The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.
The BIG News: On May 17th, Caleb accepted a job with Lifeline Youth for Christ in Elkhart, Indiana. He will be the Sports Director and Elementary Director, working with at-risk 3rd-6th graders.
The journey towards moving to Indiana started at the beginning of April, but I believe it started a couple months earlier than that. Caleb has always had a heart for missions and serving others in Christ and I knew this going in. However, this didn't stop me from panicking every time my husband came home with a new vision of where we should move. About four months ago, Caleb and our pastor, Russ, had coffee together. Caleb came home with visions of Eastern Europe or South America - somewhere new, different, and far away. I shut down, not wanting to talk about it. The next few days, however, God worked his magic on my heart, and I realized that I am no where near ready to go out to the missions field. I needed to be prepared, so I started to prep my heart for what God wanted us to do. Little did I know it would come so soon!!
April began with a bang this year. Caleb received a text from Russ and only told me that I should be praying about what's coming next and a possible job opportunity. Terrified, I ran to God, and he kindly provided the verse I quoted above: Jeremiah 1:5-8. After praying fervently and impatiently waiting for Caleb to come home, I felt at peace with whatever he would tell me.
The text message had been about a Youth for Christ job opening up that Russ thought we should apply for. But there was a little catch.....the job was in Elkhart, Indiana. INDIANA!! I didn't even know where Indiana was! (A slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean.) But, because God and I had spent the last three months prepping to go where God leads us, I said I was open to it. I even managed to keep my composure (for the first ten minutes at least). As scary as the prospect of leaving Spokane was, it was perfect timing. I had just graduated from EWU and wanted to find a new job. Caleb enjoyed his job, but ministry is where his passion is. It sounded perfect! (except the 35 hours away part.)
We took the next week to pray, ask our parents for prayer and advice, and try to decide whether or not we wanted to apply. After receiving confirmation that we should at least try it, Caleb typed up a resume and sent it to the Director we had never even talked to. After two or three anxious days of waiting to hear back, the Director, Darrell, sent an e-mail back and wanted to talk to Caleb on the phone and let Caleb ask any questions he had. (More praying ensued.)
First phone call: Caleb talking to Darrell in the front room, with me in our bedroom, trying not to listen and praying like crazy. The result: a little bit more panic, finding out he wants someone there soon, and getting a little overwhelmed with the job. We were told to pray about it, and the two of us talk on the phone next time.
Second phone call: the two of us talked to Darrell, addressing concerns like how the job will affect our marriage, how tied they were to YFC, and just big questions. He told us to continue praying and let him know if we wanted to schedule a visit. After the phone call, though , we were both so excited about everything we heard that we were ready to visit. There is only so much we can learn from over the phone and we hit the point where we were interested enough to visit and see for ourselves what God was doing in Elkhart.
We were too excited about the job and the idea of seeing it, so we e-mailed Darrell to let him know we wanted to schedule a time to come over. God had moved some big mountains and provided several situations where the two of us felt confirmed in our desire to do this job. Everyone Caleb talked to was excited for him and affirmed his gift and desire to work with Lifeline. A good friend of mine reminded me of the passion I have for encouraging women, and in turn, adoption and foster-care. Who says they have to legally be our kids? We can accept them into our home and love them as someday we will with our own children. Loving on these kids can show them what the love of Christ looks like. Darrell called us a few days later and we scheduled a time to fly over.
The trip was amazing! (There will be another blog to talk about it later, as this one is outrageously long.) We saw God's hand very present in Elkhart and with Lifeline. After every day we got more and more excited and more passionate towards these kids. The job was ours if we wanted it. Did we want it? Yes, but we decided to take a week to pray and talk to family about it first. We got back to Seattle May 13th and spent the weekend with Caleb's family. They all confirmed what we heard: this sounds like the place for us. Returning to Spokane, we heard the same from my family as well as friends. In the car on our way home from a dinner with my family, we looked at each other and asked, "Do we want to take this?" Yes, we did. The next day, Caleb called Darrell and accepted the job.
What now? We are still continually praying about this job with Lifeline, but we also need prayer for raising support for Lifeline. We do receive a salary, but it is a non-profit organization and survives off support. We would like to raise a total of $3,000/mo. to support the organization, but only need $1,000/mo. to leave. We want to aim for the $3,000/mo. to help Lifeline support these kids who need to be shown the love of Christ, and find it at Lifeline. Supporting us and Lifeline means providing these at-risk kids with opportunities to hear about Christ, to develop into loving men and women. We want to leave around the beginning or middle of July, provided we have our support. Feel free to ask us about it! We would love to have coffee or dinner with you and explain what we are doing to further God's kingdom :) Love you all! - Jenna
