“To find God, you must look with all your heart. To remain present to God, you must remain present to your heart. To hear his voice, you must listen with your heart. To love him, you must love with all your heart. You cannot be the person God meant you to be, and you cannot live the life he meant you to live, unless you live from the heart.” – John Eldredge
Dear Friends and Family,
These last 16 months have been a journey of the heart for Brenda and me, and our kids. We have experienced God revealing a bigger story in our lives, in our hearts, in the hearts of those around us, those supporting us, those praying for us. And this bigger story being written is not what we anticipated at all.
The smaller story, which we focused on in the beginning, was raising support, selling our house, me quitting my career, getting our kids in school, and moving to New Orleans. While this doesn’t seem like the small story, after all that’s what we have been trying to accomplish for the last year and a half, it really is.
So, what is the bigger story? God has been calling us to be fully alive in him.
Our emotional lives and our spiritual lives have different dynamics. The ups and downs of our emotional life depend a great deal on our past or present surroundings. We are happy, sad, angry, bored, excited, depressed, loving, caring, hateful, or vengeful because of what happened long ago or what is happening now.
The ups and downs of our spiritual lives depend on our obedience – that is, our attentive listening – to the movements of the Spirit of God within us. Without this listening our spiritual life eventually becomes subject to the windswept waves of our emotions.
Well, we are still waiting for it to sell and the plan is as soon as we sell it – we will move. That has been our state of mind for the last 4 months. Our home has been on the market for 12 months. We have had several showings and a few recently where we made the top 1 or 2 favorite homes of the prospective buyers. Yet no offers. As you all know too well, the economy has made the housing market very weak, banks aren’t giving loans to buyers and the loan-to-value ratio continues to slide. We are in a position where the “market value” of our home has dropped so much in the last 4 years that if we wanted to “price our house to sell” according to the market; then we would be upside down about $50,000. Yikes! We can’t do that. So we are pricing it where we will not make any money, but we will also not lose any money and have to write a check at the end of the sell, a check we don’t have.
Again, our plan is to move as soon as our house sells. With our budget cut in half and the plans to get a part-time job our house is what is keeping us from moving right now. Originally we budgeted approx. $20K for our on-time moving expenses from Chicago to New Orleans. The good news is that the funds that you have been supporting us with monthly have been adding up in our account and it looks like these initial one-time expenses are going to be covered from your support! Thank you!
Currently we are at 30% of our original budget. In other words, you, our supporters have committed $2,550 a month to our mission. Thank you for those commitments! Here is the reality; We are going to cut our budget in half and one of us will have to get a part-time job when we arrive in New Orleans. This is a good thing as it will do two things; first, this will relieve the pressure of our support base, and second, it will allow us to become more submerged in the community and culture of New Orleans and give us more legitimacy for our presence in the eyes of the people living there.
Cutting our budget in half will then put our monthly support level at 60% with what we currently have committed on a monthly basis, and this will allow us to start to draw on our funds that you have so graciously been giving once we arrive. We are still hoping that some of you will be able to join our support team in the near future so we can get our support to 100% of our new budget. So to that end we would like to ask that you please prayerfully consider supporting us on a monthly basis, no matter what the amount.Click on the Duck to the right to start now.
Our blogging has obviously been slow (or non-existent is more like it). Hopefully we can make some time to do more. Until then here is our next edition of The ZookCrew Chronicles – June Edition.
Last night Devin and Makenna got up in front of 200+ people and performed.
The first video is Devin, and his buddy Tyler, performing the infamous “Peanut Butter Skit”! I love this skit and Devin was in his element as he made people laugh and squirm in their seats.
The next video is Makenna stepping up accapella style, singing “Amazing Grace”. She was very nervous but did a great job as she stood in her glory, in front of all of us, singing for her Lord.
Makenna was very excited to sing a song that she wrote for Brenda for her birthday. So after breakfast this was her blessing to Brenda, each word was carefully chosen to express her love for her Mom. She figured out the first part of the melody on her keyboard. She did a great job – she’s got a little soul in her I think!
Mom it’s your birthday, thanks for all the love and care you give.
When I look at you I smile, cause you’re the perfect Mom for me.
Yeah, It’s your birthday Mom!
Yeah, It’s your birthday Mom!
Cause you’re kind, smart, funny and an angel, Yeah.
Mom! Yeah! Yeah!
Your Thoughts