May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

We have closed another chapter of our life and have opened a new one.  Last Friday was Mike’s last official day at FamilyLife.   When we moved here it was with the intention of being here long term.  We were open to God’s leading and said we would be here until we were “lead” elsewhere.  I never dreamed we would only be in Little Rock for a year and a half. 

There is not really one reason why we left staff.  There are many.  God used support (lack of) to get our focus back on Him.   We worked hard on our MPD (ministry partner development) the entire time we were on staff.  We did everything we were supposed to: mailed monthly prayer letters, sent thank you’s, sent thinking of you cards, received, called and followed up on referrals and countless other things, MPD related.  

Mike had made 3 support trips, yet only a minute amount of support was cultivated.  Since spring of this year, especially, we had worked extra hard on increasing current and appealing to new.  We were not seeing any fruit from all of our hard work.  When we had two short paychecks ($200 and $700) this forced us to step back and look at the whole picture. 

It wasn’t so much about the support, it was about trusting God for His provision, in His way.  We were praying for our Crusade account balance to increase.  The LORD had other plans for us.  We began praying for wisdom and discernment in how to provide for our family.  Our church in Indiana paid our mortgage and our church here paid our groceries. 

We sought counsel with a couple from church who once served with FamilyLife.  We spoke to our senior staff MPD coach.  We prayed. We prayed more.  We read a book, Decision Making and The Will of God by Garry Friesen. This is an excellant book. I can honestly say that after reading this book I experienced God’s grace for real, for the first time.  I have felt a freedom that I have never had before.  After reading this book, many of our questions were answered:  would we be turning our back on God or His plan or will for our life? Would we be turning our back on our “calling?”  Are we missionaries if we are not part of a “ministry?”  We have answers to all of these questions now! We prayed even more. 

part 2 later