To God be the Glory

2012 The Story of Glory Farm….

Trying to explain the how and why of this move in a simple way when strangers ask us has been difficult.  The answer is long, involved and different from the norm.  When people say to us, “Why Ellensburg?”  We’ve actually thought about responding with, “Well, we’re in the witness protection program…shhhh… don’t tell”.

The move to Ellensburg was led by God.  A place that met both of our dreams & our needs.  A place that offered something for each of us and for all of the children.  Every time we researched this area and this move we got nothing but ‘green lights’.  It became almost uncanny and we seemed to be ‘called’ to move.  The timing was all God’s and we moved a lot by faith.  It was if God said… “Go and I will give Laura a new life”.

Pat had us each make out a list of the dreams we had for our new life and life.  We planned and proceeded as best as possible, selling our home in a bad real estate market, a major surgery to get through and a teen to move.

There was one home in Ellensburg that we kept being drawn too.  We watched it for 10 months, going back and forth, as it was more than we wanted to spend, needed more work than we wanted to do and was very old.

Pat got through surgery and our home went on the market in So. California.  We knew it was crazy, but there was one week between high school quarters for Laura to change schools.  This would be a ‘good’ time to move, except as experienced Realtors, we knew you did not plan your move down to the day.

With an offer on our home and a move date looming, we came back to Ellensburg to find our home.  Although we were changing jobs, the bank informed us we would qualify for a mortgage as we owned rental property in the area.

When we saw the home on Dry Creek, we were so disappointed.  It wasn’t what we had hoped.  We started looking at brand new homes instead.  However, our discussions kept coming back to Dry Creek, what if? What if, we moved this wall, did the roof, added a mud room, bathroom, knocked out that wall, did the floors, cleaned up the fencing…. And the list went on.  We went back again to see the home, this time with a plan in mind and started falling in love for real.

The bank also told us, whoops we made a mistake, we can not give you a mortgage as you haven’t owned your rentals long enough.  Then our Realtor called, oh yes, he said.  The Sellers on Dry Creek would be willing to carry the note, practically unheard of anymore.  Oh, my goodness… now we had a decision to make.  Could we take this project on?  It would be a lot of work.  It would be a wonderful home to share with our family and friends.  We’d fallen in love with it and made our offer. After our offer was accepted, Pat pulled out our notebook

with the list of our dreams.  Each of us had received about 8 out of 10 ‘desires’ that were on our list!

We moved within the one week period Laura had off and she started Ellensburg High on the exact date we’d ‘planned’.

Naming the new farm was to be a family affair and contest.  With a sense of humor we thought about Twitts Folly and a few other names.  However, when we thought of Glory Farm, which stands for “to God be the Glory”, we knew it had to be no other name and called the contest off.

2009 The Story of Ellen & Pat

Pat’s story:

I arrived in Los Angeles after a bad rebound marriage, single again and lonely.  I came to work for a friend who offered me a job and a roof over my head.

After a few months I decided that I would try female company again, I started with Craigslist, the quality of people on Craigslist is what you would expect!

I signed up for Match.com and started to meet much nicer women but none that I really clicked with.

After a couple of months I kept having this woman called Ellen pop up in my “match of the week”.  The problem was in my profile I had been very specific as to what I was looking for in a woman, this Ellen didn’t fit any of them.  She was too tall, too young, too far away, her children were too young and the list went on and on.  I just ignored this Ellen but Match.com kept sending her to me every week  I finally decided to contact her if only to eliminate her from the list.  We emailed back and forth, then talked on the phone and decided to meet.  I had a fast rule that first meetings were to be either breakfast or lunch, that way if I didn’t like the person I could always claim a prior engagement and split, so of course we met for dinner.  I realized that this six footer was something special within the first few minutes of our date.  We have been together almost constantly since that Good Friday we met.  God was very persistent in sending me my “soul mate”.

Ellen’s story:

Internet dating was a journey of humor, exasperation and faith.  I came to wish that there was a “dating Mr. Potato-head”.  Where I could take the best qualities of the men I was meeting and put them together to make one man, the humor of Tom, the hard work of John, the faith of Sam, etc.   Believing God had a special partner for me became a lesson in faith, so I started asking God to “bless Mr. Potato head each day” and wondering when we would meet.

I had a rule to answer any mail I received on Match.com and to be polite no matter whether I thought the man was a match or not.  “Paddy the pilot” messaged me and I thought…”this guy looks sort of goofy”.  However, our emails were fun and I felt confident that a dinner would be ‘nice’, if nothing else as we had so much in common.  We met on Good Friday and it was good! The next day we met again for a ‘romantic’ walk on the beach, where I stepped in tar and Pat forgot to put money in the parking meter. By Easter Sunday, I knew we had something very special, a match that truly was a gift from God.