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Three things happened this week that are each so BIG that we can hardly contain them. They’re all good things. God’s in them. Yet each of them is hard in it’s own way. First, Kayti was accepted to a great college. Second, Ken and I received ordination last week. Third, we’ve left the church we’ve been attending.

It’s a LOT of change, all at once!

First - Kayti was accepted at Southeastern . She was sure that they wouldn’t accept her - claimed she wrote a terrible essay, that her grades weren’t good enough (She’s got a 4.0 but since she’s had a few honors classes and a few B’s, that works out to a 4.0 avg. She’s SO driven), that her recommendations weren’t good enough… so when they called her up to tell her the other night, she wasn’t sure she believed it at first!! Then she started to float about eight inches off the ground. She’s SO happy. Now we have to come up with a way to pay for it! College ain’t cheap.

It’s rather scary to think of my baby girl going several states away to college! Scarier still - she’s only 16. She’s worked very hard at her schooling and was advanced a year - plus she started kindergarten early. She’s mature enough and smart enough… but she’s still my baby!

Second - Ken and I are ordained now, through Jack Cates’ church. Since it’s through a church, not a denomination or fellowship, we’d be unlikely to get ministry jobs anywhere… but his ordination gives us spiritual covering for some of the things God’s called us to do. Last Thursday night, we gathered together and Jack, Bob, and Wayne and the others prayed over us. We could feel the presence of God in such a real and tangible (reach out and touch Him) kind of way. He is so awesome! As we launch out into the deep, so to speak - doing God’s call and learning new ways to depend on Him - it’s good to know that we’ve got earthly family backing us up, too. Pastor Jack wants us to go and get advanced training - either at Bible school or through a denomination… and knows that eventually we’ll be licensed through another church or fellowship. It’s all good.

Third - God has led us to leave our little church here in Level Cross. It’s a long story, and most of it’s not for public consumption - we’ll just leave it at “God said it, so we did it”… even though the doing is very hard. We hate to leave family. LCAG is a small, tight-knit church - it’s one of those country churches where everybody knows everybody AND knows everybody’s business, but since we all love each other, that’s ok.

Yet, just like when we left Calvary Church , there’s such an emotional disconnect from the flow of the church life that it’s staggering. Things that were overwhelmingly important to me just two weeks ago - aren’t mine to deal with any more. It’s hard to describe… but for both of us, that feeling of “ownership” and “our church” is completely gone. God gave us SO many confirmations - both an inner witness and sense of direction (that Ken and I had independent of one another) and several prophetic words.

We know that a big part of the reason is that we’ve learned what we needed to learn, and that it’s time to go and get advanced training elsewhere. If we could compare our Christian lives with Army Training, I would say that we had levels 1 and 2 of Basic Training at Calvary - we were discipled well and made into strong believers there. Level 3 of Basic happened at Level Cross - this level is designed to teach about teamwork, command, and field exercise. According to usmilitary.about.com, “This exercise is designed to stress IET soldiers physically and mentally and requires each soldier to demonstrate their proficiency of basic combat skills in a tactical field environment while operating as part of a team.” We have certainly experienced that! As a matter of fact, I remarked to a friend last night that although we certainly knew how to pray, and knew about certain aspects of spiritual warfare, when we were at Calvary… being at Level Cross taught us a lot about practical application. We passed beyond knowing how, and even doing, to living the way God’s called us to live as believers. Now it’s time to move on to what the Army calls “ AIT ” - Advanced Individual Training - where you’re specifically trained for what they’ve got in mind for you to do as a career. We’re in God’s army and He’s called us for a specific purpose - so now it’s time to prepare for that purpose.

Pastor Danny anointed us, blessed us, and sent us on our way yesterday morning. We’re glad that he decided to do that. Knowing that we’ve got his support in us launching out is a good feeling!

But now… we have NO idea where God wants us to be. None, zip, zippo… I think that’s by design, actually. I’m the sort of person who wants a plan when it comes to matters of security. Doesn’t have to be a GOOD plan, and I don’t mind if the plan changes… but HAVING a plan is essential. I don’t have a plan. I do have God. So now we’re learning to rely on Him in a whole new way.

We went back to Calvary last night and had a great time. As always, both the worship and the preaching were excellent. That’s one thing Calvary’s always been - very consistent. That was, in a way, comforting to us. It’s a known entity - sort of like a warm comfy blanket. LOTS of people came up to us, wondering if we’re back. We said, “welllllllllll” -

We’re thinking that we’re going to use Calvary as a sort of “home base” for a couple of weeks, while we wait on the Lord to lead us to a (semi-) permanent home. We know that we’re called to be church planters . We know that we need some training and mentoring. We’re not sure that Calvary’s the place He wants us to do it in - although we know that Pastor David would give us what we need in the process. We’ve experienced church in the Big, with everything going “right”, enough money and people to do stuff… and now we’ve experienced church in the Small, with no money or people and very dirty hands. It may be that God’s calling us to a medium-and-growing church so we can see that, too. We’ll see. We’re going to visit a couple of churches and see what the Lord reveals. We’re both very committed that we want to be where God wants us - not where we’ll be comfortable, comforted, and “feeling good” - we want His will for us.

So… huge changes in our lives. It would all be scary, except we know that God’s in them. Praise the Lord!