From Princess to Servant...

Let me explain this "From Princess to Servant" title. I've always been considered the "princess" in my family (although my neice has definitely earned the "princess in training" title). I like to look nice and I like nice things. Now I'm not saying I've been rolling in money, or that I have all the finer things in life. But I do, occassionally, like to splurge on things like nice shoes and Coach bags :o)

I've also always enjoyed helping others. Since I've been involved in ministry I've had the desire to be a "servant". But I always thought that the perfect way to be a servant would be for my husband to work, and I would have kids, and during the day while the kids were at school or wherever, I would volunteer my time and help out with things like Habitat for Hummanity and things like that. But in my dream world I always thought that I would be the housewife who was able to bring peace to the world, be home for the kids and be accessorized in name brands!

Chuck and I are hoping that we are both able to be in full time ministry when we move up there. Jesse says we are going there to be "missionaries". People just always think of a missionary as one who goes to a foreign country, not us though. The area we are going to has about 100,000 people and no growing modern churches. There are people hungry for the word of God and no one to give it to them. So that is what we are going to do. Not only give them the word of God, but to give them the LOVE of God. My chance to be a SERVANT!!

"That's great" is what I'm sure you're saying! "Your dream is coming true!" One of the hardest parts of obeying God is believing that he will provide for you and that he will make a way when there doesn't seem to be a way. The only way that Chuck and I can both go into full time ministry is if we are able to raise BOTH of our salaries, which includes our taxes and health insurance (and yes health insurance is critical and you know that if you've ever met my husband!! LOL). Now raising our salaries will not be an easy feat, but the Lord has shown us the way so far, and we just need to trust that he will continue to show us the way. We may not be able to live the "comfortable" life we are accustomed to once we go up there. We will need to be completely selfless and do everything for the Lord. Now I've never thought of myself as a selfish person, but I can't say that I'm a selfless person either. I'm probably somewhere in the middle. So it's going to be hard for this princess to go from being, well, a princess to being a servant.

This blog is not meant to be a form of entertainment, but to document my "adventure" of leaving my comfortable life and starting a life that completely surrenders to God and welcomes the unknowns, praying that at the end of the day, the only one glorified is God.

The Call

I know that many of you may not be able to see or understand how we know that this crazy adventure we are about to set out on is from God. I would like to share with you how God told us we needed to go. I’ll start from the beginning. A few months back our friends told us that they were going up to Orlando to start this church, and boy were we excited for them. In jest we were asked, along with others, to go up and be part of this mission. I’m pretty impulsive, so I naturally wanted to say yes. Chuck said no. He said to me, "I think it’s great, but I don’t think God is calling us right now."

A short time later I stumbled upon a website looking for a specific prayer card that a friend had sent to me, and instead I found something else – devotional books for women. One of them caught my attention and it was called Becoming a Woman who Listens to God. So, I prayed, because I really wanted to do this study, but I wanted to do it with others, and I really didn’t know who I could do it with. I prayed and I guess God spoke to me and said, ask your sister. So I did. And she was excited. We invited a few others, but God only let one accept the offer, Yules.

When our small group first started I kept telling the other girls, God is going to speak to us. God is going to answer us by the end of this study. I just didn’t realize that God was going to speak to me about this! This study really taught me how God speaks to his people, how to recognize his voice, and how can miss his voice if we’re not careful. Well a few weeks into the study I was online one day and Jesse, the guy who is going to be the lead man on this church plant, wrote to me on instant message. Strange I thought. And then he told us he wanted us to go up and help him with this new church plant in Orlando. I told him that Chuck and I needed to talk, and we’d obviously need more info before we made our decision. He said fine, and in the next few days Chuck and I scheduled a meeting with him to find out more information. During that time, we spoke to no one about it except for Jesse and Derrick (one of the other guys going up there for youth ministry). We didn’t want to tell many people that we were praying about this because we wanted to really hear from God…not from man. Before we had lunch with Jesse we prayed, and we prayed specifically, Father, please let us hear exactly what we need to hear so that we are able to make the decision that you want us to make.

One of our concerns of going up to a new church plant was that everyone was going to be pouring themselves into it, and that the leaders’ growth would come second. And we needed to make sure that we wouldn’t end up getting burnt out. One of the things that Jesse said to us at lunch was I can’t promise you money or anything really, but what I can promise you is that Anitra and I will pour our hearts into you to develop you as leaders. Wow! Isn’t that exactly what we asked for?

We still had a lot to think about and pray about. So we went home that night, we talked, we prayed. Later that night I was doing my bible study and I read the story of Elijah. Now Elijah was a man of God and his faith in God was pretty strong. He had just finished defeating the hundreds of false prophets who had been worshipping Baal and then he got scared because the King was mad at what Elijah had done and ordered his death. Elijah ran and hid in the desert. And God spoke to Elijah and said, “What are you doing here?”. So Elijah ran again this time to the Mountain of Horeb, and again God said to him “What are you doing here?”. At the end of the questions in my bible study they left us with one question “What are you doing here?”. Boy was God speaking to me!!! I didn't tell Chuck at first because I wanted to make sure God was saying that to me. And I believe he was.

I was still a little leery about what God was telling us to do, and I was scared of moving away from my family. I’m very close to my mother and my siblings, but I wanted to make sure that I had my mom’s blessing. A few days later Chuck and I went and spoke with my mom. She told us that it seemed as if God was speaking to us and we had to obey God and not worry about anything else. That was exactly what we needed to hear.

Chuck and I both agreed that God had spoken so we made the decision that we would obey. Now hearing God’s voice was amazing, and the mission that he has given us is exciting. But telling the ones you love that you are leaving is scary! It’s nerve wrecking! So we started planning when we would tell certain people, like our Pastor and my family! We decided that Friday would be the day. I called my Mom during lunch and told her it was time, I was going to tell the rest of the family and she encouraged me that it was all going to be great, and that while it was going to be really hard that what we were about to experience was going to be amazing. Just about the same time Chuck sent me a message that he was at the church office and was going to tell our pastor. I had my bible study that evening and I was still a little behind on my study, so I decided to finish up during my lunch hour. One of the verses that it had me read was John 14:31 which says:

31but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. "Come now; let us leave."

Wow! Talk about speaking to me!!! It gets better though. The chapter that I did during lunch was the WRONG chapter! It was NEXT week’s chapter! I guess that just goes to show that everything is in God’s timing!

You see God has been setting us up for this for quite some time now. We just didn’t know it. You see, about a year ago, Chuck felt a calling to go into full time ministry. And it was about that same time that I had a desire to go into an area of un-churched people and start a church. (I really thought that it was going to be in the teeny tiny town that Chuck’s mom lives in though). God then showed me this bible study where I’ve learned how to really hear God, and THEN God had Jesse ask us to go up there, and then he provided the verses for me to read so that I would know that it was him who was speaking.

We have no clue what we are about to go through. We have no clue how we are going to afford to move, how we are going to raise our salaries, or where we are going to live. But we do know this, in Mark 10:27 Jesus said:

27"With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."