“Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed
on His faithfulness”
-Psalm 37:3
Wednesday was a huge day for us… It was such an exciting
day, we really want to share it with you. So, here we go :)
This whole year, it’s
been such a blessing to be working at Calvary Aurora. Probably the coolest
thing about being part of the Academy was constantly receiving support and
prayers from the staff as Byron and I began to pursue moving to Ukraine. Because
of this, and many other reasons, I would be happy working at Calvary forever,
but the Lord has other plans for me and Byron. After months of prayer and
seeking Godly counsel from our families, Shandelle, Pastor Ed, and Pastor Dave,
we finally felt it was time to make the hard decision and trust the Lord.
Wednesday morning, I announced to the staff that I would not be teaching at the
Academy this fall because Byron and I are moving to Ukraine.
Of course, you can probably imagine, I was crying through
the whole announcement, but only because of the bitter sweetness of the
situation – bitter in that I dearly love the people I work and serve with, and
I don’t want to leave them – Sweet in that leaving my job at Calvary will give
Byron and I the ability to step out in Faith and prepare to make the big move
(Which will, Lord willing, happen by October of this year). And for those of you struggling with God
right now because you’re stuck in a similar situation and you don’t want the “bitter”
experience of letting go of something/someone you love, I just want to
encourage you to trust God. The sweet, when it’s the Lord’s will, always outweighs
the bitter. Just like the Psalms says, “Taste and See that the Lord is good.” Even
in the midst of my tears, I can see that giving up my job is the Lord’s will,
and that when this is all done and I’m looking back in 1 year, 5 years,
whatever, I’ll be able to say “Yes, I tasted and I saw how GOOD the Lord is and
I’m so thankful I made the difficult decision and trusted Him.”
Once I had made my announcement in staff meeting, things
began to move very quickly. Ed had planned to pray for Byron and I with the
church that same night, as we head to Ukraine for a month this summer, and
because of making my announcement to the staff that morning, Ed decided to also
announce to the church that we’re planning on moving to Ukraine (how’s that for
a run on sentence!). This was scary for us because it made the whole thing (becoming
missionaries) finally seem real… But it was a scary/exciting, and of course,
just like the bitter sweetness, the exciting (because it’s of the Lord)
outweighs the scary.
Wednesday was also an exciting day for us because it was our
3 year wedding anniversary. If someone had told me 3 years ago that I would be
planning to move to Ukraine the fall of 2012, I would have say, “You’re crazy!”
But it’s so cool to see that the Lord has these “crazy” plans for us that are
just so amazing - more exciting and incredible than anything we could ever come
up with on our own. So, when we were prayed over on Wednesday night, it also
symbolized Byron and my commitment to not only serving the Lord with our lives,
but with our marriage.
It’s hard for me to put all of Wednesday’s events into words
(although you’re probably thinking “then why did you just write a novel about
it” haha), but hopefully all of this gives you an idea of the emotions we’ve
been experiencing lately and the prayers we’ve been praying.
If you’d like to see us being prayed over, you can watch it
through the Calvaryaurora.org message archives. Just click on the link below:
The prayer happens at minute 40. The message is called Beware of Fake Religion Part 2.
We hope this update finds you guys encouraged and blessed by
the goodness of the Lord. We’ll have another post up here right before we leave
for Ukraine on Tuesday.
God Bless!
Emily (and Byron too)
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