Coming back to the original vision and coming back to the calling. Update and Help request 72825
I have been running from what God has called me to here in Central Florida.
In 2014, while on a Holy Spirit led adventure to the UK, He took me to the houses of George Meuller and Rees Howells, two fathers in the faith that I look up to. I sat at George Mueller’s desk. I stood in both of the Wesley Brothers pulpits, I put my hand on the pillar on Rees Howells' property that said “Faith is substance”, and I told God that if He gave me a property, I’d use it for His purposes the same way Rees Howells used his.
On the way home, I was reading about Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians and my heart was captured by not only their faith, but by their actions and I asked God to “Send me a Zinzendorf or make me into one.”
9 years later, we came into possession of this property in Leesburg, Florida through a series of miracles. We shouldn’t have been able to get this place for a number of reasons, but, we are here.
When we first got to Florida, God had put it on my heart to purchase equipment to start holding “Sound of Waiting worship meetings”. I got the gear…..and did not do any worship meetings.
I was so overwhelmed by the state of things when we took possession of this place, that, like Jonah, I ran from the call of God. I totally lost hope, I shut down, lost myself and lost sight of the call of God for over two years. I’m only just now waking back up.
As recently as last May, I was ready to give up and move on, hand the bank the keys and say “good riddance”. We gave away a lot of stuff, sold a lot of stuff, packed most of our things into bins and were preparing to order some portable storage units to move back to Oregon, calling this place and this season the failure it appeared to be. Fully agreeing with every real estate professional that looked at this house and called it a lost cause.
I was done. I was ready to call it and move on. But, when it came down to actually making the move, something stopped me in my tracks and it’s hard to describe, but I felt as though I could not move forward. Nothing opened up on the PNW end, but also, things didn’t feel settled here either.
When we started taking steps to move back Northwest, in alignment with the longing of our hearts, it felt as though there was no wind in our sails. There was a feeling of sorrow surrounding the way we were about to leave this place. It felt like the abortion of a dream. So, we slowed down. It started to feel like it wasn’t time to do that yet.
We waited on the Lord. We prayed and asked God to give us wisdom, to speak to us in a way we could understand Him and He did.
He made it clear that I had not done the thing he put on my heart when we first got here and the resistance to the call was a large part of why things were so hard for us here.
We have lived our entire married life under the ethos of “Seek first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things would be added unto you.” and for the first time in almost twenty years, our housing payments were late when we bought this place. In spite of being weird musicianary Jesus people our whole marriage, our rent was always paid on time for well over 15 years without being late.
“All these things” were always “added” unto us when we sought first His kingdom. I started acting in fear, and overwhelm and I stopped doing as I was asked and things quickly went south.
It has felt as though we have been hedged in by thorns with only one path forward.
We asked God to speak and it seems He has…
I’m surrendering to the call I was running from. I thought I was dealing in terms of either Oregon /or Florida when God was really offering us BOTH. I was stuck in look back mode for years, mourning what I “lost” and unwilling to allow myself to really embrace what was right now. So, the course correction is about making time to embrace Florida. Learn to love what makes her special and press into that. Build strong relationships and let our hearts actually bloom here, so much so, that when we are in Oregon, part of us longs to be in Florida and vice versa. But, it isn’t unto torment, but to keep us connected in both places. It is the building of the FlOregonian Trail that we have talked and dreamed about and if it is to be a real thing, it has to have roots on both ends of the trail to thrive. More on that later.
My morning routines have started to look different. I started small by showing up in secret to offer the fragrance of worship to the Lord in front of my recording gear just about every day.
What’s next is some kind of in person worship meetings here in Central Florida. If you are local and want to invite us out, then please message me. House church, big church, it doesn’t matter. Obedience matters.
I’m also back on track for the vision God has for this property that He put in us before we got demoralized and overwhelmed.
I’m starting to see what God wants with this place and it looks like restoration and redemption. But, it also looks like a food forest. It looks like a place of refuge for those that God brings here. It looks like a home to some businesses we want to start. It looks like a creative refuge where I can do my work and create resources that will inspire and bless people. It looks like getting this place fixed up enough to start hosting house church meetings. It looks like a micro garden of Eden.
We recently had a phone call with a dear friend that re-ignited our earlier vision then led to the clarity of our roles as image bearers. We aren’t dooms day preppers….we are ministers of reconciliation who carry the light that can right the wrongs and bring order to the chaotic mess this world has become. We have been calling this property our School of Faith, because it has been an exercise to look at this mess and believe it can be made right….but, what if it CAN? What if we CAN create what we see in our imagination and bring order to disorder? What if this place is one of many…..our chance to work our proof of concept. Our chance to take what others wrote off as worthless and make it priceless. Restoration and Redemption of the land and more…of families, food systems, art and worship.
There isn’t any way we are going to be able to do any of this alone.
So, if you’ve gotten this far, I wanted to ask you for a few things:
1.) Pray for us. Pray for me especially to stay focused and clear sighted so that I can see what God is
calling me to and stay doing it until it’s finished. That my body would stay strong as I’m healing from last year’s back injuries and car accident.
Pray for resources to make an Eden out of this place. Pray for materials and helpers to help us with a seemingly never-ending stream of projects that all feel really big for just me to do, but with help, we can make short work of them.
Pray for us for finances to increase as we need $4k to get our mortgage and light bill caught back up. (We need roughly $500 by the 30th. Something is causing our power bill to be over $600 a month. It’s not just the ac although a 100+ degree heat index isn’t helping things. I think it’s the well pump that always seems to be running. We need to do tons of work to make this place energy efficient.)
2.) If you pray and feel lead to help get us caught up and move the vision forward, you can give HERE
3.) If you want to see my latest musical releases and morning Worship Meditation sessions, check
out The Bright Hope Patreon. Everything is viewable as a free member, but the Patreon app has a good music player and you will also be alerted through email when I release something new. We moved a lot of our releases to Patreon when FB stopped showing friends our updates. You can also become a paid Patron for $7 a month or as you feel lead, if you want to support us through that platform.
I feel called to focus most of my working time creating kingdom resources and building this place into the place of refuge that God has given me vision for. This will eventually look like the establishment of businesses that should more than fund things but that’s going to take some time, money and work to get us to that place. This is the beginning of our course correction and we appreciate any and all support to help us right this ship.