Our Next Adventure
After many months of prayer, discernment, searching and more we have finally found what we believe God is calling our family to next. Marcus has accepted a call to be the next Senior Pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Auburn, IN. After considering many different options and opportunities and narrowing the choices to three, it became clear that God is calling us to St. Mark’s. Before moving to Colorado, we lived in Indiana and are excited to return (we will miss the weather, mountains and some amazing relationships and connections though). Auburn is a smaller community north of Ft. Wayne, Indiana (large enough to have a Starbucks thankfully!). St. Mark’s is a wonderful, midwest church with great people. We are excited for Marcus to go and be the shepherd and leader of this great congregation that has a deep desire to be the community of faith God is calling them to be. St. Mark’s is part of the NALC (North American Lutheran Church). We think this fit is perfect and look forward to a long season at St. Mark’s. We are also excited to be looking for a home in the country with some land so we can continue to seek sustainable living. We have been thankful for the almost 8 years in Colorado Springs and have learned and gained much here. We trust that as we have sought to make an impact on this community, that our efforts were blessed by God. We look forward to helping bring about the Kingdom of God at St. Mark’s and in Auburn. Our kids are excited about the move and Jessica is eager to teach in Indiana again.
We will be leaving for family vacation on June 17. At that time we will load up a trailer of Marcus’ books, work stuff, clothing and other personal items. We will drive to Auburn and unload all of his stuff and spend some time working on finding a home etc. We will then head to New York for some vacation and return to Indiana at the end of the month to take care of some more details. Marcus will stay and start July 1 and the rest of our family will fly home to get ready for the big move. They will join Marcus 2-6 weeks later depending on the job situation for Jessica, our new home and renting our current home.
We would love to solicit your continued prayers for this season of transition as there are many details to be worked out. We especially would like everyone to pray that our house would rent soon and that Jessica would be able to find a teaching position quickly.
A special thanks to all who helped, supported, encouraged and prayed for us in this season of discernment and transition. We want to especially thank those who served as a discernment team for us; Howard Baker, Pastor Ebassa, Mark Hallock, Chris Kirschman, Brandon Shirkey and Steve Earll. We would also like to thank our family and friends who were a source of support and encouragement, especially Tom Gould, Tom Vien, Kevin Petersen, Karin Reynolds, Sara Kerr, Christian Hill, Craig Geottsch, my youth worker lunch group and many more.
We are excited about this next season of life and this next part of our journey individually and as a family. We look forward to continuing the many great relationships and connections that God has given us throughout our lives.