A Not So Brief history, Pt. 13

I want to apologize for keeping so many of you hanging for the past ten days -- especially pastor Robert. I know that all of you depend upon this blog for a sense of completeness in life and I have let you down. I'll strive to do better...

So now it was somewhere around May, 2005...

Coast Community Church is one of those church fellowships that has a true missions focus. Now that we were a part of the fellowship there and getting such strong support for what we were doing, it seemed only natural to ask them to be our sending church. We asked Pastor Robert if Coast would indeed be that and the prospect was welcomed with excitement and grace. We would, in fact, be the first missionaries sent out from among the body at Coast and everyone got excited about it.

We have have no qualms or reservations whatsoever about our decision and know that Coast will be caring, supportive and a solid base from which to work. Coast has been a great blessing to us and will continue to be so.

So for the next 10 months or so, there's not a lot to tell. Only that we continued in our pursuit of supporters while working and maintaining a family.

Speaking of family -- Beth and I were in a growing quandary regarding Molly and what role she might play in Ireland. Would she go with us? Would she stay here? What did God have for her? She turned 18 in November. She was now technically an adult. She had pretty much decided that she didn't want to go to Ireland to live. She loves Ireland, but began to feel that she wanted to stay here and pursue a career as a violinist.

Here's the breakdown:

- We feel called to Ireland as missionaries - no doubts about that
- God has opened widely every door that we have tested and we've walked through
- In order to honor the Lord in this we feel we need to raise our support as quickly as possible and move to Ireland
- Molly isn't planning on moving to Ireland with us
- Molly is just now 18 and we don't feel like we're ready to leave her here on her own
- We can't abandon her at this critical stage in life
- I have known for the past two years that if God was in this, His plan would be perfect

What was happening? Where was God's perfect plan? What are we to do?

Once again, God opened another door. A biggie.

To be continued...