"See a Need, Fill a Need"

One of Jonathan's favorite movies these days is Robots. One of the characters in the movie, Mr. Bigweld, has a slogan for the company he runs. "See a Need, Fill a Need."
Our family has been the beneficiary of Mr. Bigweld's slogan recently. As we walk the first steps of this journey toward ministry in NYC, we have only to recognize a need, and God fills it.

• Need someone who knows what they're doing to teach you how to build Christian community in a huge city? Done--Steve is accepted into the Fellows program at Redeemer.
• Need a whole pile of money to cover the mammoth cost of living in a huge city? It's arriving daily, from people and places we never imagined.
• Need to prove employment in order to rent an apartment? No problem, Dana can keep her job for a while and work remotely.
• Need a local church family to embrace the vision and ordain Steve? Caledonia CRC is amazing.
• Need constant prayer? Excellent, we have people all over the country praying for us.

As excited as we are to begin this good thing, we are also a bit anxious and somewhat terrified. Witnessing God's good care for our family affirms us, keeps us from looking down at the waves and starting to sink.

Thank you, God, for every good thing.

I'll Miss 'Em When We Leave

As diverse as NYC is, there are some things in GR that can't be replaced.

• Wealthy Street Bakery: I'll have a cinnamon roll for breakfast, a scone for lunch, and a giant lemon bar for dinner. Top it off with some fair trade coffee, and I'm all set.
• Heritage Hill Tour of Homes: My mom and I have walked this beautiful tour every fall for the past 5 years...a girl can dream of 4,000 rambling square feet complete with fantastic architecture and excellent interior design.
• Little Bohemia: As many times as I've been in this store, I've never bought anything. When someone does most of their clothes shopping on the run through Target, a store like this is akin to an art exhibit.
• Adobe In N Out: A giant chicken burrito and large diet for less than $5. A Dutch girl's Mexican cuisine utopia.
• The Potters House School: A good school with a great mission.

Unnecessary

Our front room has become the Things We Won't Take With Us holding area. Every few days, I'll go though a pile of books or a jumble of old toys, whittling them away and stashing the stuff we don't need or want in the front room. I still haven't decided if I'm going to have a massive moving sale or if I'll just donate it to the local thrift store.

This process of purging is refreshing, a bit of weight off my shoulders. I won't have a hard time saying good-bye to our stuff. I started letting go of that 4 years ago when Steve decided to go to seminary.

One First Time

I've noticed that as we draw near our moving day, we're doing many things "one last time." Dinner with one group of friends one last time, coffee with another group of friends one last time, celebrating a family birthday at my parents' house one last time... It was good last week to visit a cottage on Bear Lake, so that the kids could have a "one first time." We went fishing and they caught their first fish--massive, 3 inch perch and bluegill. The weather was perfect, the kids didn't fall off the side of the boat trying to reel in their catch, and Steve and I could sit back and watch my parents teach my children. Beautiful.

Here We Go Now

We're moving to New York City.

I've said it, and now I have to stick to it.

To be honest, I never really thought it was going to happen. And I think most of our friends and family would have said the same thing. But in six short weeks, we're leaving.

I was driving to my mom and dad's house last week, and at one point I swerved a bit in order to miss a bump in the road that's been there forever. And I thought, I know this road. This road is my road. I feel like the wheels of my car are part of this road, that I am part of this road. Mostly, I realized that I knew who I was on that road. But I was already slightly less connected to the road than I had been a few months before, when moving to NYC seemed a possibility rather than an eventuality. And I'll keep pulling away, until I am hovering somewhere in limbo, between Grand Rapids and New York.

How long will it be until I'm connected again?