Change can be Emotional...

Today is an emotional day, because today we end what a friend called a 'Grand Social Experiment.'

27 months ago, we started our long term house sit of a huge house for some extremely generous friends of ours.  All they asked was that we share the blessing with others who may find themselves in need.

15 months ago our friends the Bookers took us up on the offer and moved into the second floor of the house.  Mom (Amy), Dad (Kevin), 3 boys (Kaden 9, Jesse 6 and Ransom 3) and 1 baby girl (4 months) made the jump from being friends to being family.

In the beginning there was lots of feeling mortified as our kids did the kinds of things kids do at home that you somehow manage to avoid them doing in public. And there was a fair amount of being mortified at ourselves, and the way we kept house, or parented.  But as Amy put it, the secret sauce was "radical grace".  Choosing patience, never letting anything fester, and coming to the place where you will genuinely miss being woken up in the night by a crying baby, who became a wicked cute toddler who likes to wake everyone up by throwing things out of her crib.

We knew from the beginning that this would probably not be a forever arrangement. That hasn't stopped it from being an emotional few weeks since they found a phenomenal deal on a little house just outside of town.  My Silas felt it first.  Since the announcement he has been "off" and not able to articulate exactly why.  I was in denial, even when they started taking load after load over to their new place, as they slowly began the moving process.  It didn't really hit me until I went upstairs one day and saw just how much they had moved out.  

Their kids spent one of their last weeks away, and the house was just too quiet. A portent of things to come.  My boys didn't know what to do with themselves with out their extra brothers around, and we realized just how much joy was moving to that little house just outside of town.  Even my dear overworked wife whose schedule keeps her working 13-15 hour days has been getting up early to savor coffee and toast with Amy.  My dear wife, who, even when it was just the two of us, found 1 person too overwhelming until she had spent at least an hour in silence with her bible and a cup of coffee, has spent her first waking moments several times this week in the natural chaos that is 5 little boys and 1 baby girl, just to savor the last drops of the joy that the Booker family has brought to our home.

My Silas has learned that leading means putting others first from Kaden (and man I will miss having you mow the lawns!).  We've all gotten a little tougher as Jesse's 'nothing slows me down' attitude and abundant energy have rubbed off on us. (you seriously are one of the strongest, toughest people I have ever met) Infectious laughter has been a constant in our house as Isaac and Ransom laugh at anything and everything the other says or does.  Little London has blossomed from a 4 month only baby to a year and half old little lady who will take my hand and sit me down on the carpet and play with me, clapping her hands when I finally understand what she is trying to get me to do (I am the only one who can call you princess).  

I've been grateful for a brother living under my roof.  Whether its remembering to take out the trash when I forget.  Fixing little things without being asked, using his snow blower to keep a path clear to the wood pile for me, almost weekly basketball games, or just being someone I can bounce big ideas off, I have treasured our unexpected deep conversations in the kitchen as you cooks up you latest kill, and lots of free samples of venison.  

Then their is Amy, who has made my transition to "house husband" much smoother.  She does so much around the house in her constant attempt to bless Shandy.  I swear the woman has washed more of my dishes and folded more of our clothes than I have.  While she has been trying to bless Shandy, I have certainly been blessed as well.  She makes my wife smile, helps her to process big thoughts, and gives her a reason to express big feelings.  Without you being the friend to Shandy that you are, she would not have gotten through her lowest points. You have been the quintessential best friend to her and thank you just seems insufficient.

All of these blessings and one more.  We've long desired to be a Haven for those who need it.  To provide a place where people can step out of some of their stresses and into a place of rest.  Given some of our past experiences we've wondered if we were cut out for it.  This was not our first attempt at living with friends.  In our 8 years together we have lived with extra people underfoot more often than not. Shandy's sister, a guy from our small group, good friends, a single mom and her 3 kids.  Ups and downs, some of which made us wonder if we had misunderstood the calling we call Haven.  You have renewed our hope that our Haven is a real and tangible thing.  That we can be a blessing and be blessed at the same time. 

Thank you for being a part of our experiment.  We consider it a huge success.  You came to us as friends and go out as family.  We will miss having you underfoot.  We pray (HARD) that God will continue to grow our connection to each other as you embark on the next chapter of your story.  May your little house just outside of town be filled with all of the joy that you brought to ours.

Order Our Days

It has been 10 months since the Sabbatical part of our journey began.  In that time Shandy and I have felt a distinct lack of momentum.  We are both task oriented people who love checking things off lists and feeling accomplished, but we have been in a season where that just hasn't seemed to be part of God's plan.  It has been a season of false starts, new jobs that didn't stick, new ministry opportunities that weren't quite the right fit, and possible church homes that we just couldn't commit to.  Through it we've had this sense of "We feel God wants us to be doing something, but we haven't been able to finger on what it is."

