life lately...

Just over 3 months ago, God started Jeremy and I down a brand new path. A scary, different, and challenging path.  And we were given two options: obey the voice of the Lord or disobey the voice of the Lord.  I'll be honest and say we (mostly I) wrestled with God on this one for awhile.  However, after much prayer and many discussions with each other, we are finally ready to announce this to our closest friends and family.   In order to get the whole picture, I'll start at the very beginning....

Right before we got married (so summer of 2011), God began to move in my heart in the area of missions.  This is something I have NEVER felt called to before, but I just couldn't escape it.  I talked with Jeremy about it, and asked him what he thought, and he was as confused as I was.  We had always imagined that Jeremy's call to ministry would most likely be youth, and we would serve in the local church and that would be that.  He told me he would pray about it, but that he didn't see God leading him into missions.  After about 3 months of praying and seeking God's will, he came back to me and said God was beginning to change his heart towards missions, but that he ultimately believed his calling was to the local church in pastoral leadership. We decided to continue to pray about it, and wait for God to reveal His plan to us in due time.

Fast forward to this past January.... After many many months of searching for the "perfect" seminary (we know those things don't really exist) for Jeremy to attend in the fall of 2014, we became very discouraged.  God had closed just about every door that we thought would be opened to us.  We just couldn't find peace with any school we looked at, and I was ready to throw my hands up in defeat. One day, Jeremy came to me and said he wanted me to pray about something: church planting in the Northeastern United States.... yeah, that specific.  I kind of laughed it off, and thought thats not anything we could ever do! Well about two weeks later, he sat me down once again, and began to pour his heart out to me.  He had researched this topic and had all kinds of statics to show me about the area. He found a seminary to attend, and told me we needed to seriously start praying about this.  I suddenly realized just how serious he was.  We began to really seek the mind of God, and for the first time in almost 2 years, peace washed over me.  It was as if God was writing it in the sky.  This was indeed the path He was asking us to begin walking down.

We prayed for about 2 months, and we both felt undeniable confirmation from the Lord that we were to pursue this journey.  After getting in contact with a couple of people from the area, and believing 100% that this is the Lord's will for our lives, Jeremy and I are excited to announce that we will be moving to Albany, New York sometime in the summer of 2014! Jeremy will be attending the North East campus of MidAmerica Baptist Theological Seminary where he will obtain a Master's of Divinity. 

My hands are shaking even as I write this... We are confident in the Lord's calling, but fears are still present.  We are walking into an unknown place to perform a task we know little about.  But I know that God is faithful and His ways are not our ways! Trusting him, obeying Him, and sharing Him are what this life is all about!

The Northeastern part of the United States is the largest unreached mission field in North America. In the city of Albany, less than 2% of the population profess to be evangelical Christians.  Isn't it amazing the way God works?? He has connected my heart for missions and Jeremy's heart for the local church in a way we never saw coming! And we couldn't be more thrilled!

Another HUGE step in this journey is that the Lord has told us our time at Graceway Baptist Church has come to an end.  After several discussions with the director of the Hudson Baptist Association (and fellow church planter), we were advised to get involved with church plants in Oklahoma City in order to begin some training and learn the logistics of how planting a church works.  This will be a time of invaluable training, and allow us to "get our feet wet" in an area that we know very little about. This will be a very bittersweet time for us, as Graceway is our home.  We have had countless wonderful memories there, and will always love it so dearly! But we are excited to begin walking down this brand new path.  And as always, God will be faithful.

We covet your prayers during this time.  To all the dear people at Graceway: we love you and will pray for you continually! Our last Sunday will be May 26th.  We won't be strangers, and will visit often!

I hope you will follow this blog as I use it to update on what is going on in the life of the Davis family.

Looking forward to all God has for us with great expectations,
Chels