Our journey so far

It’s been a while since some of you have heard from us and we apologize for the absence of any hello phone calls or e-mails. We have been on an incredible journey since the spring of last year! We’ve been in what we’d call a growing season for some time now. And we know that the harvest is near, and we’re gathering a supernatural support system to pray us into our next season, all of you: Our beloved family members and cherished friends.

To briefly update those of you who have not heard from us in a long while, April of last year, Jason resigned his position of youth pastor at church. It was a clean departure, but we had a lot of issues to sort through: Thus the beginning of our growing season.
For the sake of being brief, I will not go into details about our 5 years at Fountain. In a very tiny nutshell, it really wasn’t a good fit for us there. We didn't work together as a team, and kind of lacked true connection with the leadership. Our marriage was faltering and we as a couple were not growing together but ministry there became a wedge that was continually being driven between us. We ourseves had issues, thus bringing us a rather negative ministry experience. Our negative experience there gave us quite the negative paradigm of church leadership, we no longer trusted church leadership in general. We didn’t leave the church offended, but we did leave rather wounded-from our own unresolved issues.

Through the rest of April, well into June, we were sorting through so many emotional issues and realizations of loss. Countless nights of broken sleep, no sleep, and intense fights to figure out how to move on- as far away from our pain as possible. We thought we had an answer. Move Out of our home, to somewhere new; somewhere in those thoughts of move out to move on came about the idea to move out of state, to be near Jason’s family. We were given a realtor’s information from our neighbors and contacted her to see about selling our condo. It was on the market for one day, and we got a substantial offer that we accepted. We weren’t expecting our condo to be sold so quickly, so we rented an apartment near my work, for the shortest lease term available. During that time, we had not been active in pursuing a new church to call our own. We decided that it would be best to try and recover in hiding. So we were just a face in the crowd of the largest church we could find. Who were we kidding? Our spirits were crying out for deeper things than just being a face in the crowd. The church we were hiding at had an evangelistic focus that we were impressed with, but it wasn’t in God’s plans for us, and we knew it.

Toward the end of the summer, we decided to travel across the valley to Chandler so we could visit some old friends for church. We were in desperate need of seeing some familiar faces. It was very refreshing to be in a service where we felt like we were part of the church family. The pastors greeted us, and knew we were there for just a visit. We briefly filled them in on what was going on in our lives. We did let them know that we had not yet found a church home, but were planning on attending a service at Lighthouse Church in Peoria the following week. They had a lot of good things to say about Lighthouse which made it easier for us to go.

Nervously the following week, we attended Lighthouse church and have since been attending. From the moment we walked in, both of us were overwhelmed with God’s presence and we knew that we had found our home church. Well into December, we attended quietly, completely uninvolved, and preferred to sit in the back, behind the tallest people we could find. Although we thought we were still hiding, we were being ministered to in every service we attended.
After the holidays we came back and found out about a marriage enrichment weekend Lighthouse was putting on. We decided to attend that "retreat", even though we knew that we’d be in a smaller group, with a bunch of other couples that we didn’t know. It was a life changing weekend for us. We met a couple about our age that befriended us at the retreat who were complete Godsends. We were very happy to have met them. I say they were complete Godsends, because they were moving that same weekend we met them. They may never know how positive of an impact they had in our lives. They introduced us to the many friends we have today, and made us feel like we were a part of the Lighthouse family, not visitors.

It was a lot easier for us to connect after the marriage retreat being we met other couples. I even joined the choir. That’s a pretty big commitment, but I needed something that would keep me accountable to church attendance. I thought that it would be no problem to commit for a short term, with the thought that I was moving in a few months. However, joining the choir got me a little more connected than I expected. I felt like I had known these people for years. It was getting a little more difficult to decide to move out of state. I kept quiet about that turmoil for a while, until it came closer for our trip to scout out our prospective new hometown. We both agreed that a move would be uprooting ourselves from where God was divinely planting us. We continued with plans to do our scouting trip, just to see what would happen. God spoke to us clearly upon entering the city; we both had a feeling of it not being home. Everything would have been fine there, but we really missed Phoenix, and most of all, we missed Lighthouse- our church. It was only a visit, and we were glad. Upon our return, we began to notify our circle of friends and family that knew of our plans to move that we were not going to after all. The many positive reactions to that news showed us that our decision to stay in Phoenix was the right decision.

Upon our return from our trip, we knew it was time to find a house to purchase. We contacted the realtor we used for selling our condo, and we were contacted by a lender that worked with the realtor. The numbers we were given shocked us, and disappointed us a little. The housing market was still a little crazy. We decided to find out some other options, and later on got in contact with a realtor group that got our home search actively started. We began to look at homes, and make offers on homes. Upon offer number 3, which was a beautiful home that we thought for sure would be ours, we got the news that the owners accepted another offer. Home number 4 was even closer in town, a little smaller, but very nice interior design work that would all stay with the home. Our offer was counter-offered, we changed a few things to see if they’d accept our new offer, and a few days later we heard another no. When we were inside that home number 4, I really felt God speaking to my heart telling me, “You’re looking at peanuts compared to what I want to give you.” I thought it was only my thoughts. Numbers wouldn’t work out. But even the plan of this realtor of getting into your needs home, a few years later upgrading to a larger home, and then even later dream home, sounded a little more sensible than we’re looking at peanuts. These peanut houses were pretty nice to me. But I couldn’t help but think about that dream home! We’d be settling if we bought any of the homes this realtor was showing us. God was not allowing us to settle. We both began to see a pattern, of God closing the door to us buying a house that these realtors were showing us. So, after the rejection of offer number 4, Jason told the realtor we were going to take a break from looking.
I kept thinking about our dream home, and how the realtor’s plan of getting into our dream home (probably 8-10 years away) started to sound ridiculous. I got on my knees and asked God to direct our steps, and to guide us to the home he has for us. I didn’t want to even waste my time looking at peanuts anymore. I turned everything over to God. After all, He knows exactly what we were wanting in a home, and we decided that we’d place our trust in Him about it. The day after I prayed and asked God to be our realtor, and lead us to a miracle home we both wrote down what we wanted in a home and where we wanted to live. We literally made God our realtor and prayed over that list.

It is our hearts’ desire that the testimony of our journey will bring God glory.
Thank you so much for taking time to agree with us in prayer about our house. My e-mail stated that more details about our plea for prayer support would be on my blog spot, I thank you for taking tome to read an update on our past year, and where we’re at right now. We’ll update you as much as we can in the future. We know that God is doing such a work in us right now and we recognize and sense harvest season is near. Even concerning children. That’s another long story in itself. We do not have any yet, we're walking through a difficult journey in that area, but we do know that God knows the desires of our hearts, and He is a mighty faithful God!