Provided for

This year has been a long journey.  It will be one that will stick out as we look back on our lives.  We will never forget it.

It's been awesome at times and really difficult at times.  But the Lord has remained faithful.  He always has and always will.

We've had our moments of missing Richmond, missing family, missing friends and small group, missing familiarity, missing our old home, and stability in a job.  But over and over and over we have been reminded that it is the Lord that has brought us here.  Nothing else has.  Why else would we leave the familiar, comfortable, and stable things?

One of the ways the Lord has blessed us this year is our neighborhood.  We really like our house.  It gives us the space we need, in a really nice community.  The only complaint would be our lack of yard, which is becoming a bigger deal.  But its the people that is blowing me away.

I've always wanted to live in one of those communities where you know all your neighbors and the kids all play together.  We're getting close to that here.

Tonight Ed and I sat in our backyard with two couples who live on our street.  One couple bought smores stuff  and pretty much invited themselves over to use our firepit, and that kind of explains our relationship.  Our next door neighbors have become dear friends.  They are seminary people so obviously there was an instant connection.  We have shared meals and desserts, traded babysitting our kids for their dog, talked on our front porches, discussed ministry ideas and philosophies, and dreamed about new babies.

The other couple just moved in down the street and they too are believers.  We are just getting to know them, but really like them as well.

So as we sat outside in our backyard laughing and telling stories, I was just reminded of this gift the Lord has given us.

Micah has a friend that lives right behind us that goes to school with him.  So this is the first time he has had a friend in the neighborhood, and he loves it!

All this in a neighborhood I didn't think we'd be here for much more than a year.  But all of a sudden I'm finding I love the people here and it breaks my heart to leave.  We have no plans of leaving yet, but know it will be in our future.

Right now I am just full of thankfulness for my God who has so richly provided sweet friendships for us all.  He has not only provided for us financially, but with relationships that go deep.  These are a treasure to me, and leaves my heart full and so grateful.  We are truly provided for.

Some New Friends

A few weeks ago I mentioned we went to the beach with our friends the Kohouts.  We have continued to meet with them and pray with them.  It looks as if the Lord is leading us to plant a church together.  We have prayed and prayed throughout this whole journey and God has answered so many prayers.

Martins and the Kohouts - minus sweet baby girl they are adopting from Ethiopia!

Its frightening to me at times to link arms with a family we have known 6 months.  But the Lord has met every fear with truth.  He always seems to come back with something to walk me through the moment of fear.  And we so love them.  That have become some of our best friends in this short amount of time.  And our kids adore each other!

We have said over and over that we are walking in as much light as God is choosing to give us.  And we will continue to walk in the way we think He is leading until He tells us otherwise.  This is the Lord's doing, it's His Church.  So we have to remain in him.  Let him lead and build his church in the way He's going to do it.  We are called to trust and be obedient.

This journey has been exciting, stressful, frightening, encouraging, hard, and strengthening.  It's been so worth it!  Pray with us as we seek to follow the Lord's desire for a new church in the area.  We have no idea what its going to look like, but we know its gonna be awesome!

The First of Many Lasts

I am finally updating our blog!  Sorry to all my faithful family members and friends who have probably given up on me.  Life has just been too much recently.  I've been busy cleaning house over and over again for our showings.  The good news is we have had a lot of traffic in our house.  But that has been a lot of work for me.  Our house has now been on the market for 37 days, and we waiting for the Lord to bring us our buyer.  


Last week we picked out our house in NC, so things are moving along.  We are excited for our new adventure God has for us in NC, but are focusing now on closing out relationships here.  We had our last Bible Study at CBS this week.  We have so loved that while we have been here, and we will miss it.  We also had our last regular youth group this week.  There will be many lasts coming up, and we will take them one by one.  


God has been teaching us a lot through this process.  We are so grateful for this time, and what he is doing in our lives.  

"Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act."  Psalm 37:5

A New Chapter

We have some new exciting things going on with the Martins these days.  The short story is that we are moving into our next ministry adventure.  My husband has served as youth pastor at Grace Community Baptist for almost 6 years now.  We have loved this ministry, the people, and specifically the youth.  God has done a lot in 6 years and we are so grateful for it.  But now God is moving us on to our next ministry being church planting.  We are going to be a part of a Church Planting Residency Program for one year where we will be trained and equipped to plant a church.  After that year, we launch out with a team to begin a new church body.  


Even as I type these words, I haven't quite gotten used to it.  For some reason, church planting just seems to be what those other people do.  You know the ones who I think are more qualified.  God has made it very apparent these last couple of months that although we are not qualified, He is going to use us anyway.  Because apparently, He's in the business of using unqualified people.  So here we are closing this chapter at Grace, and entering a new one.


We have shared with our church, family, and close friends, and are now telling the world.  The program is at North Wake Church, the church we attended in seminary.  So we will be moving down to Wake Forest sometime around the New Year to begin the program in January.  We are excited to be back in NC and around some dear friends, but we are sad to leave family and friends here too.


I will share how it all came about in a series of posts.  Its just too long of a story for now.  Thank you to those of you that have been praying for us!  We have felt so loved and cared for these past couple of months!

Camp Barnabas

Well we are back and somewhat rested from an amazing trip to Camp Barnabas.  We came home exhausted, but excited to see our kids again.  Both of our parents did such a great job with the kids.  The boys came back with lots of stories of things they did.  


Barnabas was an amazing opportunity.  I highly recommend it to any youth group or college student.  Our students were paired up with a special needs camper for the week.  They had to help them walk through camp for the week.  Our students were challenged in every way, and many of them really learned what it is like to actually depend on the Lord.  This was not really something they could do on their own.


We shared yesterday in church, and so here is a video that Ed made for our week at Camp Barnabas.

I'm Gonna Miss Them

This week we are preparing for a big week for us, all of us.  Ed and I are taking our youth on a trip to Camp Barnabas.  It is our first time going, and we are really excited.  It is a camp for kids with special needs.  Our students will pair up with a kid (ages 7-15) and basically walk through a week of camp with them.  They will eat with them, sleep in a cabin with them, help them ride horses, swim in the pool, do the ropes course, go down the water slide, etc.  This is a camp made just for them!  So its going to be a challenging week, but a good week.


On the other hand, I'm about to pass on the kids to our parents.  I am really struggling with it.  I decided a while back that I just shouldn't even think about it because I would just worry.  Well now I am here, and I'm not worrying, I'm just sad.  I trust our parents, but 10 days is a LONG time.  I'd like to think my kids will miss me.  They need me...right?


So this week I'm savoring every kiss, every giggle, every hug, every "I love you", even every cute little face I'll wipe, and dirty hands I'll clean, and yes maybe even their cute little bottoms I'll wipe!