My Journey To NYC- Part 1

As promised I'm going to share my thoughts on our calling to New York City. I don't know if I'll be able to make it short enough for one post, but it will at least get me started and motivate me to keep posting. I feel like I need to share a little background first, just so you'll understand my perspective.

Freddy T. and I spent our first 13 weeks as a married couple in New Brunswick, NJ. It was the last 13 weeks of my 1 year committment to a program called The Leadership Journey. Freddy T. met and spent time in those weeks working with Aaron Coe, who at the time was the head of my program and working for NAMB with their strategic emphasis on NYC and who is now the lead pastor of The Gallery Church, and while I had already heard of the vision for church planting in the city and believed in it, Freddy T. heard it for the first time was was captivated.

We spent time in prayer and talked about whether or not we wanted to stay in the area once our time was up. While we didn't feel like the time was right then, the vision for the city has never left our hearts. We then moved to Louisville, KY where Freddy T. continued on with seminary classes while I taught 8th grade at Whitefield Academy. We got an apartment in Old Louisville with the vision to plant a church down there out of the church Freddy T. attended before we got married. He had a strong vision for this plant, however, the church was not at a place to send us out so we never moved forward. All the while, I enjoyed Louisville, but never loved living there. After living there 6 months we were asked by First Baptist Clarksville to take over preaching for the Friday night contempary service. This began our 1 1/2 year stint of traveling every weekend to Clarksville to preach for that service that later was moved to Sunday morning DOXA. At the time this seemed crazy to most people because we lived and worked in Louisville, but went to church 3 hours away. This was part of the reason I didn't come to love Louisville. I didn't have time to make and cultivate really good friendships since I worked through the day and traveled on the weekends. By night time I was tired and ready to be home with Freddy T.


All during this time, 2 years since we lived in New Jersey, Freddy T. and Aaron continued to have conversations about us joining them in NYC and at least once a month Freddy mentioned the idea. The timing was never right for us or the church, but the desire and belief of the vision never left our hearts.

Now let me insert something here. While I believed in the vision to reach NYC and plant churches there, and even thought we'd end up there someday, I thought that someday was a long, long way away. We were starting our family and I was changing jobs from teaching to staying at home full time. Freddy T. came on staff at FBC in January 2007 and we moved to Clarksville 6 days after Jack was born. We were in the same city as most of our family (which is almost unheard of in the ministry) and Freddy T. still had a few classes till he was finished with seminary. With all that, I was not ready to go to NYC (and there was no real open door at that point either). Still believed in the vision, but not ready to go. Not even willing to entertain the idea, and Freddy T. still talked about it once a month. At one point I had to tell him that it was not helpful for me to hear him "dream." My heart was in settling in Clarksville and it shook me up too much to "dream" about relocating somewhere else when we were just settling down in Clarksville.

This brings us to last October (2007). I'll pick up here later on... stay tuned!

*I do want to make sure this is clear. While we have been in Clarksville we have not been constantly thinking about what is next for us. We love FBC and the people we minister to and along side of. It's one of the hardest things about moving, leaving relationships that mean so much to us.

We moved to Clarksville with the intentions of being here for a while. I don't know if a while was 5 years or 30 but while we were serving at FBC we were committed and focused on what the Lord was doing here in Clarksville. It was not our plan to be moving away so soon. It is simply a call from God that we cannot deny.

I didn't mean to make it sound like we've only been thinking of NYC. I realized after reading it again later it could be mistaken for that. There are hundreds of things I'm breezing over because its long enough already! I'm just trying to hit the highlights of how we've gotten to where we are today.

22 weeks 2 days

We had a great doctors visit today. Lillie and Elliott are progressing well. Lillie weighed in at 1lb 1 oz and Elliott trailed at only 15 oz. They are healthy and laying one on top of the other. Both heads on the right side of my belly. I'd scan a picture but they take up so much space its hard to tell anything about the pictures. I must say though, Lillie stole the show today. The technician said she was very photogenic.

As for me. Someone told me I didn't look that big in the picture I posted last night. I reminded them that was 2 weeks ago. To prove my point I've gained 10 pounds since my last doctors visit and I'm currently measuring that of a 28 week pregnancy. It continues to be interesting to see peoples faces when they learn I'm only 22 weeks along. My doctor said things are looking good. He doesn't see any reason for concern now or in the future, of course that can change, but for now I'll keep playing with Mr. Jack and packing away through out the day.

I'm going to my sister-in-laws baby shower this weekend. That will be my next attempt to try to look decent, I'll get someone to snap an updated picture of me then.

