Moving toward the unknown

As graduation approaches (in December), we have began to more earnestly seek where the Lord would place us in ministry. There are, so far, two possibilities before us and I tell you these 1) to keep you informed and 2) to ask that you pray that we would get a clear sense of God's will for our future.

The first possibility is that we would return to our home church in the Bay Area, First Baptist Church of Castro Valley. We love the area (and blue sky!) and all of my mom's side of the family live in the area (Grandma, aunts and uncles), not to mention my parents. Ryan was the Jr. High and College youth pastor there for three years before we moved down here for seminary, so we are familiar with the church and many of the people. Ryan also gets along very well with the senior pastor; they are extremely like-minded when it comes to areas of doctrine--a must considering how closely they will be working. He has made his wishes known to Pastor Rod, so we will just have to wait and see if this opportunity pans out.

The second possibility is one that as soon as Ryan mentioned it, my mind instantly said, "NO WAY." Yet that very next second I had to repent and realize that I must be open to whatever opportunity comes our way and supportive of Ryan in the search for a job. Now as a California girl all my life, never far from oceans and mountains, Disneyland and Sea World, you can probably understand why I immediately recoiled when Ryan said, "What do you think of Kansas?" Yes, Kansas. In my mind (and I must say I've never even been close to Kansas so I really don't know what it's like) it is the land of nothingness. Devoid of running water, good schools, Starbucks, and the internet. Yet in my quest to find out some information about the town of Emporia, Kansas, I found that indeed, they are a community complete with several web pages about the town! And despite having a liberal governor, Kansas is a red state! In all seriousness, it looks like a lovely town of about 35,000 with a quaint downtown that is full of family activities. They are quite a college town, from what I understand, and it snows in the winter! Ryan and I desire to give the boys a small town/country life upbringing, away from the big city, and Emporia definitely fits this mold. We have a lunch meeting set up with the chairman of the elder board and his wife from Flint Hills Christian Church this coming Wednesday to discuss the possible associate pastor position.

To be honest, we are equally excited about both opportunities. We are very open to the Lord's leading and who knows, we may find after this lunch meeting that we are simply not a good fit for the church and that's that, and end up in Castro Valley. Or we may get really excited about the ministry at Flint Hills and strongly desire to go there. We may also not end up at either place, and that's fine too. It is quite exciting though, to be in this process of discovering where we'll be after December.

That's all for now, I'll let you know how the lunch goes on Wednesday.