Longbourne Apartments

My new apartment home is in a building for seniors, 55 and older.

The Longbourne Apartments are part of East Carolina Community Development, a Non-profit association.  There are only 44 units in this building.  We have a community garden (weeds at this time of year), with a barbecue, community room, exercise equipment and I noticed today there is a shuffleboard court.  To get into the building, you have to enter a code, which helps me feel very safe here.

Everyone I have met, has told me the same thing, “We’re like family here, and we look out for each other.”  They have made me feel welcome.

I’m finding out just how much like a family, it is.  The manager is very nice and her own mother had been living here and recently moved to another senior apartment in a nearby town.

Late last week we were all asked to meet in the community room because Terri, (manager) wanted everyone to know her mom has just been hospitalized with leukemia.  Everyone was very sad to hear the news. They all miss her and are sorry that she moved.  There were many tears all around the room with everyone helping Terri get through her announcement.  Prognosis is not good by the way.

I know I’ve written this before, but there are a lot of Christians here in this area and prayer and comments about “The Lord” are common anywhere you go.  (Elaina: Mom, this is the South!) This morning in the meeting, prayer broke out loud and clear for Terri’s mom, thanks to the black ladies in the group of residents.  If you’ve never sat through a prayer meeting, or church time with gospel-loving black people, it’s an experience you should have at least once.  Everyone else was praying too, and encouraging Terri through her tears. 

Being the new person, I’m still getting to know people but I have been made to feel very welcome.  I met my next door neighbor this morning; a man named Ulysses.  He told me to come over sometime for a glass of wine!  (I know my sisters and my kids will want to get lot of teasing mileage out of that!  Don't do it!)  

I’m probably better off health-wise than 75 percent of the residents. Hope that fact continues!

Little did I know, when I applied here that this would be the kind of home for me that it is.  I asked the Lord to provide me a home where I can be content for as long as I need to.  I think I’ve found it!

December 13,2017

I haven’t written a blog post in a long time.  I was getting ready to move into my apartment.  Packing up my bedroom for the third time in two years was hard!  Most of my household stuff was already packed and in the garage since my move from California.  I had been through some of my boxes in the garage and taken a bunch of stuff to a thrift store, but there was still a LOT of stuff.  My household had been in storage since about 2006, but I had also accumulated MORE stuff during my years living at my mom’s house.

November 13, 2017, I paid rent and got my key to my apartment, which I had never even seen before.  I had seen a similar one, but not THIS one.  Elaina and I packed both of our cars and took what we could to the apartment.  The management has a nice big flatbed dolly that we used to load up.  The best part?  There’s an elevator to the second floor, where my apartment is.  The flatbed dolly, just fits in there with two people!

On November 18, I had three Marines, (two male and one female) and the families of two of them load up a U-Haul and their pickup trucks with all my stuff and take it to the apartment.  They were done in two and half hours!  These Marines and families are friends of my daughter, or actually in her squadron.  The deal was that I would pay them each $50 for their help, but all three turned it down!  They love their Family Readiness Officer (Elaina) and just wanted to help.

You should have seen this tiny apartment with 50 boxes of household items sitting in the middle of the room with furniture all around the edges.  It took me over a week, but I went through each box one at a time and pulled out more stuff to give to a ministry called Philippians Place and put things away in the apartment. I think I am pretty well settled and feeling very content.

This apartment community is a great place and I am in awe of what God is doing with me, and my new home.  I will have a second post soon explaining why this is such a neat place for me to live.