Morgan and I at Wild Ridge
I’m standing at a major crossroads, where the Lord is calling my family and I to jump headfirst into the unknown, leaving everything behind. Lately I’ve been feeling like I need to write about it; to document this year of great change. To understand where I’m going, you must know where I’ve been. So this is my story; the story of how God has brought me to this point. I’m going to cover the first 29.5 years of my life, and I want to be thorough to fully explain how I’ve made it to this point so I’ve split my story into three parts.

Part 3: The Calling

Buckeye Region Leader Weekend at Rockbridge Young Life camp in May of  2017. That weekend I had some incredible times of prayer and listening to the Lord deep in the woods on my own. During those times I had two clear pictures come to my mind and I knew with all my heart that they were both from the Lord.

Rockbridge Leader Weekend 2017
The first was of a resignation letter from Morgan to Mike’s Carwash. This one did not come as a shock, but as an absolute source of peace. At the time Morgan was very unhappy working for corporate America and not having the time he wanted to spend with his family and doing ministry. A little over 4 months later this first vision came to fruition. Morgan walked into Chimney Works trying to raise money for Wyldlife, and walked out with an interview. It was one of those God ordained moments that changed the trajectory of our future.

The second image that came to my mind later that weekend gave me quite the opposite reaction: absolute objection. I saw myself, my husband, and my best friend all working together at Wild Ridge, the future Young Life camp being built in Central West Virginia. While I was beyond excited about that idea for my friend Hannah, my initial response was a big “HELL NO!” I was so scared of it that I didn’t even want to tell Morgan, but I did. On the way home from Rockbridge that weekend we decided to stop and see Wild Ridge. Our first time standing on one of the overlooks I was in absolute awe of God’s creation.

A year later, in April of 2018 we were able to attend a work weekend at Wild Ridge and we fell even more in love. We knew we wanted to be there, but felt like it was maybe meant for after we raised our kids, kind of as a retirement plan… but two months later Morgan’s father Joe passed away. He never made it to retirement. We felt a sudden sense of urgency, and realized we are not promised the future. Losing Joe rocked our world in ways that we never could have imagined, and it forced me to cling to the Lord as my rock when nothing else felt stable.

Morgan, Hannah, and I at Wild Ridge Work Weekend 2018
Another year passed and in May of 2019, we went back for our second work weekend at Wild Ridge. I was 8 months pregnant but determined not to miss it. I worked as much as I could, but also had to spend a good deal of time just sitting on my own to rest. And oh how I heard the Lord pushing me that weekend. About a month earlier I woke in the middle of the night and felt like I was supposed to check Young Life’s job postings. I must confess I checked them regularly, so it seemed ridiculous that this would be urgent enough to get out of bed for. But I couldn’t shake the thought, so I checked, and sure enough a job had been posted that very day for a position in West Virginia. It was up in Morgantown at WVU, hours from where we wanted to be.

Throughout the weekend at Wild Ridge I could not get the job off of my mind (it didn’t help that some of the other volunteers were all talking about it and speculating who their new staff person would be), but I knew it wasn’t the actual job that was important. I prayed and prayed for clarity and ultimately ended up in Matthew 14 where Peter walked on water. This has always been one of my favorite passages, but I felt as though the Lord was saying that I needed to “jump out of the boat” and do something. I needed to take some kind of action. Ultimately I came to the decision that I would not apply for the job, but that I would email Scott, the head of Young Life in West Virginia.

It took me over a month, and countless drafts, but I did finally email him. A few weeks later we spoke on the phone and I shared some of our story with him. He was excited and so encouraging and told us to spend the next 6 months praying and invited us to a few events to check out West Virginia Young Life in action. We took our whole family out for a weekend trip in November and visited their fall weekend. Then Morgan brought his mother down for a Wild Ridge fundraising event. Our plan throughout this season was to have a definite answer by January, when we would attend WV’s Young Life Leader Weekend at Rockbridge.

Our family in West Virginia
We have asked ourselves countless times how we can move our kids away from family and friends to a place that is looked down upon by so many. We are taking them from loving family, an incredible church family, amazing schools, and the picture perfect life, but the Lord has proven to us time and time again that He has us and His plan is better. This fall a man came and spoke to our church about sex-trafficking happening in Kolkata, India. The only thing I heard was how he moved his wife and three daughters to the sex-trafficking capital of the world and the Lord was with them. In comparison, Appalachian West Virginia seems like a safe haven.

We prayed and prayed and honestly looked for any reason to say no, but it never came. Our words started changing from ‘if’ we go to ‘when’ we go. Going into that leader weekend we knew our answer was ‘yes’, but we were praying for confidence and boy did He give it to us. That weekend we met so many incredible people and started so many new friendships. It was honestly one of the most beautiful weekends and absolutely solidified in our hearts that West Virginia is where we are meant to be.

We had the pleasure of eating dinner with Scott and his wife Susie the last night there, and Morgan and I were telling her our story and trying to tell her how we felt about West Virginia. I will honestly never forget the moment she reached across the table, looked at both of us, and so clearly spoke the words that were on my heart, “It’s just home.”

So this summer we will truly be singing with all of our hearts:
“Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain mama
Take me home, country roads”