Some thought this would never happen...

Every story has a back story. 

The year was 2003, I had recently graduated from Kansas State University, Dawn was finishing school in St. Louis, and our wedding was being planned for October of the same year. Besides those events in our lives happening, another big adventure was about to start.... a move to a new town. I was going to say foreign land or strange new land, but I did not think it would be too kind to call St. Joseph, Missouri those names. The previous 23 years of my life and Dawns 21 years had taken place mostly in St. Louis, Missouri. We were making this voyage, our own Lewis and Clark Expedition across Missouri, without wagons, fording Rivers and diphtheria, but indulge my imagination for a moment. It still felt like we were heading into the unknown. We only knew 1 family in St Joseph, and we were leaving all our family and childhood friends behind. 

Our life in St. Joseph was short lived, about 18 months later, we took up residence in Kansas City, Missouri. For the next 15 years we would call that home, between a year in an apartment to the next 14 in our, what was way too big for us at the time home.  During this time, we have spent all 15 years attending and very involved in Vineyard Church, working different jobs, creating a nonprofit within our local community, starting our family,

homeschooling our kids, and developing many friendships. We have also experienced great difficulties over the years, which we were thankful for the church and friends to be able to lean on. The relationships and experiences that we had developed within our church were one of the major components that had kept us here in Kansas City. When we ran into our struggles, it would have been an option to pack up and head back to St. Louis, but we never felt compelled to do that. Looking back, it’s obvious to us now why, we had lots of life experiences we needed to complete here. 

Over Thanksgiving 2019, through two different nudging of the Spirit Dawn and I both felt compelled to start a plan and process that would find us moving back towards St. Louis and family. The nudge was brought to me through way of my oldest, and a simple comment he made, that started to change my heart. Dawn felt the nudging during a conversation she was having with family about the kids getting older. On our drive back to Kansas City we started talking about the possibility of moving back to St. Louis and had put a timeline in place that would have us moving back home in no more than three years. 

With our three-year plan set, one of the concerns we had was the

hardships of leaving our church and the friendships we developed there and having to find a new one. Honestly, you would think after all the times I have seen God lead us through decisions and struggles, I should have known he would be like, don’t worry, I got this. (we all know I don’t got this). At the end of May this year, we got what we felt to be confirmation that the time is now for us to leave what had been our church home of 15 years. I reached out to a few pastors and shared with them what was on my heart and let them know our family's decision out of respect for the relationship and dedication we have had to our church. I also needed to resign from leadership over a recently developed ministries of the church. This was now closing a chapter of our lives but was also going to fast forward to the next one. 

I am going to let you in on a secret, I can make all the plans in the world, but it is better to join the ride God has planned for me. What starts as a simple event, our neighbor sharing with us they are going to move, has more depth than we would first realize. When we heard their listing price of their house, our ears perked up. Wait a minute, they are going to list for what? While talking to our other neighbor who is a realtor, we mentioned their listing price and he responded if they get X, you could probably get X+ for yours. Our mouths hit the floor. No way. 

Turning back to prayer we started feeling that maybe we should be looking to move now, not later. In our prayer God showed us that He has blessed me with a flexible job 3 years ago, the flexibility of homeschooling our children, recent closure to our church, and for further confirmation we asked God to allow our neighbor’s house to sell for a particular price (above and beyond their asking price). You would not believe our shock when we got confirmation back on July 13th, about a month ago that our neighbors house sold for the number God had shown us, which has no explanation as to why their house went for that much even our realtor neighbor was shocked at their SOLD price. 

We got it!! God is telling us to move NOW!! So, the list of projects we were planning on finishing over the next few years we were now going to tackle over the next few weeks!! By God’s strength my wife and I were able to complete all the projects by the listing deadline.  

July 19th we were sitting in a church service at a friend's church, without masks, and the pastor was preaching that weekend on Moses. He asked,  

“How many of us have been in a situation that felt impossible, and then God prepares an escape for you, and it isn’t until you walked through it you were able to look back and see God at work, even though I had a hard time in that moment. Knowing that God will guide you through situations good and bad, the question all Christians should be prepared for is, “Will you follow me?” If God is asking you to follow him, he is going to give instructions on what is next, but be prepared for the second half of the question because that is, will you follow me, wherever I lead you.”  

Our situation is not as scary as stories you might read in the Bible, we are not Jonah being told to go to Nineveh where he will surely face death, Moses being asked to confront Pharaoh to lead the people out of slavery, and definitely not being asked to build an ark! We have the benefit of going back to where we have family, old friends, and familiar roads, but we do have uncertainty. We feel God has placed it in our hearts to move back to St. Louis, which if you ask either of our parent’s they never thought they would see that day. What we are not fully aware of yet is, the why. For the last 15 years we have been resolute about not returning, yet something my son spoke to me softened my stance. God has a plan for our family, we are moving forward and excited for what he has planned.  

August 7th at 9:20 am we went live with our house on the market. The family that looked at the house at 3:00 pm that afternoon, bought our house, and we close Sept 24th. 

Since I love to quote great philosophers, I will quote the great Ozzy Osbourne, “Mamma I’m coming home”.

Literally.