New Beginnings

I can't remember a New Year when so much in my life truly was new. Terri and I started the year by beginning our ministry at First Baptist Church of Lovejoy, Georgia. I had previously served as a pastor in two other Baptist Churces, but I left the last one over six years ago. I've been preaching at a local mobile home community for the past coulple of years, but never expected to serve as a pastor again. But God's plans are often different than our own. The church is only 5 miles from the home where my family has lived for the last 10 years, but I had to travel to another continent to find it.

In the winter of 2005, Terri and I were attending church at Hampton First Baptist. We saw a familiar looking man visiting in the worship service that night, but did not recognize him until he was introduced by one of our pastors. His name was Enrique Montoya, and we had met him seven years before when we went to his community in Venezuela with a volunteer mission team from the Flint River Baptist Association. We found out that a couple in our church was part of another group going to help Enrique in this same area of Venezuela. I had wanted to go back to Venezuela ever since we left the last time, but had never had the opportunity. I thought how nice it would be to be part of this team, but quickly put it out of my mind because I didn't think I could afford it.

A few months later I learned that my son was planning to go, and my wife was going to go with him. She asked me to pray about going too. It was going to be difficult enough paying for the two of them, much less for three of us. But how can you tell your wife that you aren't willing to at least pray about it? I prayed and asked God to show me that he would provide the money if he wanted me to go. A few days later I received a phone call from a coworker, asking if I could use some buddy passes to fly on Delta. This only covered a portion of the cost of the trip, but I saw it as an indication that God had answered my prayer, and I determined to trust him for the rest of the money.

After flying to Caracas, we got on a bus and rode all night to Guanare, where we began helping in Vacation Bible School the next morning. As soon as I got off the bus in Guanare, one of the other team members came up to me and started telling me that his church needed a pastor, and he wanted me to send him a resume when we got back to the United States. I didn't know this man previous to the trip, and he didn't know me either. All he knew about me was that I had previously been a pastor and that I was on a mission trip. He wanted a pastor that cared about mission work. Frank did not just ask me that one morning though. The entire 10 days we were in Venezuela he continued to ask that I would send a resume when we returned home.

I had no intention of returning to full time ministry. I had enjoyed being a volunteer, preaching to our little group in the mobile home community, serving my church as a deacon and mission volunteer, and earning my living doing almost anything else. God had other ideas in mind. I had to drive right by Frank's church on my way home from work each day. Each time I went by there I could here his voice asking me to "send one." I finally decided that if I was still hearing him after several weeks, maybe it was because the Lord wanted me to send them a resume.

God would have to work a few more miracles to get me there though. There were several obstacles. I had waited several weeks to send the resume, certainly they already had several candidates. I had not been a pastor, or served on a church staff in over six years, surely they would want someone who was currently serving another church as a pastor. My wife, Terri, had enjoyed being out from under the pressures of being the pastor's wife. God would have to call her as well as me. That would be a bigger miracle than paying for the trip to Venezuela.

We were surprised when we heard from the pastor search team. They asked me to complete and return a questionaire. I did not think that it meant much. I assumed they had sent the questionaire to several candidates. I was very surprised when the chairperson called to set up a time for them to come hear me preach. God had already dealt with the first two obstacles. The committee was interested in me despite the fact that I had not been a pastor since the summer of 1999. They had looked beyond the candidates they had before they received my resume. But would God bring Terri to the point that she felt just as called to go and serve this church as I did? That was the tough part.

When they called and asked me to preach, Terri cried. But she prayed about it and the Lord gave her peace. When they called back and asked to talk to us, she cried again. She said, "I was ready for them to talk to you, but not to me." But again she prayed and God gave her peace. She told the Lord that she didn't like change, but she wanted to do whatever he called her to do. He reminded her that he was being very gracious. Most pastors have to move their families to a new community, with new schools for the kids and a new home and job for the wife, when they begin a new pastorate. God was allowing us to serve a church practically in our back yard. Where I worked and where our family went to church would change, but almost everything else would stay the same. I remember that Terri told me, "God really is a gentle Shepherd".

We had the opportunity to talk with the pastor search team a couple of weeks after they had heard me preach. God continued to answer prayer. Both Terri and I believed that this was where God wanted us to be. He had taken us from home to Venezuela and back, from doubt to faith, from anxiety to anticipation. We know he has a purpose for us here, we can not wait to see what he is going to do next.