Journey Interrupted

So, it has been officially announced that we are leaving NC to plant a church. I am going to use my blog to journal some of what we have been going through and how we came to this decision. The following are just some of my thoughts about packing up and moving after being here for almost 12 years! About 11 years and 9 months ago we moved to Wake Forest, North Carolina so that Rich could acquire a PhD in Philosophy of Religion. We had an almost 1 year old son and had to sell our home and sell or get rid of about half of what we owned, so that we could fit into about half of the square footage of the home that we sold. We left vocational church ministry so that Rich could pursue the PhD, which would lead him on a different, but excellent path. We added 3 more children to our family. After about 5 1/2 years, Rich graduated and he began teaching for several institutions on line and also had several opportunities to teach in the classroom. About a year and a half after that, we made the decision to stay in Wake Forest. We bought a house and after living in this area for 7 years, I finally felt like I lived here! We found a church that we love. In many ways, we feel that this is the church for which we had been looking for more than 15 years. We fully committed, dug our heels in, and saw biblical fellowship being lived out. We were finally "home".
We felt completely content and grateful for how the Lord was working in our lives and the lives of our children.
Then one day in November of 2013, our world was rocked.
Rob Connelly pulled Rich aside at church one Sunday evening and asked Rich if our family would go to Martinsville, VA to plant a church.
My first reaction was…"well, no! We live here!"
However, over the course of a year, lots of meetings between Rob and Rich, God completely changed our hearts.
So, we are doing the unthinkable.
We are selling our home, moving to a part of Virginia that is completely unfamiliar to us, to be the church in Martinsville, VA.
Why?
Because the church needs to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. We are the church.
Because God has made it very clear to us that He wants us to go.
We prayed that He would put up barriers or road blocks if we should not go.
We prayed that He would unite the hearts of our family.
God did not put up barriers.
God completely united our hearts.

Please pray for us. This is not at all what we expected to be doing. Our journey…the one we thought we were on…has been interrupted. Our course has changed from what we expected! We are excited about what God is going to do in Martinsville. We are sad about having to say goodbye to friends that have become our family.

I would like to invite you all to find out more about the church plant and how you can be praying for us! Click on the link below:
Mission Martinsville