This and That

Here is my 20 week picture. I'm 22 weeks now and it seems like I'm much bigger. I'll have to get Freddy T. to take another picture real soon. In the past 4 days 3 people have looked at me and said, "When are you due?" When I say "December" their eyes pop out of their head. I smile and say "It's twins." All 3 responses at that point have been, "oh well you look like you could have it any day!" Well we're a little over half way there, no telling what the next 3-4 months will look like. I go to the doctor tomorrow, we'll update you sometime this week on the latest news.

Here are a few pictures of Jack over the summer. A few from the pool and one during his favorite time of the day... snack time!

I told him to smile... he sticks out his tongue!

Why swim when you have a cup and a pool surrounded by rocks!

And finally, the latest family picture. Not a great one, but the only one since Easter.

I want to do better about updating everyone. This is a crazy season in our lives. We are sorting through our things getting ready for a moving sale in a week or so and at the same time packing everything up, we have renters moving into our house over Labor Day weekend so we have to be out by then. We won't be in New York till the first weekend in October, so we'll stay at a deployed soldiers condo in the mean time. When I actually get a chance to blog I'm so tired I need to rest. I know things won't slow down for a while, but I'm going to try to do better. Thanks for keeping up with us. Keep praying for the Lord to sustain our faith as we prepare for our big move. He has proven himself faithful so many times since we said "yes" to NY. I'll share some of our stories another time.

I Tried

I tried last Monday to post a belly picture, but my camera would not connect with my computer. Not real sure why, but I'll try again soon. In the mean time, I'm just getting bigger. Can't imagine what it's going to be like later on down the road. I'm only half way there!

So Much To Share

We have so much to share. Sorry for the long delay. The past few months have been full. The past few weeks have been extremely full, very exciting, scary, sad, hard, faith filled weeks.

First- I'll work really hard on getting a belly picture for the blog in the next day or so.

Second- We have names for the babies. Lillie Beth and Elliott. Elliott does not have a middle name yet. We have some ideas, but have not landed on anything, but I'll let you know once we do. Lillie is Freddy's grandmothers name and Beth is my middle name. Elliott was my grandfathers middle name. We are so excited to pass them along to our little ones.

Third- Through God's leading and after 4 years of caring the vision in our hearts the Lord has opened up the door for our family to move to New York City and be church planting missionaries. We are so excited! We are sad to leave our family and church family here in Clarksville, but eagerly wait to see what God is going to do in our lives and how he is going to use us to spread his truth to the millions of people in the city. I want to share more thoughts, but right now I don't have the time or energy to get it all out. Freddy has written some on his blog so you can check that out for the time being. I want to post more real soon. I do have lots of thoughts and I want to share with you the journey of faith God is taking me on. We've had an idea that this day would come someday, I never thought it would be this year. Our plan right now is to be in NYC by October 1st. We have a lot to do between now and then so I'll try to post regularly.

Fourth- I need to post pictures of Mr. Jack. He is growing so much and is so much fun to be around. He is 19 months old and full of energy. If you ask him how old he is he'll hold up one finger and say "two!" He can also fake like he is sleeping. Today when I went to get him out of the car he had his head tilted with his eyes closed like he was sleeping and I whispered in his ear and said, "Mr. Jack, you're not asleep" a huge smile spread across his face and he livened up, enough to play for 3o more minutes before he went to sleep for his nap. We love being his mommy and daddy. By the way, he still won't say mommy or anything that comes close to it. He says all kinds of words and his favorite phrase is "garage door go up" but can't get the boy to say mommy... why is that?

Finally- Thank you for reading all of this. Please keep praying for us. Pray that the Lord will provide our needs and sustain our faith. He has done that so far, but we need it each and every day. Also, pray for my pregnancy. So far its going great, but we have a lot going on between now and when the twins are born. Pray that they will continue to grow healthy and that I'll be able to rest enough but be very productive at the same time.

Baby A and Baby B

We are excited to share with you the identity of the two growing inside my belly.

We found out yesterday that we have a little boy and a little girl.

The ultra sound pictures looked pretty much like the last ones posted except a little bigger.

We feel confident that the technician found exactly what she needed to find to be sure she was correct in her discerning the sexes.

I'll post names once I'm 100% sure we know what they are. I'm pretty sure we are settled on first names and probably the girls middle name, but were still working on the boys. We'll let you know once it is nailed down.

I told Jack yesterday he was going to have a baby brother and a baby sister, he just smiled!

(like he has any idea what that means!)

Look How They've Changed

We had our second ultra sound today. It still amazes me what a difference 6 weeks can make with the looks of a growing baby. Everything checked out good. They are measuring 12 weeks 3 days, which is right on target and they are the same size. They are quite the movers! Amazing to see two little ones side by side in my belly. Hopefully next time we'll find out the sex. Between now and then I look forward to feeling those first movements!