Where it all began

My wife and I were married in 2003 here in Ft. Collins, CO. In the first five years we had the blessing of experiencing the typical "American Dream" scenario. We purchased our house in 2005 with a couple of dogs as our only children, with the intention that this would be the home we would raise our kids in over the next 20+ year period. I had the 8-5 job as a body mechanic in a well established car dealership, and Robin worked a few good jobs before we had our first daughter Delaney in 2006. We had our second blessing, Amelia in 2008 and were enjoying life as a young family with a deep love for Christ and surrounded by a fantastic family of believers at Summitview Community Church.

The Rock (college ministry) side of Summitview is where my wife and I actually met and dated. We eventually were forced to live in reality, embrace our young marriage and move over into the grown up Summitview side of our Church. Together we have spent 11 years with this Church, watching them send out a great number of families and individuals to plant churches in all different parts of the world. We never really gave any thought to being a part of the Church planting crowd as we were comfortable in our life here on the front range. And personally, I was very content with my life and my work. I had made a decision early in my life to never move my family anywhere for a job or money or lack thereof. However, it seems that God likes to challenge our hearts when we are on autopilot. In March, of 2009, Robin and I attended a marriage conference in Estes Park, CO with a bunch of our friends in our church as well as couples from other churches associated with our organization. And you must understand, I don't care much for conferences, but a friend of ours convinced me to go out of consideration for my wife(she LOVES conferences). Now, this friend and her husband are pivotal in this story so to keep their identity a secret, we will call them Jeremy and Kayt Pourbaix. At the conference we discovered that another Church had been planted in Manhattan, KS at the beginning of that year. While we were in Estes park, Robin and Kayt began to cahootle as myself and Jeremy were out and about for the afternoon only to come back to them both giving us a sales pitch on why we should consider moving to Kansas and assist in the church plant. At first, I didn't think this would be a serious possiblity for our family, but non the less, I needed to consider it. Initially, both Robin and I were going to visit Manhattan with the Pourbaixs, but about a month before we were to visit they decided to back out. Now alone in the Manhattan venture and in the midst of starting a new business, I was all but sure even visiting Manhattan was out of the question. But after some serious discussions with my bride, and some prayer, I cleared my schedule for some time for us to drive out and visit.

Robin and I were immediately welcomed with open arms and hearts by these perfect strangers at Vintage Faith. They started as a small group of believers from Iowa and Colorado, and now meet in a small old church building in the center of town. Comprised of mostly college students and empty nester's, God has grown them steadily in the last year and a half. There is a core of believers there that are sold out for Christ and have a passionate desire to serve him in loving that community and the students at Kansas State University. They expressed to us that there was a missing dynamic of young married couples and young families and could use some more warm bodies to reach that demographic and that our help would be greatly appreciated. But they were also adamant that we be confident in our purpose and our placement. We came away from that weekend with a sense of purpose for our family that we had never experienced before.

We prayed for a couple of months and went back to see if the romance of the idea had worn off. It didn't. As time passed and we received counsel and prayed over the decision, it was apparent that moving to Manhattan was the most God honoring thing we could do as a family. God had moved our hearts to move our stuff in the interest of spreading the Gospel.

In August our third child, Remington David, was born. The dust has finally settled from our sons birth and we are ramping up to head out of town. Our excitement and desire to go is building by the day; and at the same time our hearts are filled with sorrow at the idea of moving away from our family and friends. It is one of the most bittersweet times of our life.

I'm not sure we can say that what we are experiencing is a "calling" or even say that it is "God's will for our lives". My wife and I believe that this is an opportunity to fill a void in a church that is desperate to love, serve and spread the gospel to the city of Manhattan, KS. We believe that God's will is to serve him effectively wherever or whenever that may be. And to have our children see that we love Jesus enough to relocate and be uncomfortable(as uncomfortable as living in the U.S. can be) is something that will have a great impact on their lives.

My wife and I are nothing special. We are not pastors, we have never been to seminary or hold any significant positions in the church other than being servants of Christ. I am sure that this will be a time of great refinement for our family and for me and my wife personally. Our goal is to have a greater relationship with Jesus in the service of His kingdom. With humble and imperfect hearts, our desire is to have God shape and mold us into more loving and more disciplined children so that He is most glorified. So that He is given full credit for being the source of all things good.