So... WE'RE MOVING TO MONTANA?

The CliffNotes version is this: We've been asked to be one of five staff couples involved in a start-up men's ministry in Montana called Mentoring Timothy. The hopeful, tentative goal is to move in about a year.

It will be a 10-month program in the mountains, with the primary purpose of giving young men a season of life after high school and before college in which they can unplug from the distractions of today, learn skills and live life in a challenging environment, be mentored by older men while observing marriage and family life, experience short-term international missions trips, and most of all, have the time to cease looking at the Bible as a textbook and learn to really develop a close and personal relationship with Jesus. It's life-on-life discipleship, plain and simple.

How and when and why did all of this transpire?  Read on!  :)

The last post I published on this blog was on November 9th.  I was milling over the fact that we hadn't really had a home since being married, and sharing thoughts as we were preparing to move from the RV to the basement of the yurt while finishing construction.  Mostly, I was thinking about how temporary even a "home" really is in light of eternity, and wrapped up with this:

Yes, I am cherishing this unsettled feeling and the reminder that it brings.  I am cherishing the sehnsucht... cherishing the longing. 

And when we have our own "home," it still will not be home.  Our brand new abode, in all spiritual reality, will not be home any more than the moldy house or the RV could be considered "home" right now. 

Always, always, always, I want to remember that.

There's no doubt in my mind that God had those thoughts swirling in my head during the entire building process for a good and specific reason.  How could we have possibly known how timely they would be?

The week we moved from the RV into the basement, we had begun praying seriously that the Lord would show us the next step for our lives. And it was that same week that we got a call from Dave Schroeder.

Dave was the Dean of Men when Joey and I attended NTBI,  and at our request, he and his wife Missy had been our premarital counselors in the months leading up to our wedding.  Shortly after we graduated, the Schroeders had left New Tribes in order to establish a new ministry God had planted firmly in their hearts; we've been aware of it for a few years. Now, Dave was calling to have us answer some preliminary questions and consider entering full-time ministry as staff with them.

Forms, references, a few hours of FaceTime, and many calls later, our little family packed into the car and drove out to Nebraska this past January for an interview with the board of Mentoring Timothy.  We were unanimously accepted.

Checking out Mt. Rushmore on the way back from Nebraska.

So many things happened all at once.  Very shortly after our return from Nebraska, we finished the house enough to be able to move up out of the basement.  After two years of waiting and RV living, it was surreal, hard to believe, and a bit of a fairytale.  It felt like too much luxury in so many ways (though you all know that our secondhand-materials-abode is far from opulent... haha).

We publicized our move into the house, and so many dear people rejoiced with us; all the while, we and family were the only ones who knew our future plans, and our hearts were already bracing to break away from this place.  We moved up with the bittersweet knowledge that we'll soon be moving on.

...I'd thought on many occasions, as I cooked on the campstove in the RV while wrangling a one-year-old and a newborn, that in so many ways it would be a loss to move into a house and get comfortable.  I asked Jesus, over and over again, not to let us lose that feeling of being unsettled, because it was such a great reminder that we're not to settle into this life... this world that's not our home.  Well, He answered those prayers with a YES.

Both of our immediate families are here in Wisconsin, and it's sad to think about taking our grandbabies away from their new grandparents.  Not to mention our church family, and my midwife... I know everyone does it.  It's common, and in a lot of ways, it's not a big deal.  But that doesn't make it easy.

From a young age, Joey and I have both known what it is to move over and over again.  I know what it's like to fix up a place that was dead, make it your own, scratch out a living there, and then leave.  But somehow, there's something different and more difficult about this.  We staked out an area that was just a patch of grass, dug a hole in the ground, and built a round house atop it for our family.  It does hurt to leave the home we've poured literal blood, sweat, tears, and so much more into for the last two years. Joey's fingerprints are on everything... We'd envisioned being able to rent it out and come back to it while visiting home, even if we ended up overseas as missionaries.  

A day or two after moving up, we just sat together by the fireplace one night as it all sank in, and cried.

