Shaking off the Dust

Hi All.

Many of you know that Graham, myself, Justin and Angie Rimbo, and our other friends Jay and Tia Gamelin have been praying and feeling called to start a church together. We felt a call to Asheville, North Carolina. After a year and a half of praying together, we decided it was time to visit and talk to local ELCA churches to try to find support to begin this adventure.

North Carolina was absolutely beautiful! We had a blast all living in community together. Justin and Angie have a 1 year old boy and Jay and Tia have a 5 year old, 3 year old and 1 year old...all boys! Staying in the same house was sooo much fun!

During our time together in NC we had meetings with two pastors of local Lutheran churches. We shared our vision and desires with them and were hoping to get emphatic support so that we would have our "burning bush." After our meeting with these pastors, our new friend Ernie, the ELCA missions director for NC met with them. Unfortunately, the support we longed for was not there. When we heard the news on Thursday we were crushed. Our dream for Asheville had died.

That night Ernie came to our "mountain house" for dinner. Afterward, we were able to worship and pray together. During this time we also were able to process and debrief our visit. Ernie is completely behind us, 100%. He believes in our vision and knows there is a need for it somewhere. Asheville is just not the city. After talking with Ernie for a couple hours we all seemed to feel better. We know our call is real and that this will happen. For now, we are grieving the death of our hopes for Asheville. Now we go back to listening and realizing that God is the one in control of the entire adventure. Please pray for us as we try to discern what God is really calling us to.

During our talk with Ernie, he reminded us of the time Jesus sent the disciples out by twos. He told them to extend peace to a person in town. If that person accepted and returned the peace, the disciples were to stay in that person's house. If the peace was not accepted and returned, the disciples were to shake the dust off of their feet and move on. We are shaking the Asheville dust off of our feet. Ernie also told us the three things that will have to happen when we find our person of peace. First, this person will have to trust our vision. This includes knowing that our vision does not come with a concrete plan. Second, our person of peace will need to trust our team and our abilities. Finally, the person of peace will have to make this a priority in whatever city he/she is in. With limited resources, our vision will need to be moved to the top of the list of things to do.

Please pray for these things for and along with us.