OK, so today, Chris and I are on our way to mom and dad's house. My sister and her family are visiting through Wednesday and staying with my parents. Today was also the launch of my etsy store and my store on the hyena cart congo. They HC congo was a wise move business wise. I am a member of a huge cloth diapering group on cafemom (where the congo originated) so there were lots of hits on the HC store. I didn't put a ton of money investment wise into this venture so if it flops it isn't a huge deal and I had fun doing it. We will see.
Anyway, back to my point. So on the way to mom and dad's the four of us are in our car. Harrison was chillin' and being well behaved and Kadie was chewing on her sock monkey. Chris and I have some of our best conversations in the car. I looked back at H man and he gave me that precious little smile so I was thinking to myself how good he was being. (He had been a terror all morning due to lack of sleep and not feeling well). I told Chris sort of jokingly but not really - we should just get rid of all of our stuff, pack up and live in a RV and travel the country. We have our best moments on the road...really and truly. He chuckled and agreed. I am being serious Chris. So we sort of toss around the idea. At first I'm like...I can tie dye and we can travel to hippie festivals and set up vendor stands, etc. And you (Chris) can figure out something to do with all of your production/videography/photography experience. We could do it. Think about how easy and simplistic our life would be. We would have to become minimalists simply due to lack of space -which appeals to us but we really struggle with it. We would have so much more time to worship God, enjoy each other and our kids. We are very nature oriented people...some might say tree huggers....whatever. I feel at peace and feel God's presence when I'm outside in His wonderous creations. Chris does too. Both of our kids do actually.
So we've been hashing this out all day and night long into the wee hours of the morning. At first it seemed sort of far fetched and crazy but as we continued talking about it we found ourselves feeling mission bound. Here is the deal. I have always (well at least since I was 16) felt called to the mission field but I never can see how it fits in my life. Chris really was not/has not been on the same page until recently. I'd pick up and move to Africa in a heartbeat..he isn't quite there yet. Maybe Africa is not in our future. However we could totally see ourselves being traveling missionaries in the USA.
So where do we go from here? I think both of us feel a strong urge from God that this just isn't a whim. I mean first of all we are in a sense giving up (at least temporarily) on the American dream of having the house with the picket fence and 2.5 kids, nice cars, boat, etc. Some days I care about that but most days I don't. It is just stuff. You can't take stuff with you when you die. How can I possibly sit at home wasting my time with all of this stuff when there are people in this world that don't know about the love of Christ. I mean when I look at it that way, I wonder why we aren't doing something now. We bought a home because we have so much stuff we needed a bigger place to put all of it. Our plans involve saving money so that we can update stuff and change stuff around and eventually sell this house to get a bigger house to put more stuff inside...see where I'm going with this. Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with the American dream and the stuff. But we aren't those people. At least at this point in our lives we are not those people.
Ok so reality check. What in the world would we do? I mean we'd have to get rid of most of our stuff and store the stuff we can't part with. That would be no easy task but we could do it. We'd need to boost up our savings a bit. We'd have to figure out how to support ourselves and figure out our target mission field. Would we actually be missionaries? If so, I don't even know where to start. Is there a such thing as a traveling missionary/gypsy family in a RV? Well sure there is. With God the possibilities are endless. How would we pay the bills each month (food, insurance, gasoline, cell phones, RV hook up, etc)? We can't afford a RV right now. We looked online and you can actually get a used one for a pretty good price, we are a four household family on a modest income..there is no room for a RV and we don't use debt anymore for the type of thing. Then we would need a different vehicle that would tow a travel trailer. I guess we could sell both vehicles we have now and find something that would work.
So if we worked out all of the logistics above you have to think of our kids and family. First of all even if we were somehow blessed to have a travel trailer it would have to be big enough for all of us to live comfortably. Preferably with the master bed and the bunk beds. Where would our kids keep their toys? Would we kill each other? We figured we'd try to travel so that we were very seldom in inclimate weather and could spend as much time as possible outdoors. We'd obviously have to homeschool and that is fine with me. But as a travler, do your kids make friends? Who do they play with? Do they resent you forever for robbing them of a normal childhood? But then again are we a "normal" family? If we are following God's will, then does all of this sort of pan out? I mean I have faith but I've never taken a leap quite this big. And back to the stuff thing. I mean we'd have to keep our personal belongings down to a minimum in order to live comfortably. No more trips to Target just to browse and buy stuff we think is cool. No more collecting, Oh yeah, and we could not have a garden. That would suck.
My mind could go all night and probably will. I honestly haven't felt this excited and passionate about anything in awhile. I'm also scared. Scared of the unknown. But I'm also peaceful...does that even make sense? I'm peaceful that God will provide no matter what.
So for those of you that are reading this...some of you that know us well may not really be surprised. But seriously keep us in your prayers. We can't let this be a fleeting thought. I feel it was Dinvinely inspired. We constantly feel like we aren't doing what we should be doing for God. We need prayers for direction and lots of open doors. Prayers that we can find a RV and a vehicle to tow it. Prayers that we can target our mission field and prayers that we can make a modest living that will provide for basic needs. Prayers that we stay focused on truly following the will of God. Prayers that if this is meant to be that we will take advantage of the open doors that God gives us and that things will basically fall into place. Prayers that if we do this, we can get rid of the stuff, sell our house and the logistics of everything fall into place.
I can't get rid of the passion inside of me. There are people out in the world right now that feel hopeless and alone. There are hurting men, women, boys and girls. They don't know how powerful the embrace of a loving, fearful, sovereign God can be. They don't know that you don't have to be scared at night. They don't know that you don't have to worry about tomorrow because God will provide. They don't know that we have been given an awesome gift of salvation and exactly what Jesus did for us. I have to tell them!