It is strange to have these conflicting emotions-- to be weepy at the same time that we're genuinely over-the-moon thrilled for something that's so wonderful it seems like a dream come true.

I don't share all of this to seem pitiful or to convey that we're somehow suffering through this decision.  The purpose of sharing the inner sadness is only to to let you into our hearts a bit and to emphasize THIS: that as hard as it is to leave the house we haven't even finished yet, that feeling pales in comparison to the passion we have for this ministry, the excitement we have for the next step, and the utter sureness we have that this is where God is leading us.  It's only a house.  It's going to burn in the end.  All we're doing is giving up something that we can't keep anyway, that was never ours to hold onto.

There has been such a void in our society and churches of the strong, intentional mentoring of men.  Marriages are falling apart, pornography addiction is commonplace, and families are shattering.  Paul says in Thessalonians 3, speaking of believers, "...When I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain." As much as we have a heart to see the Gospel go where it has never been taken before, we also recognize the need for believers to be rooted, grounded, established, and thriving in Jesus, living out what they believe: discipled.  

Discipleship is something we have both been involved in and felt called to for years now, even when we were considering missions.  Thinking about our personal strengths and passions, it's mind-boggling how God has brought us to this place that in so many ways seems like our dream.  It is certainly something we never could have even imagined.  We pray that God will use this raw environment and the day-to-day of simple life for His glory, to raise up men of courage who love Him, love their churches, love their wives,  love their children, and are not afraid to lead boldly and love sacrificially.

"God said to Abram: Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you."  

We'd both happened to read through or be reminded of Genesis 12 right around the time that all of this was first happening.  How amazing that we serve a God who brings encouragement at just the right time through words that were written centuries ago!

There is no way to know what the future holds.  For that matter, there's no way to know much about even the near future of this ministry and our involvement.  The goal is to move in about a year, and for so many reasons, it would be best to get out there as soon as possible; but we have no way of knowing how long it will take to raise support. We're trusting God to make that happen.  No idea when we'll be able to sell or rent our house.  The unknowns are countless.  Our confidence is not in anything except the firm belief that God is clearly leading us here right now, and we want to be faithful and obedient to His leading.  I don't have time to share all the unbelievable ways God is opening doors to make this ministry happen, beyond reason, and the things that have confirmed it for us personally along the way.  We have no idea what's in store, but we trust Him fully and are utterly thrilled to be on this adventure with Him!!

Designing and building our own home, only to leave it behind so quickly and start from the ground up all over again?  No, it doesn't make sense from a logical perspective.  But God's timing is perfect.  I believe that with all of my heart-- more than I believe that it will be hard to leave, more than I believe that the future is uncertain, and more than I believe that there are physically and spiritually difficult days ahead. His timing is perfect and He is a GOOD Father.  These are things I know beyond knowledge.  We are leaving our achey hearts in His ever-capable hands, knowing that we can trust Him implicitly.

We need so much prayer and would be immensely thankful if you'd partner with us in that way! Pray that we keep our eyes on Him daily, looking to Him for each step rather than taking grasp of this and just trying to run with it ourselves. The whole process will undoubtedly be incredibly humbling as well, so pray also that we respond well to God's sanctifying process in our lives.

We realize that a blog post doesn't answer all the questions, so please feel free to ask! You can call us, text us, email us, Facebook message us, or come on over and hang out. :)

If you'd like to receive our news and updates in the future, please note that they won't be here on the blog. Please send us your email address by any of the above avenues, or even just as a comment here.

Thank you for sharing in this journey with us, heart and soul! We deeply love you all.

View from the Lord-willing location of Mentoring Timothy.

10 Things My Dad Taught Us

I'm one of eleven crazy children raised by my parents. The indisputably most important thing they have imparted to us has been a knowledge of God and His Word. And from that knowledge of God were derived other principles, these primarily from my dad. Most of these he taught explicitly; others, in not remotely so many words, but by his own actions. I share them as a tribute to him. While admittedly far from exemplifying many of these currently, I definitely find that I nonetheless still tend to see them as what ought to be the norm for myself.