Shandy hasn't been working as much the last few months, and my side jobs have slowed down quite a bit. Silas graduated Kindergarten, and we've had a bit of time to breathe deeply.  Just a bit, because God had plans for that slower season of life as well.  Shandy's Grandmother passed away, and she was able to spend time with her family during Gram's last few days on earth.  She's also been able to make several trips down to help her grandfather during his grief and period of adjustment.  Also recently our 3 year old niece had a severe diabetic episode, and Shandy was able to hop in the car and drive to be with family in the hospital.  Thankfully the precious little one pulled through the worst of it, she is back home now and the family is learning how to manage this disease they didn't know she had.

We've learned, in these last few months, that God really does order our days.  He plans our times and our seasons.  It is teaching us a kind of trust and contentment that has been missing.

There are also a bunch of new things on the horizon for us.

Shandy is about to start a new job as the General Manager of a Pizza Hut.  Being a Restaurant General Manager (or RGM as she puts it) has been on her bucket list since high school, and it is a blessing to see her getting to fulfill a long term ambition.  The new job will give us new challenges and new opportunities, and we feel like it is exactly where God wants us, as we prepare for the future He is calling us to.

Speaking of that future, we have started getting together on a weekly basis with a group of friends who share our long term goals of opening a camp or other kind of ministry where people can step out of the hectic and into a haven.  We are beginning our journey together by building a good foundation. Getting to know each other and each other's families, committing to encouraging each other to read through the Bible in a year, gathering to sit around the table and talk about what we read, and being inspired by reading Radical (by David Platt). After just the a few weeks we are all feeling the urge to take big steps toward realigning ourselves with God's plans for our lives.

Even as we start to dream and build relationships that may one day result in an organized life ministry, 'haven' is happening organically.  Our housemates have provided us with opportunities to use the big house (we are long term house sitting) to widen the circle of people we can bless.  Yesterday was a whirlwind of extra faces as we took in a family in crisis, hung out with a mom and her kids who needed a break, and took a passel of extra kiddos to the lake for some R&R.  I LOVE sharing life with like minded people, and watching the little community we have made bless others.  It is happening organically, the way things should when you join your life with people who truly share your values.  I am so grateful for the blessing that living with the Bookers has been.  And I am blessed and humbled by Mark and Luanna who entrusted us with their house, and gave us their blessing to live out our vision, in continuation of their own love for hospitality.

I could go on, and talk about a new friend and the extremely refreshing conversations we've had about life and ministry, but the bottom line is that there is energy and optimism in the air that has been missing.  It is as if the wind is returning to a ship that has been adrift at sea.  I don't doubt that there will be rocks and storms ahead, but for now it is good to feel just a bit of momentum.

Haven Part 3

We moved.

Just across town, but it is a BIG move for us. We went from renting to being the stewards of the amazing home I told you about in my last "Haven" themed post.

Yesterday at 12:22 I arrived at the apartment we'd been living with the U-haul.  I had 29 friends and family members waiting in the yard, ready to help us move. (That number does not include the children who joined their parents in helping us.)  By 1:33 we had all had our fill of pizza, and I was backing the U-haul out of the driveway.  By 2:30 it was unloaded. 

This amazing feat is not only a testament to the wonderful friends with whom God has blessed us, but also to my wife's amazing organizational skills. It felt like she was a part of moving day, even though she was in Hungary, because she had everything ready to go, and labeled so that we could organize it quickly on the other end. 

I arrived at our new home were other friends were already busily cleaning carpets, dusting shelves and scrubbing floors.

Some were ready to leave when the truck was unloaded, others would stay until evening helping us unload boxes and clean.  Before the amazing group of volunteers scattered, I called them all into the living room, and told them the following.

1. THANK YOU
2. This house is a gift from God
3. The owners have told us that their one condition for letting us use this amazing house is that we keep a room or two open for people who need a roof over their heads. Something we are eager to do.
4. The Bible makes it really clear that we should use the gifts we have been given to bring glory to God or we will lose them.  We intend to use it.
5. If you are ever in need or know of anyone in need, let us know, so that we can prayerfully consider sharing this blessing.

Since then two of the families that helped us move have mentioned that they know people who might be in need of just the kind of help we are looking to offer.  This blesses me more than words can say. 

