Vermont

Part of the reason I wanted to really get this blog up and running was to be able to keep our families and friends updated on what the Lord is doing in our lives and where He is leading us - especially when we don't live around here...someday.  

We have sensed that the Lord might be calling us to New England (someday eventually) for almost a year now.  Our dear friends, Ben and Tiffany Presten, got called to plant a church in Vermont a little over a year ago.  

I remember the day Ben (my Ben) and I were sitting at Starbucks with Ben and Tiff.  Ben P. was saying how he was just itching to be in ministry but they didn't know where the Lord was calling them. He said he was praying the other day and told the Lord that he would go anywhere, and asked for the Lord to make it clear.  

Almost jokingly, he said that "Vermont" popped in his head.  

We all kind of laughed and completely dismissed it as a non-option.  Who even lives in Vermont? Why go there? Surely the Lord would rather send them to some dangerous and remote place..like India, or Thailand. 

But sure enough, over the course of 2010, the Lord clarified in almost unbelieveable ways, His will for Ben and Tiffany to move to the small town of Wilmington, Vermont and plant Valleytown church.  I wish I had time to tell the story of the clear ways the Lord spoke to them, but I'll save that for another time. 

Bottom line, their house is on the market, they have packed up or sold (mostly sold!) all their possessions and will buckle in their two toddler boys and 3 wk old little girl and drive 18 hours to Vermont just as soon as it sells...(anyone looking for a beautiful home in Snellville???).

Aaaaaand....we might be going with them. 

I thought I would be documenting our journey up to New England over the course of a few years because I thought it would take that long for us to end up there.  And it still might.  But it also might take only a few months.  

We keep thinking about all these reasons why we shouldn't go now, like how we have a 3 month old baby, and we are extremely attached to our families, and how Ben is smack in the middle of seminary. 

But if his credits are about to transfer to Southern seminary, we just might start raising support to move up there and be apart of Valleytown church.  And we still will have a tiny baby and be extremely attached to our families, but God is doing something big in New England.  If you haven't noticed, His heart has been in New England since our nation began.  And now He is bringing life to a dead region in amazing ways.  And we want to be where He is, working where He is working, and living right in the center of His will.  

And I'm totally freaking out slightly nervous about it, but I also feel a strange peace about whatever the Lord's timing is.  This is not a definite thing at all.  We are diligently praying about it and looking into all the options. The Lord may want us to stay here a few more years and we would be perfectly fine with that, but we are just trying to be open and obedient to the possibility that He might want us up there a little bit sooner. 

So please excuse me while I go laugh and cry a little bit about the possibility about packing up this house that I just got settled into and packing up our little 3 month old and moving all the way across the country to a state that touches CANADA to bring the gospel to a group of people that would prefer to be left alone. Crying, for all the obvious reasons, and laughing because I'm so humbled that the Lord would invite us to be apart of His sovereign plan to draw people to Himself from all corners of the earth, especially people who currently are totally disinterested/closed off to Him.  He is so good. 

Remember, it might not be the soon, but we feel pretty sure that it will happen sometime.  We'll keep you posted.