1.)     Do the hard thing…

…On purpose. Be uncomfortable. Do not even have a comfort zone – if you do, go outside of it, obliterate it, and then never go back. Do the awkward thing, the difficult thing, the sweaty thing, the distasteful thing, the miserable thing. Soon, one finds there are few actually disliked things left. “To built character,” he would say, “a person needs to do two things, at the very least, that they strongly dislike… each day.” Oh, we regularly surpassed that number... [Is it any wonder that the majority of marriages fail, in a time when difficulty is reason enough to quit?]

He summed it up something like this: “Comforts and luxury are to be enjoyed and appreciated when you have them. But don’t go looking for them.”

Perk: Everything seems relatively easy when you regularly seek out the difficult stuff.

2.)       Pain is your friend.

When you embrace pain, it doesn’t hurt as much, if at all. Make friends with it, and you won’t be fighting it anymore. The resulting relief and the freedom is almost palpable.

I first began to understand this in reality while marathon training. Running mile after mile can be both painful and boring. Originally, my approach was to grit my teeth and “gut it out.” That, however, produced a vicious inward battle: me fighting against the misery. I found that when I surrendered and accepted it—“This is going to hurt for the next three hours, and that’s okay”—that suddenly all was well. It wasn’t so hard. Nothing had changed except my attitude.

3.)       Overcome your fears.

No one should live with debilitating fear. I did not know until later how rare it is to grow up sans ordinary phobias. Spiders, heights, snakes, small spaces, germs, lightning, flying, the dark, shots? Noooope. [There is one, but it doesn’t stop me... if you know me, you know what it is! Haha.]

When I was 9 years old and we were farming with horses, I fell and my little frame ended up underneath an implement. (This particular farm accident was no one’s fault.) A metal disc sliced deep into my tiny leg, taking it and me out of action for quite awhile.

The very next morning, early, my dad carried me lovingly out to where the horses were hitched, set me up on the seat, and had me take them for a few more passes on the field I had been working the day before. I didn’t understand why at the time, nor did I ask; I assumed he knew what he was doing, and he did. My dad didn’t want his daughter to grow up with a fear of horses or a fear of disking a field.

He took the principle of “Get back up” or “Get back on” to a whole new level, and his children were the undoubted beneficiaries in every other area of life. Love isn't always accommodating.

4.)       Target your own weaknesses.

Personal growth and self-discipline are not too popular today. The message of the time is, “BE YOU.” Period. If it’s not comfortable, don’t force yourself. 

My dad, on the other hand, saw it as normal and necessary to address areas of inability or lack of natural talent. He recognized that everyone has their own God-given gifts, areas of expertise and personal strengths, but that “I’m just not good at that” or “That’s not my thing” should never be an excuse. I never remember us once calling a mechanic, a plumber, an electrician, construction workers, even a vet. He, my sister and I built our barn, for goodness’ sake. His method was simple: If he didn’t know how to do something, he whipped out a manual and studied it. He talked to people and asked questions. He made observations.

No wonder it seemed like my dad could do absolutely everything—he basically could. He is a true James Bond-esque jack-of-all-trades. Not by birth, but through sheer hard work and intentional character development.

5.)       American culture is not your authority.

In fact, it’s a crock of junk. (To love America and her freedom is not the same as being characterized by her lazy, immoral, entertainment-centric lifestyle.) “My children will not be Americanized,” my father was fond of saying, frequently.

Years later, it was strange and gratifying to hear that line of his quoted with a gleeful chuckle, and a thick Arabic accent, by an old Egyptian doctor I worked with in the Middle East. Doctor “E” LOVED it. He had seen the proof of that principle as it played out in life there.

It was not difficult for me to live completely removed from American culture. American culture, after all, was not my home. 

6.)       Check how you react to “No.”

“We don’t always get what we want.” He said it so many times that I can hear it almost audibly in my mind now. He and Mama drummed into us the manner of thought that understands two simple things: Often in life, we do not get our way – and that’s okay. Sometimes we do, but not right away – and that’s okay, too.

