God has changed it up for us quite a bit the last couple months. If having a baby isn't enough of a change and adjustment, throw in a move across the state and tons more opportunities to minister the gospel amongst all different kinds of people groups! I often feel that if we did not have all that we have, and were not as busy as we are - we would be simply bored and unfulfilled.
There we are, our new little four member family in the basement of our friends home and all of our things in one huge mountainous pile. "Okay Lord, now what?" How many times have we prayed THAT prayer? In our minds it was easy to think: "Square one again Lord?" We would have loved nothing more than to be able to move our family into a home of our own and we looked and looked. We found even the smallest apartments on the most horrible side of town to be farfetched for our budget. I was looking on Craigslist for anything from three bedroom homes all the way down to studio apartments and even considered renting a bedroom in someone's home and squeezing our family in. (Yes, people actually rent out bedrooms in their homes in Alaska.)
We knew our assignment was not completed here in Alaska and to be quite honest, even aside from that, we have always loved Alaska and would just prefer to live here anyway! In order to know a little bit more of where we come from, Rob and I were the kind of people that have lived without a "place of our own" for almost all of our marriage and ministry before children simply because we were so focused on the ministry that we never wanted to be bogged down with a place to live if it was in any way going to distract us from the call. This enabled us to travel more, and spend all of our time and finances in the ministry. Sure it wasn't easy. Often times we slept on floors and had our keepsakes in boxes in random peoples basements for storage. (Come to think of it, my wedding dress is STILL at our pastor's house in Pennsylvania!) But Rob and I knew that if we were trusting the Lord we had nothing to worry about. In that sense nothing has changed. We still trust the Lord for everything we have however, when we started having children our desires changed. We figured out that ministry with children can be done with or without a home - but it most certainly is easier with one. As a mother I have decided to trust the Lord that some day we will have a home that we own so that we have something our children will always feel welcome to come to and call home themselves, no matter their age or stage in life. Of course a home can consist of many things. We were mainly going to try and find an affordable one bedroom where we would give the bedroom to our children and Rob and I would use the living room as our bedroom and this was more than I could even hope for as we had a couple hundred dollars left to our name - with no guarantees of where more would come from. In Alaska, a couple hundred dollars doesn't even get you many days of food - maybe a few and if you want the "healthy stuff" - make it a couple less days of food.
The good news is that the God we serve not only provides what we need - but sometimes He even gives us what we want. We had many amazing friends keeping an eye out for any available place for us to stay and sure enough within just a couple days Rob gets a phone call from a man who had an extra house he wasn't using. He asked us if we wouldn't mind staying there for a while paying a much lower rent! What incredible news! It even had 2 bedrooms! What amazing blessings the Lord has given us! Just a couple days later we got the privilege of meeting the owner of the house who so generously let us move in the very next day! We are praising Jesus that we get to live in this beautiful home in such a beautiful little quiet development for the next 6 months to a year. God hears the cries of a mothers heart and I can testify to that! After this half a year I have no idea where we will go or what we will do but I don't need to because I know our God is incredible, and will always provide SOMETHING for us. He has always been faithful.
And so after getting settled into the beautiful little home we started hanging out in Anchorage where people have been meeting in homes to fellowship and experience such amazing testimonies together of healing, the prophetic, and understanding of Jesus and what he really did when He died on the cross for us! We have gotten so many testimonies and more and more people have become interested in what God has been doing there! We have been so thankful to be able to meet so often with our family in Christ there in Anchorage as God has been moving powerfully. New doors have been opening up, not just for fellowship but also to minister to the poor and broken hearted. Next week we will be heading over to love on people in a treatment center where there will be many who are searching for what Jesus has already freely given them - we are praying they will encounter Him! Also we will be heading over to the village of Talkeetna (yes, it is a village - ask them haha) to see the amazing things God is going to crack open in that region! These are just a couple of the MANY doors that are opening! We are so excited and awakening is hitting these regions and furthermore bringing UNITY in the church! We are all in a place of ministering out of love and compassion which is what fueled the ministry of Jesus which is now happening through us today. We generally want to see the whole state of Alaska "get it" and realize the amazingly wonderful news of the Gospel! I cannot tell you all how thankful we are for all of your prayers and support! We are all on this mission together! We pray an abundance of favor, blessing, awakening, finance and provision for you and your family!!!