We aren't yet ready to take people in quite yet.  For starters, Shandy will need to get back from Hungary. Then she and I will need to sit down and figure out how to evaluate the various needs that we will no doubt encounter, and what kinds of arrangements we will need to make with the people who come to live with us.  That said it is good to know that our friends took us seriously about the ministry we feel called to do. It seems clear that there is a need, a void that we will be able to fill.

In other news, one of our friends called me to ask if she could swing by the house and pick some acorns from our woods from her son's school project.  It is so cool that she would ask, and that we could be a blessing.

Can't wait to see what kinds of things God is going to do with Haven.

Haven Part 2

You can read Haven Part 1 here. 

Haven is the name Shandy and I have given to the ministry we believe God has called us to.  As we have traveled the journey He has been leading us on, the specifics of Haven have changed, but a few things have stayed the same.

1. People, in need will live under the same roof as our family.
2. We will share our lives and our faith with them
3. We will mentor them, spiritually, emotionally, practically...

My wife and I are both the type to try to 'make' things happen.  We like to make a list, and have a plan, but not matter what we put on paper, something came up, and this mission has been hold, even seemed impossible for a long time, but as I said in Haven Part 1... Then the phone rang...

It was a couple from our church, who had also attend the church I grew up in.  I've known them for the better part of 15 years.  I helped them move into the house where they are living, enjoyed annual Christmas parties at their home, envied the way they can finish each other's sentences, and seen them be generous with all that God has given them.  The wife was there when we first saw our babies via ultra sound.  She has been there when my wife needed someone to bridge the gap between physician and friend during the battle with Bi-polar.  I've watch the husband devote himself as both husband and father, modeling the self sacrificing love that Christ calls us to as men. We've worked together in ministry, and they even trusted us with their kids on occasion.

They called to tell us they were moving.  She is taking a job in another state, but they love the home they designed together, and don't want to sell it.  They want someone to take care of the place until they are ready to retire, or until God says it is time to let it go. 

We were speechless.  The opportunity was too amazing to possibly be real.  We had a hard time knowing what to say because we were overwhelmed by the size of the generosity and trust they were extending.  It is humbling, and awesome, and exciting all at once.  And that's when we thought they were asking us to do it for just a year.  We littlerally couldn't talk when we found out that it might be as many as 10 years.  (I will use James 4:13-16 as a disclaimer)

A week from today they will pull out of the driveway to start the next chapter of their adventure, and we will pull in to start the next chapter our ours.

I haven't told you the coolest part yet.  The Haven part.  The "Wow, God is Awesome" part.

They had one condition.  Their condition was that we keep the house open to whomever needed a place to stay.  Be it for a weekend, a week, a month, or a year.  They know the house is a gift from God and they know that they should to use it to honor Him, and their one requirement of us is that we continue their ministry to those in need of a home.  As the Apostle Paul once said, "The very thing we were eager to do".

We don't know who God will bring into our home, or how much time and energy this style of life will take, what the implications are for other jobs or ministries, but we do know that God has provided us with a home. God has taken away the biggest line item in our budget, provided years of the financial security that we thought was gone when we said no to the job with US Customs. He has shown us that nothing is to big for our God.  He has shown us that He is the one who directs our path.  The the same God who took care of Israel in the desert, who took care of Elijah in the wilderness, who feeds the birds  of the air, and clothes the lillies, is our God, and is our provider.

Haven (Part 1 of Many)

Years before my wife and I met, God put a dream in my heart.  That dream was to own a place where people who were weary from the world could come and find rest.  In my mind it was a camp in the woods, were the world-weary could come, serve, encounter God and live simply until they recovered from the storm.  I almost bought 140-acre plot of land to make it happen, but then I met a girl, bought a house and started a family. 

That girl had a dream; something God had put on her heart.  That dream was to own a place where people who were weary from the world could come and find rest.  In her mind it was a small hotel or bed and breakfast, where world-weary people could come, serve, encounter God and live simply until they recovered from the storm.  She had her eye on a large house in the western mountains of Maine that she thought would be perfect for this, but she was a missionary in Hungary, until she met a boy, bought a house and started a family.

Five years passed.  In that time they had two beautiful boys, had several different people live with them, learned how important family is to the mission they both felt called to do, applied for a job that offered great fiancial security, learned a lot about trust, sold their house, turned down a job that offered great financial security, moved in with friends who seemed to have a similar vision only to have that experiment end without really ever getting started, interned at their church, learned a the feet of a great mentor, made life long friends, battled bi-polar disorder, baptized new believers and waited for God’s timing. 

Then the phone rang... 

Tune in sometime in September or October to find out more...