We knew it was bound to happen someday.. pt.2

June 2010, I started getting this strong impression on my heart. This huge burden about moving out of state, more intense than before.

I shared this with Monica and so we decided to pray together. We prayed about where the Lord would have us move if He had planned on moving us soon. In my prayers I have asked the Lord to consider New Mexico. To this day I love that place very much so I wouldn't have minded moving there at all. But the Lord had other plans, and He was paving the way He wanted us to go.

We started getting this random request by a friend of ours, to try moving to the city he lives in. The church he is involved in is growing and he suggested that Monica and I would consider moving there to help out.

To be honest, I really didn't feel the desire to go there. Monica suggested that we pray about going to this place anyway, so we did. And this invitation really started to look and feel like a Macedonia call, it began to drive me insane!

We took a trip to visit Monica's brother and his wife. A few days before we left, he told us that the Lord had given him something to share with us. He talked about Abraham, leaving his country and going to another place foreign to him. Her brother told us he felt the Lord was telling him to tell us we need to leave the state. He also happen to randomly mention the state that we had been praying about going to, where we got the invitation! We didn't tell anyone about us praying about leaving or even the place we were considering, we just believed it truly was from the Lord.

We flew back to California, and I was still not fully convinced. We continued to pray on it and I just started giving the Lord a bunch of excuses. I told the Lord, "I cant, I have an internship with Bible college to finish, I was just given a 5th grade class to minister, my dad just lost his job, I dont have any money". The list went on..

Then, the Lord laid on my heart a story in the bible. He reminded me of the story where Jesus told a guy to "follow Him", and this guy says, "Let me first bury my father". This blew me away! Reason being? This guy's father wasn't dead yet, this guy was making an excuse to stick to what he was comfortable with and did not want to follow Jesus. I believe God was telling me that I was making excuses. He also reminded me that there would always be a reason why I shouldn't do something. If Jesus says 'Follow Me', we have to and should follow regardless of what may be pulling us back, we just have to trust Him.

I decided to listen to a bible study on this story in the bible, and the bible teacher spoke about how God was calling him to leave his city and go elsewhere to help a church. And so many of the bible studies that I listened to (all different teachers) spoke about the same exact topic.. leaving and going somewhere new.

And so, Monica and I decided to fast for 2 days to be SURE about this. We fasted, sure enough we just knew the Lord wanted us to go. And so we told the Lord, "Ok, we're going. We'll leave and go where You want us to. But you know that we don't have the funds, and we trust that you'll provide"

... We only had $400 in our savings, but at this point we were trusting God. That He would provide for our wedding and for our move. He did that very same weekend.

The Lord put it on the heart of someone very close to us to give us thousands of dollars. This person was totally unaware of our plans, but really felt that in their heart they were suppose to give us this money. We were blown away. We shared with this person what was going on, and how we were relying on the Lord to provide the funds. This person says, "I figured you would use this for something like that.

The next few weeks Monica and I were super excited. I spoke to 4 of my Pastors to get their perspective (including the ones that I work under in ministry) and they all totally see it and are encouraging it! Monica and I have spoken to our parents and siblings and they see it! We have their blessings and support as well!

So, we've been planning our wedding.. (EDIT: We are working on the date still!!) About a week later we will be moving to where God is calling us to go. We don't know what to expect, all we know at this point is that we're just suppose to show up and let the Lord do His work.

Awesome thing about this is that the Lord has been talking to us often about this plan He has for us, reassuring us and encouraging us when we have doubts or start to feel fearful.

We ask that you keep us in prayer about this and yes, we will miss you all!

So.. I bet you would like to know where we're moving right?

... I'll save that for the next blog :)