As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, Wendy and I are in a season of transition. Major components of our lives have been in flux. Thankfully, this wild and crazy time, which began when we ended the Thingy in the Spring of 2013, is finally coming to a close.

That’s right. Things for the Elkins seem to finally be calming down. Here are the big updates…

Wendy and I found out this week we will be having a boy. That’s right, there will be a fourth Elkins male terrorizing Baltimore this fall. At the ultrasound we learned the baby is healthy and Wendy is healthy, so we are excited.

I’d be lying if I didn’t confess that when we saw the baby there was a small amount of mourning. We were hoping for a girl. “Hoping” my not be a strong enough word. We were “convinced” we were having a girl. Wendy’s been calling the baby “her”. We’ve only picked out girl names. We’ve even been collecting baby girl clothing. We were certain.

Don’t worry, Wendy and I got over the maleness surprise quickly. I think the only one still struggling with the news is Sissy. She really wanted a sister. The following conversation occurred yesterday at breakfast:

Me: How do you feel about getting a fourth brother?
Sissy: Boys fuss to much. Boys are fussy babies.
Me: Oh really. You think this baby will be fussy?
Sissy: Yeah. Jude was fussy.
Me: Jude had colic. He wasn’t fussy because he was a boy.
Sissy: Yes he was. 1 + 3 = annoying.

In the fall of 2009 I began working at Valley Baptist Church. The church membership had been in decline for almost two decades when they approached me to join the staff. They knew they needed to change. They asked me to come and help guide them through the coming transformation. Since seasons of intentional change shouldn’t be permanent, I told them I would come and help however I could for five years.

I’m proud of the church Valley has become. God has done beautiful things. The congregation has rediscovered their passion for Jesus and the surrounding community, there is new energy and life in the air, and they membership is growing again. Valley has blossomed into a fantastic family living on mission together. It has been a privileged to watch the Holy Spirit do his thing.

With the season of change at Valley ending, so must my time on Valley’s staff. Wendy and I will still be attending as members. I’ll still be roaming the halls, causing trouble. But I won’t have an office or fancy title any longer (this is an inside joke – no one at Valley was ever completely sure what my title was). Good bye wonderful white boards. Good bye. (Sorry readers who’ve never been to my office – another inside joke. I have two huge white boards mounted on my office walls and another two I like to put on easels. I’m happiest when all four all full of ideas and strategies.)

Good news. I’ve found a new job. It begins June 1st. I’m super excited. The job is an amazing fit for me and the work is meaningful. It is something I am passionate about. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you with who I’ll be working for or what the job is yet. They haven’t publicly announced my coming on board. So until next week you will have to wait with baited breath in frustrated anticipation.

We moved into our house in Hamilton almost five years ago: the same fall Jude was born, I took the job at Valley, we launch the Thingy, and we helped found City Neighbors Hamilton. It was a wonderful place to live. I miss it.

Knowing my job at Valley was going to end this summer, late in 2013 we left our home in Hamilton, packed all our possessions into a small storage space, and moved in with family. The Elkins Clan has been homeless for over six months now. I’m incredibly grateful to my in-laws for letting us crash in their extra bedrooms. They’ve been amazing.

It appears as though our time without a place of our own is drawing to a close. Thanks to an incredible real estate crew – the Dailey Group –  we’ve found a house! This has been a long and drawn out sage which I will share in a blog post later this week. In summary, we’ve been looking for a house since January with no luck. Finally we were introduced to Seth and Alyce Dailey. Their team is amazing and set us on the right track. A few Saturdays ago a house came on the market we liked. The Dailey team had an offer together that evening. It was accepted the next day and we were under contract  in less than 48 hours of the house being listed.

It is the perfect place for us. We are excited about moving in and can’t wait for closing to arrive.

Although this blog has been quiet, I’ve been doing a lot of writing.

The novel is coming along. I’m still editing. I’m way off my deadlines. My original plan was to publish in January. But surprisingly, I’m okay with not meeting my goals. I’ve never written a novel before so what do I know about setting deadlines for completion? Simply put, editing is hard. It’s coming though. Hopefully in another month or two.

Concerning this blog, here is where I am:

I have a feeling I’m going to be writing a lot for my new job. This writing will be entirely non-fiction. I want to give it my complete focus. It will become the priority.

Also, I don’t want things I’ve written in the past in this space to distract from my work with the new organization. (As many of my pastor friends might tell you) some of the stuff I’ve posted here is controversial. Surprisingly it’s not my fiction. What tends to ruffle feathers is my commentary on church systems. Why I enjoy stirring the pot, I don’t know that it will be helpful. I’d hate to go to a work meeting and find someone has googled me, found something I wrote, and wants to debate it.

But at the same time, I want to continue writing fiction. It is a wonderful escape. I love sitting down and hammering out short stories. I’ve enjoyed working on the novel and have several others outlined. I feel like that part of my voice is only beginning to be birthed and I want to explore it further.

So I don’t know. I may take down this site completely (don’t worry – I’ll warn you first)? Or I may leave it up, continue to write here, and just secretly remove some old possibly problematic posts? I’m still thinking through this. I’ll keep you posted.

What I have decided to do is open a new blog space devoted entirely to short stories. I’m working on it now. I hope to launch it in June. It’s going to be called “Short Fiction Break.”

For this site I’m looking for submissions. I’ll share more about this later. For now let me simply put out there – if you like to write short stories and need a place to share them, shoot me an email or put our contact info in the contacts and I’ll be getting in touch.

That is all the updates I’ve got.

Lots happening.

More Elkins updates coming soon.