Well, I had promised this blog post back in April ... now it's the middle of July. Many apologies... Life seems to have swept us away and kept us very busy.
We had to make some choices. Some difficult decisions for us to say "Okay, God - we're following You and not ourselves". It's still hard some days to wake up and realize this is not where I expected to be.
We started our Support Raising classes in January of this year - they were great. We learned a lot and I feel like we've definitely gained good knowledge on how to have ask for and raise support for the mission field. However, halfway through the training - after discussion with our new coordinator at LAM - we felt like God was telling us to wait for the field and pay off our loans. We didn't feel financially responsible to go for the two years that LAM said they would be okay sending us on and putting all of our student loan debt on hold during that time - accruing more interest which means more debt during that time away. We still pray that God will move in a mighty way to wipe out our debt (or really, let's be honest, maybe just make it more manageable! :D) because we know He can do all things. We finished our Kingdom Come Training classes, and began to discuss our near future.
We had been living with some very dear family friends, people who treat us like their own children, and while they were very hospitable and understanding to our financial situation, we knew it was time for us to move on. We were blessed to find a house that we could rent at a rate affordable to us and it was with our same landlord from our first apartment (and also good family friend!).
We also moved on from First Baptist to a church plant in our city. When we decided it was finally time to move on to somewhere else we talked a lot about where to go. We knew we both enjoyed Family Bible church in Highland, IL and we had some good friends that attended the church (there was also an opening for a youth pastor position that Josh had tried for as well, but God closed the door there - you'll see why soon). Knowing there were so many other churches in our town, I asked Josh if we could visit some of the ones around town and see if there were any here we liked before we settled on the drive to Highland every Sunday. He did his research and we settled on visiting Pathway Church the first week. We left that service feeling so touched and filled spiritually that we knew this was it. As a rule of thumb, we went back to make sure the experience wasn't just a one time thing and we checked out one of their small groups. We haven't looked back since.
We've been so blessed by our new church family. We feel connected to a church again, connected to people and we love it. The cool thing we found out during our membership interviews was that since they're a church plant, they are affliated with NAMB (North America Mission Board). NAMB offers training and internships to those interested in church planting/mission work. Now, if you didn't know, ever since our mission trip to Maryland with the youth back in '08, God put a little fire in Josh's belly for church planting. We also knew there was this possibility when going to Costa Rica to be involved in church planting there also. Needless to say, we began to see why God was closing the screen door (not the whole door because we both still see God leading us to the international mission field) to Costa Rica.
This whole time of processing with LAM and Costa Rica has been one big learning experience - a HUGE stretching from God in following Him, listening to what He wants instead of what we want, knowing that our timing is not always His timing. Like I said earlier, I do believe wholeheartedly that God will one day lead us into the foreign mission field - whether it's Costa Rica or some other country - but right now, He has some more training and learning He wants us to experience while in the US.
I pray that you may open your heart to what God has desired for your life - whether you understand the circumstances at the moment or not - know that God has a bigger plan and purpose. As one of my taglines goes - God knows what He's doing .... Go figure!
I pray that God gives you understanding and peace about whatever situation you are facing right now in your life.
Pray for us in our continued financial struggle
We are also expecting a new little one in January - if you hadn't heard yet!
We love you guys and so does Christ,
~Colleen :)
