For those that do not know, here is a little background on our family. I was born and raised in Kingsport, TN. Will was born in Spartanburg, SC and lived there until his Dad was transferred to Kingsport when he was 13 years old. We started dating when Will was 15, I was 14. We got married December of 2006 and both graduated from East Tennessee State University May of 2007. Will had already felt the call to ministry so we moved to Fort Worth, Texas July of '07 for him to attend graduate school at Southwestern Theological Baptist Seminary. While there, we lived in two different apartments and eventually built our first home. Will served as the part time children's minister at a church during seminary and Emma was born in Texas November of '09. God called us away from Texas in July of '10 and we moved to Greenville, MS where Will served as a full time children's minister. So in our four years of marriage we have moved 4 times and we are now again following God's will for our lives and are moving a 5th time :).
So here is how this all started...this past Christmas, we were in TN and a friend of my Dad's told him about a local church that was losing their youth minister and didn't know if Will may be interested. He had overheard this information at work but Dad told him that Will did children's ministry and never thought another thing about it. Well a few days later, this same friend had further looked into this particular church and found out it was in fact the children's minister they were losing. He told my Dad and my Dad told us about it. We didn't really think a whole lot about it because we had just recently moved to MS and felt this was where God wanted us to be. So Will and I discussed the situation driving home from TN but still were going back and forth on whether or not we should send our resume. Some things happened over the next few days that made us feel we should send our resume to the church in TN to see if God really may have further plans for our lives.
About a month later, we got a surprising phone call from the pastor at the church in TN. He told us that the staff had looked over about 50 resumes and Will's was the only one that all the staff had put a yes on. Over the next couple weeks, Will interviewed with the staff and the committee and they agreed to only pursue Will. Our prayer throughout the whole process was that if this was God's will for our family then he would open the doors in TN and if not He would close them. The doors were opened wide. We felt strongly that this was God's plan but didn't want to be swayed because the church was near family. But after our visit in TN, seeing the church, meeting the staff, we absolutely knew this was our future. We went in view of a call Sunday March 13th and the church overwhelmingly welcomed us in.
The entire process has moved very quickly. We are moving to TN the week of March 20th and Will starts as the new preschool and children's pastor at Boone Trail Baptist Church March 27. As excited as we are to be moving back home, our hearts are very heavy for our church in MS. It is never an easy thing to leave a church as a minister despite what many may feel. Our intentions were never to come to MS and leave so soon but we serve a God that is bigger than any of us can understand. There are several things about all this that we don't have answers for. But all we can say is we know without a doubt that it was definitely God's plan for us to be in MS and definitely His plan for us to now move on to TN. We cannot run from this no matter how difficult the road getting there may be. We know that God has great things in store for our future ministry as well as our church in MS. So as we move on towards this new phase of our lives, we are so excited to see what God has in store for us and so excited to be coming back home after four years! I would ask that you please pray for our family during this transition as there are many emotions involved, please pray for our future ministry at Boone Trail Baptist Church, and please pray for First Baptist Church Greenville, MS
Here are a few pics from our soon to be home...
No comments:
Post a Comment