WARNING: Much rambling reminiscing ahead to set up the news I'm sharing in the end...lol...
In the late 90's, we were still in our little denominational church, doing...well, lots of stuff.
My Sweet Babboo made several trips to Promise Keeper Events, and, despite originally not wanting to go, even went to the rally they had in Washington DC in...was it '98? A start up Christian Satellite TV service offered a deal during their start--up...purchase the equipment with a one-time membership fee and have free Christian satellite for life (well, 'Life' was about 10 ish years before they closed up shop, but I guess we got our money's worth); the kicker was that they were going to broadcast that Washington PK rally live.
So we made the investment so I could watch. It was awesome.
One of the channels, we discovered, carried a program from Morningstar Ministries . 30 minutes every Sunday at 2 PM; one worship song and a portion of a teaching from one of their conferences. String two or three programs together and get the whole message.
We came home, ate dinner, then turned on the VCR and recorded the program as we sat with our Bibles and soaked it in.
I have compared that to the ravens feeding Elijah.
At first, the worship seemed rather strange to us 1st-2nd-and-last-verse folks, but it grew on us. And, through a series of events, we ended up at their New Year's Conference the last few days of December, 2000, at the location where most of the broadcasts had been filmed - New Life Christian Fellowship Church in Jacksonville, Florida.
The Princess was (barely) 15, the Artist was 12, the Actor was 7 and the Flute Player was still 7 years away from picking up a flute at age 4. We had a marvelous time and there were lots of good things that came from that weekend.
In a -wow, I don't believe this- sort of way, before 2001 was over, we had changed churches and the church we ended up in was pastored, as it turned out, by the former senior associate pastor of that very church in Jacksonville, Florida. They had left just about a year and a half before we were there to start the church in the Rocket City.
Fast forward 17 years...through more uncanny events and amazing relationships, The Actor has just been offered a staff position on the children's ministry team at...you guessed it...New Life Church in Florida. Where he happened to attend a conference as a 7 year old kid.
Who would ever have thought.
I just keep reminding myself that Jacob had nothing when he headed to Haran and God took care of him just fine...
He's packing up; he'll take basic necessities with him and his dad and I will come down with a van load of stuff once he gets himself a place with space. He's going to be sleeping on an air mattress w/ friends for a bit.
We'll be down to one kiddo in the house after that. Gonna be a big change.
But it's the right kind of change.
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