It all began 8 years ago when we started dating, got engaged within 2 1/2 months, and definitively felt God's call on our lives that we would someday be serving our community (wherever it was God placed us) together and in a full-time capacity. While we didn't know when or how or where or exactly what it would look like, we knew we needed to be prepared for whenever He called us. To that end, we left the ever so expensive Washington D.C. area in 2006 and moved to Harrisburg, PA (where Angie grew up) to start preparing financially to be ready whenever...paying off debt and not incurring anymore. Chris continued to work in commercial construction management, a profession he has thoroughly enjoyed. His last project was being project manager for the Penn State Cancer Institute. As the economy took a hit and construction projects got postponed and cancelled and as companies started doing major layoffs, Chris was let go on March 13th, 2009. He was the newest employee at his level in the region and, therefore, the first to go. In a whirlwind of events and circumstances happening in our lives as individuals and as a couple and as a family, we felt a strong urge and peace that THIS WAS THE TIME to switch gears and move away from seeking employment with another construction management firm and start looking for places to serve together as a family. This calling was confirmed over and over again in many different ways. As the Lord led us down a curvy path that we couldn't have led ourselves down if we tried, we came to realize that He was setting up a place for Chris to serve with Habitat for Humanity in Bend, OR....using Chris's construction management experience in a capacity that brings hope and life to people struggling to make ends meet. What is really cool is all the potential for us to work together as a couple and family with HFH. We are so excited to see how God will use my calling to work with women and children who are living in desperate situations and to be an agent of healing to their lives as we work with HFH. These are often the very people that HFH serves! And, it is already so evident how God is using the resources and gifts he has provided to Chris to serve with HFH.
Sooo.....Chris is starting this new position on Monday, July 13th, 4 months to the day after he was laid off. Mommy and the kids will stay in PA until we are able to sell the house. We ask for your prayers as we begin this new adventure....for Chris as he enters into a whole new world of work, for our house to sell miraculously quick, and for Angie and the kids as they miss their daddy sooo much and don't know when they'll see him again.
Stay posted for updates and keep in touch with us! The verses that Chris and I have both felt led to during this transition that has been both exciting and scary are from Ephesians 3:14-19 (Msg): "My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us."
We have experienced this great LOVE from our Heavenly Father and His power to do the unthinkable in our lives!
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