In a time and culture that probably couldn’t even define the concept of delayed gratification, my dad instituted in our home and on his calendar something he called “’No’ Days.” On those particular days, anything my siblings and I requested was denied. (Within reason… we still had our three square meals and every other facet of a normal day.) Our job was to respond cheerfully. It was not hard. Our parents loved us like crazy; when they said “No,” it was never vindictive and we knew it was for our own good. 

Turns out that we never understood the concept of “begging,” and to see a spoiled child screaming his head off in the grocery store was sheer trauma.

7.)       Give everything you’ve got.

Hold nothing back. “Leave nothing on the table,” as it were. If it’s worth doing, do it all the way; put all of yourself into everything you have weighed and deemed worthy of pursuit. Be all there. Do not get in the habit of being a half-hearted creature.

Because of how we were expected to work this out in other areas of life, we understood the concept of giving all of oneself, unreservedly, to something/someone. It’s pretty darn helpful in jobs, relationships, marriage. It propelled my success in search and rescue. It was the only way I knew when I gave myself to God. And I thank Him eternally for my earthly father’s wisdom.

8.)       You can always “make do” with what you have.

We rarely had the luxury of simply going out and buying the tool or ingredient we needed. It was not even an option, really. For the longest time, we didn't have a wheelbarrow, and God knows we could have used it. Find something, invent something, make it work. That was the idea.

Also, nothing ever has to be “just so.” “Only a poor runner blames his shoes.” If circumstances have to be just right and certain conditions have to be met in order to perform – in whatever area – you are handicapping yourself. Leave yourself no excuses; get in the habit of doing what “cannot” be done.

If you do not have the money, well, you spend nothing (in our earlier days, anyway). The reason so many people’s lifestyles do not match their income is because they are unwilling to live within their means—i.e., “make do.”

9.)       Learn from others’ mistakes.

It was a rare evening indeed, if my dad’s dinnertime spiel did not include an exhortation on why or why not to do as so-and-so did. Sometimes it was a news story he shared with the family. Sometimes, it was an unfortunate incident suffered by the farmer down the road.

As watchman for the family, he took it upon himself to warn us and make us aware of reality for our future survival. The big world out there was not all that up-close and personal in rural Wisconsin. Tales of another abduction of a teenage girl, someone gored by their own bull, a neighbor with health problems, or a friend’s divorce were common such topics. They never drove us to paranoia, but to think, be smart, and try to make wise decisions in life. He taught us to use the brains God gave us. Why repeat a mistake you’ve seen someone else make if you can learn from them instead?

It couldn’t make us immune, but it helped to make us more aware.

10.)   Treat people well: Listen to them, value them, put them first.

I cannot remember hearing him say anything remotely like this, but he screamed it through his actions with others. He gave his full, genuinely interested attention in conversation. He did not demand his own way or squawk for his “rights,” even when he could have. He despised that sort of thing and rose above it.

He always bought the most inexpensive thing possible, but never tried to cheat or even talk his way out of a price unless it was ridiculous. He wanted to be fair. He often gave people things he could have sold them instead. The person was more important than the price. Even with money, he treated others as he wanted to be treated.

This is the distinct notion I got from watching my dad deal with other people, including complete strangers: They, their thoughts, feelings and needs mattered more than his.

11.)   The people you love need to hear it, often.

You need to show them, and you need to verbally tell them. There is no reason to be content with just one or the other. I don’t know that my dad believed in particular love languages so much as all of them. Whether they came naturally or not was a side issue. I really think that sometimes we cripple ourselves by categorizing ourselves.

Looking at this list, one might get the notion that my dad was harsh and unfeeling with his kids. We would laugh at such a preposterous notion. The discipline never felt unfair because he was so obvious in his expressions of love. The love truly felt limitless.

Would you say something at your loved one’s funeral, from the heart, that they were unaware you felt for them while they were here on this earth? Tell them. 

Also, “Love” is spelled T-I-M-E, not M-O-N-E-Y. Especially as a father. We rarely had the one. We always had the other.