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During our entire time in military ministry, we have known from the day we drove away from our hometown, that we would one day return. Southeast Tennessee is the place we consider home, no matter where the Army takes us. It’s where our parents are. It’s where we have deep roots. It’s where we believe our next chapter will unfold when Ryan reaches the end of his service.

With at least five years left until military retirement (perhaps more depending on how God leads us), we won’t be settling permanently near home any time soon. However, as our family dynamics are changing with kids in college and launching into adulthood in a radius of that home area, we have felt the urgency to have a centralized landing spot.

You may be asking, “Isn’t your home wherever you’re assigned a landing spot?” or “Don’t you have your parents’ homes as landing spots?”

While the answer to both of those questions is a resounding yes, there is actually quite a bit more to that answer. Below are seven considerations that may shed some light on why we bought a 90 year old cabin in western North Carolina and how it’s a vital part of our midlife plans.

1. A Place Within a Few Hours of Our Kids’ Campuses

This is by far one of our biggest pushes to do this now instead of waiting. As our kids are in their college years and spreading out in their various college towns, we have found that holidays and breaks don’t always get maximized when they have to travel by air or make lengthy drives home and back to campus. Our cabin is 14 miles inside the state line from Tennessee, roughly two hours (or less) of driving time to both of our parents’ houses, and all three of our kids’ colleges in Cleveland, Cookeville, and likely, Rome, Georgia.

Having the cabin gives them a predictable, recurring location and a mutual meet up spot where Ryan and I can be the ones to take on the greater burden of travel to get to them instead of the opposite.

2. A Place for the Kids to Enjoy With or Without Us

One of the downsides of constant relocation is that our kids don’t have the same home in the same place to come home to. They may come home to Virginia, or Georgia, or Xxxxxxxx at our next duty station. So we wanted them to feel like they have a “home place” where they can escape their college town, bring a friend or two for a get-away, or down the road when they are married, bring a spouse and their kids to chill.

One of the first things we did was get each of the kids a key to the cabin and they all have full rights to go use it whenever they want, whether we are there or not. This isn’t just our cabin, it’s their cabin too.

3. A Place for Us to Enjoy With or Without the Kids

Similarly, we are realists and know that our kids are not going to be hanging around us all the time or maybe even much, as they begin their own adventures. So we wanted to have a fun place for us to enjoy together too.

After years of staying in AirBnbs and traveling, Ryan and I have discovered we love a cozy, quaint, small little bungalow where the upkeep is minimal and the opportunity for our own adventures is high.

4. A Place to Rest, Retreat, and Recreate

The stresses and operational tempo of military life and ministry can be demanding. As part of our overall longevity strategy, Ryan and I realized a while back that if we aren’t carving out intentional time away to recharge for ourselves, the Army, our denomination, or life, isn’t going to do it for us. And time away to unplug relax, and enjoy recreational activities with no set agenda is vital.

By choosing our cabin in the mountains of western North Carolina, we are close enough to still see our parents but also nestled deep in the beauty of the outdoors where we can hike, fly fish, be out on the water, explore nearby little mountain towns, and enjoy amenities of our little community– all things we hope to increase the frequency of as we finish up our time with the Army over the next few years.

5. A Place to Invest in a Mortgage

At the expense (money pun) of sounding too nerdy, we do consider purchasing this cabin as part of our overall financial planning strategy. We max out all pre and post tax retirement contributions and will have Ryan’s generous pension, but we have felt the need to diversify our portfolio into real estate. Moving every few years, it has not made sense to purchase homes at our military assignments in the current economy, but staying totally out of the market isn’t the move either.

We owned our El Paso, TX home for over ten years, renting it out for the final seven. Just about the time we sold it in summer of 2021, the housing market has gone increasingly crazy. We’ve continued to see home prices and mortgage rates skyrocket as our equity from the sale of our house sits in a high yield savings account. We have spent years saving, learning, researching, budgeting, running cost-benefit-analyses and ROI forecasts, praying, and seeking counsel. It all lined up and the time felt right.

The cabin gives us an opportunity to pay off something in a few years, have and preserve instant equity, and provides housing options upon retirement. While it may never become our full-time home, it offers flexibility and stability in a season of constant change. We see this as a tangible investment and a wise way to keep our money growing while we continue to move.

6. A Place of Our Own

Over the past 15 years, prioritizing seeing our extended families has been of high value and super important, but as Ryan and I are getting older, we realized that we, too, needed to be cognizant of our own immediate family of five and think about making our own traditions and rhythms as our kids are becoming young adults.

In addition to logistical and financial aspects of home ownership, there are also the “intangibles” of owning. Things like pride of place, having a creative outlet to make a home, feelings of rootedness, stability of location, autonomy, freedom, personal space, and joy all count as important reasons too!

7. A Place to Share With Others

Since our cabin is in a small, gated resort-style community, we have been asked a few times if we plan to rent it out as an AirBnb or VRBO. The answer there is no, we do not. We do not want the hassle or liability or work of that scenario, but that’s not to say we don’t plan for others to use the cabin!

It has always been on our hearts to be able to offer our cabin and space to others as a getaway spot. This won’t be immediate because we have some repairs, renovations, replacements, and general settling there to do ourselves. We want to use the cabin for a while in all four seasons to learn all of its quirks and make sure we have it outfitted for maximum enjoyment before we invite guests to use it. (It was built in 1937 and does not have central heat and air so it may not be everyone’s jam; it is, after all, a mountain lake cabin, not a five star resort.)

As people who, over the years, have been on the receiving end of generous hospitality through family, friends, and organizations like Pine Cove Family Camp, The Cove Military Chaplain’s Retreat, and various other opportunities, we know the value and blessing of having a space to step away from the rigors of service to find peace and rest, even if only for a few days away.

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That’s our goal in all of this. We see home, whether in a traditional house or a small, rustic cabin, as an extension of our hearts and our faith. We feel immeasurably blessed to have a place to call our own, and we hope to fill it with laughter, connection, and memories—not just for our family, but for friends and loved ones who need a place to rest, retreat, and recharge.