around.

We decided that it was time to broaden the search to out-of-state job markets.  We LOVE to travel West.  We vacationed a few times in Colorado and we loved it there.  We never traveled East.  So naturally, it made sense that when we relocated out of state, we wound up in Charleston, South Carolina!  My husband had a phone interview in July 2008 and shortly after that he was flown out to Charleston to interview in person.  On August 15, 2008, we landed in Charleston with all our personal belongings with us.  Ron’s one trip to Charleston for that interview was the extent of our family’s knowledge of Charleston prior to relocating here just one month later!

We were excited about the adventure of it all.  It was a huge leap of faith, although I have to be honest and say that our faith was shaky – while we were “believers”, I don’t know that I would have said that we were fully committed followers of Christ.  No, I wouldn’t have said that.  We were moving a family across the country, including one child with mountains of medical files and history to plug in to a totally unfamiliar system.

For us, probably the biggest factor in determining where we’d move was the fact that the location had to be somewhere where there was an excellent medical facility, preferably with an actual dedicated children’s hospital.  Check!  Peyton got plugged in to the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) system within the first few days of arriving here.  Now, we came from Houston, TX and were intimately familiar with both Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and Texas Children’s Hospital.  It was a tough act to follow.  I have to say, that change was seamless.  I love MUSC.

Next, the location really had to be somewhere that was closer to my hometown – Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.  From Houston, it’s pushing 30 hours drive time.  From Charleston, 20ish hours.  It knocks a day off the drive time.  I didn’t have any of my own family in Texas anyway, so that part of leaving didn’t affect me.  Now, some of my husband’s family is in Beaumont, TX (about 1.5 hours east of where we were in Houston).  Now they are about 17 hours from us.  My grandmother and aunt live outside of Atlanta, GA, which is only 5 or 6 hours from here – again, much closer than they used to be for me.  I also have a lifelong friend in Baltimore, MD – 10 hours from here.  SO much closer.  I live in closer proximity to more friends and family than I did the whole time I lived in Houston (11+ years)!  That said, we still don’t have any family in Charleston.  We didn’t have any friends here when we moved here either!  But it makes a big mental difference to know that I’m closer to people somehow.

Another big thing for me – natural aesthetics.  I’m sorry, Houston folks, but I lived there for over 11 years and I was dying inside the whole time because it’s so not aesthetically pleasing.  I grew up near the St. Mary’s River and Lake Superior in an area of Northern Ontario which draws thousands of tourists in the fall because of the sheer beauty of its natural surroundings.  The best I could figure for Houston was that people don’t actually visit Houston unless it’s for business or because they have family there.  In Charleston, routes around town are limited by the Cooper, Ashley and Wando Rivers that run through the area.  Bridges connect islands and mainland.  The beautiful Atlantic Ocean is about 15 minutes from home.  The Lowcountry is beautiful.

Moira seeing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in 2008

Then there’s the culture.  There is so much to see and do here.  Even three years later, we have barely scratched the surface!!

Gorgeous flowers blooming in front of all the historic homes in Downtown Charleston

Going back to my walk with Christ, the one thing we didn’t have when we moved here was a good church home.  That area was sorely lacking in our lives.  In fact we had a really bad experience at one church which swore us off ever going back and really gave a lasting negative impression of church for us.  It wasn’t until Spring of 2009 when we were introduced to the church we have been attending ever since.  It’s a large multi-site non-denominational church.  A far cry from the Catholic upbringing I had.  That said, it’s the one place where everything fell into place so beautifully for me to cultivate a close personal relationship with the Lord.  Both my husband and I were eventually baptized as fully devoted followers of Christ at this church.  Our lives haven’t been the same since we found this place of worship!

I would have to say that settling in to an amazing church home has been the key that has made our relocation across the country so easy.  Oh, we’ve had plenty of difficulties on our life journey since we’ve been here, but Charleston feels like home in a way that Houston never did.  We left behind some really good friends, and we do miss them.  But Houston, the city, just never felt like “home”.

If I had it to do all over again, I wish that I could have found our church immediately so we could have begun our faith journey sooner and been even further on that road than we are now. 

BUT…

I believe that God placed us in Charleston for a reason.  Were it not for Peyton, we wouldn’t be living here.  We’d still be in Houston, I’d still be working, and who knows where our faith lives would be.  Were it not for Peyton, we would not have been introduced to our church.  Were it not for Peyton, there are connections we’ve made through church which would never have been made.  Were it not for Peyton, I would likely not have come to the point of accepting Christ when I did. Were it not for Peyton, I don’t know that I would ever have known the extent to which goodness and kindness can be found in everyday people.  (yes, there were good and kind people in Houston as well…)

Were it not for our relocation to Charleston and being forced to start fresh in a whole new city and environment, I don’t know that I would have known that God really and truly does have a plan and a purpose for my 5 year old special needs/medically fragile daughter – a child who is still very infant-like.  God does have a purpose.  He has used her in many mighty ways since we moved here in August 2008 to show me so many things.  He has blessed us and so many others through her life.

So, Kelli asked me to write about relocating to a new city, and this is where my ramblings took me today!  Thank you, Kelli, for allowing me to post on your blog today!  Wish I had met you online and in person before we moved away from where you are!

Thanks Sarah! I love Houston, but I must agree with you on the whole bad aesthetics thing! 🙂 Thanks for sharing your heart on how God used your move to grow you!

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