Our next home exchange is scheduled for August 2012. We are doing a home exchange with a pastor and his family from England, as part of our 3-month ministry sabbatical.
As I looked over our home exchange agreement, I saw one line in the agreement that was exciting and a blessing: “Sufficient closets, drawers and bathroom cabinets will be vacated for the visitor’s personal goods.”
What a great motivator! I am always adding more stuff to our closets, drawers and cabinets. Until I have a reason to start removing unneeded items, they just stay there–and our upcoming home swap is just the reason I need to de-clutter. Yeh!
The blessing? Besides have clean closets and drawers, I was able to share unused items with others. We brought bags of clothing and household items to the nearby Goodwill Thrift Store.
As we look to our plans for travel in the future, we want to do at least one home exchange each year. This provides wonderful incentive to keep clutter to a minimum and to share with others those things we are not using before they become worthless.
Cleaning closets has never been so much fun. We say that a Christian Home Exchange is a “Vacation With A Mission.” Perhaps now we can add that a home exchange is also “Cleaning With A Mission.”
