A New Opportunity

For a long time, Kara and I thought that what we would do after our two years in Guatemala would be moving to Kentucky so that I could study some more in seminary. That's something that I have wanted to do for a while, we still have friends there from college, there would be good opportunities for ministry, and a lot of other positive things about it. So, I applied and up until about a month and a half ago, that is what we thought we were doing. All along, however, our plans were contingent on getting good scholarship offers to be able to study. We were very surprised when we found out the seminary was offering us $0.00 in scholarships, and knew immediately that plan was not going to become a reality.

The seminary I was going to attend allows churches to post openings for jobs on its website, so after the news about the scholarships, I began browsing through those listings and found two positions that seemed very interesting to me. One was a college ministry position at a church in MO, and the other was at a church in TX. I sent in resumes for both, and as the interview process went along, the TX position started to seem like it could be a really good fit.

The process kept moving along with them, and they invited me up for an interview. I flew to TX, and everything went very well. They offered me the job, and I accepted. So as of July 15 I will be the Director of Discipleship at First UMC of Midland.

I am very, very excited about this job for a couple of reasons. One is that it will give me the opportunity to focus on what drives me in ministry- discipleship. What I want to do more than anything else in ministry is to be effective in helping people who have an interest in learning to live their lives from Jesus to know how they can do so, and that will be my primary responsibility in this church.

The other huge plus about this job is that it's in Midland! (It's where I grew up- about a half hour from my family's ranch). I love West Texas and being able to be near my parents, but I didn't really think living there would ever be on our radar again. We're so thankful, though, that this really seems like an opportunity that Lord has thrown open for us. So hello Rosa's, Taco Villa, and Whataburger!

Kara and I are going through a weird mix of emotions right now between excitement about this new job and dread of leaving NLCH. We love this ministry and could not be associated with anything of which we are more proud, and the hold these kids have on our hearts isn't going away any time soon.

We will move back to the States on June 27. I will attend a staff retreat for the church, then we'll work on getting our things moved from being stored at my brother's house in Atlanta and Kara's parents' house in St. Louis. (We're trying to figure out the best method of doing so; none of them will be fun.) We're disappointed that we will be leaving NLCH a little bit earlier than we had planned, as our two years would have ended in early August. However, we would have had to come back a little bit early anyway since our baby is due to be born on September 7.

Plus, we know that the truth is that a good, easy, or convenient time to leave Guatemala never would have come. One of my heroes, Stu, put it well when he told us that we never would have ended up in Guatemala in the first place and had the opportunity to know these kids if we had not been following the Lord, willing to be obedient to whatever He has for us. And it's the same now- we can't do anything else but continue following Him into this new opportunity.