The Call {Part One: The Seed}

It seemed like our life was the ‘American Dream’. We were both working as teachers, had two beautiful daughters, a happy marriage, a new house in the suburbs and couple of dogs.  We were pretty comfortable.  That’s our lives hit a wall. We started to get restless in our careers and other stresses were beginning to weigh on us.  Dan had been unable to get a new job teaching in a public school system and was ‘stuck’ at his charter school without room for advancement.  And, even though I loved Gahanna, I wasn’t loving my job anymore.  We were just maintaining. Then, in the Spring, the wall began to crumble.  My teaching position was eliminated, leaving me unemployed and our future uncertain.  It was terrifying and it was humbling.  We were both almost 30 years old and neither of us really knew what we ‘wanted to be when we grow up’.  We obviously did not know it at the time, but that single event would serve as a catalyst for the next three years.

That summer Dan had been meeting with our pastor regularly and after talking about future career plans he asked Dan if he had ever thought about full time ministry.  If you have spent more than 8 minutes with us, you know the answer to this question…especially since we have been involved with Young Life for the last 15 years.  So, Dan told him he had many times, but that has always seemed impossible and that it would most likely mean moving away so we never pursued it.  He challenged Dan to think about where He saw himself in 5 years and to start having conversations with people about full time ministry opportunities.  Shortly after, Dan met with the metro director of Columbus YL.  Even though He said he would love to hire him, he had no room on staff in Columbus and mentioned a few other places around the state.   We were discouraged, wrote YL off as an option and moved on.  I got my real estate license, was recalled back to my teaching position in Gahanna and Dan continued to look for teaching jobs around Central Ohio. It seemed like we were moving away pieces of the broken wall out of the way.

New Year’s Eve changed that.

At a party with old college friends, the suggestion of YL staff was once again brought up to us.  We explained why we didn’t see it as a viable option and they understood, but something about that conversation stirred up the passion in both our hearts.  Leaving that party we talked about the possibility that maybe God had not closed that door and we started to search our souls. Is this something God is really calling us to do? What about our families? Could we really move away…we have both lived in Columbus our entire lives. How would it work financially?  We didn’t have any answers, but we did want to leave room for the Lord to move. So after a lot of prayer and consideration, Dan interviewed with the regional staff.  Then we waited to see what positions would open and where they thought a good fit might be.  Still unsure and with a lot of unanswered questions we waited…