Our family Christmas Eve
Dear Family, Dear Friends,
We want you each to know this information at the same time. Although cheesy, overused and impersonal,
e-mail is a great tool. We have been wanting to share but decided to wait until after the holidays. We are
broadening our horizons, exposing our children to a different way of life, taking a jump of faith in a new
location. To some of you, this is no surprise as we seem to relocate quite often throughout our marriage.
When we moved to Stroudsburg 5 years ago it was for several reasons:
*To adopt a slower pace of life where our family could choose our own schedule and have more time as a family.
*To get out from behind the church walls (we were a Pastoral/Ministerial family) and into the community by “being” the church instead of calling people into the church.
*To expose our children to a different culture- southerners to northerners- private school to public school etc…
*To reconnect with Gina’s family in PA, NJ, & NY.
*To follow through with the ministry(DeepStream) God grew in our hearts to encourage, strengthen, teach and support married couples and the family unit.
*To take a leap of faith and relocate without a job, place to live or firm plan of what to DO with DeepStream.
We feel reconnecting with family, organizing our time the way we see fit, exposing the children to a different culture, giving DeepStream a home base have all been accomplished by moving here. Part of the slower pace and exposing the children to another slice of life were necessary mature, to be able to grow in our faith and increase our burden to help people. By the moving of our hearts we relocated here trusting God would heal, encourage and help us grow closer to Him. He has and continues to do just that! Our desire has become deeper to be closer as a family, to minister together, to bring Jesus into the community, to take a leaps of faith often giving ourselves as we feel that is the best way to mature, help others and obtain inner peace. In our family time together as we talk, pray, read, share and listen we not only see the need for our family to venture to new places, but we also see the ministry of DeepStream broadening. Good strong marriages are important and so is a solid family, but as a family we are burdened for the people who have no family, whose marriages have crumbled, whose families have been torn apart. As the children have matured they have developed their own tender hearts- wanting to help people in Jesus’ name.
* Since the age of 9 Corinne has mentioned adopting a child. Through our support of IJM all the children but mostly Corinne have expressed remorse over the hardships children around the world face daily. She has consistently asked if we could adopt a child from one of these place to rescue them and bring them into a loving and happy family.
* Isaac has always talked about wanting to go to Africa. He is mesmerized by the culture, landscape, devastation due to famine and poverty.
* Compassionate tears fall from Bryn’s face when she sees someone disfigured. She comes up with a slew of ways people could help and how we should not talk bad about them because God made them special. She likes to meet new people and learn about their ways.
* Eli wants our “homeless” friends to live with us, share his room. His 7 year old mind does not understand why these people have to live outside when there are so many houses and especially our big house. He wants to be friends with everyone he meets.
* Mark yearns to help people have clean water by building wells.
* Gina dreams of loving on people with a gentle, calming touch or a compassionate listening ear.
* Both Mark & Gina love the idea of spending more time together with the freedom of traveling, helping others, exposing our children to the world and working side by side for a Higher Purpose.
Over the years we have given up our will to God and asked Him to take us wherever He wanted us to be for Him- from neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city, state to state, job to job. We have always been burdened to help people. We actually have hoped to move to another country and truly we never felt an impression to a specific place or a specific people. We have some dear friends who recently moved to Guatemala because they were burdened to help the poor specifically in that country. We thought, “Yes! this is a sign that we are supposed to go there- we’ve not had a clear leading of what to do or where to go, but this is perfect!” We are going to see them February 4th-11th and hope to help them with their overwhelming and beautiful work, but we are not called to stay there- at least not yet- it could change:)
Our plan and when we say “plan” it is in the loosest sense- its more like an idea that we hope to follow through with-is to follow the burdens of our heart and go and help people. Sounds like we could do that here in the USA and we might- we are willing to go wherever we feel nudged to go, but for starters we are “planning” to help others by working
*in orphanages *to relieve those who are already serving and need a “vacation.” *with the hungry *with those who are disabled, sickly *with those who need clean water *with those who need rest from the stresses of life
Since we don’t have a leading to a specific place as of yet, setting up camp for a 3- 6 month period to help organizations, groups, people already working at these capacities is where we hope to start. In order to do that, we will be freeing ourselves of commitments here and making changes in order to have the flexibility to relocate requently:
*selling the house *selling most of our possessions *home educating the children
We have more questions than we do answers. Our hearts, our faith tells us it is time to go, although very sad about leaving our loved ones, we have followed Jesus’ calling in our lives in the past -we will do so in the present. A lot of emotions have been evoked but rest assured none of them have been fear or worry.
*Excitement! We love adventure!
*Thankful- for God hearing our prayers and providing a way for us as parents to teach our children to follow their hearts, to listen to their inner voice, to do good to all men.
*Humbled that we have been granted the privilege of being used of God in any small way as a united family.
*Grateful to enter another dimension of trust, freedom, and faith.
*Saddened- to know this way of life with this group of family & friends will be changing.
*Overwhelmed…just because of ……everything.
Truly God has proven Himself faithful and we trust He will continue to do so as we follow our purpose to:
*be used of God to minister to the needy, less fortunate, hurting, lonely, sickly, discouraged, outcasted, homeless, disabled, hungry, thirsty, sore, unloved, unwanted, unappreciated, tired.
*be a tool to connect man with his Maker- the one who is calling them (and you) to find Him, trust Him & believe in Him through Jesus.
*be a family to those who have none
So….as we stated we probably have more questions than answers. Talking about this together would be great- we entertain your comments, thoughts and ideas. As with any move there is much to be done! Our property will go up for sale late February. We see ourselves staying here through most of the summer, but we are not sure of that. We plan to come back to the states to re-group and visit our loved ones whenever possible.
Because of Jesus~ Love all. Worship One~
www.deepstreamcommunity.com
www.deepstreampa.com
Thank you for being part of our lives. By design, God had our paths cross either 20 years ago or 2 months ago, we count it a privilege to have such wonderful, sweet, understanding, loving and kind friends and family. What you have helped us create in our family & home we desire to share with others who may never have the opportunities that we have been given.
Very awesome post. Honest.