Dothan, Alabama.

The heart of the South, where sweet tea is a staple and each year there is a festival to celebrate the peanut harvest; where southern belles thrive and college football is a religion.  It was in this place we learned to truly serve, and found a love for the church that we carry to this day.

It was here we bought our first home, a fifteen hundred square foot brand new construction.  It was on Petunia Dr.  I think the house was around fifty thousand dollars, can you believe that? (I’m pretty sure we borrowed the down payment.)  It may as well have been a million dollars, at least that’s how it felt to us, but Jeff felt strongly we needed to start investing in something, even if it meant sacrifice.  As I type this I can picture a very young Jeff and Sandi overcome with joy and sick with fear; taking on a mortgage is no small thing.  I vividly remember Jeff pacing the floor at night praying and feeling nervous about the leaps of faith we were taking.  It was all happening so fast.

The house had forest green carpet throughout and floral wallpaper in the kitchen and bathrooms; we bought a used couch and recliner that we found in the classified ads of the newspaper (this was before the internet) and proudly placed them in the living room.  The couch had a huge tear/hole in the back of it, but we put it against the wall, so no one ever knew.   The recliner we bought would stay with us for the next thirty years, no joke.  My sons used it in their apartments in college.  It reminds me of when the Lord called the Israelites out of Egypt and into the desert, their shoes didn’t wear out because they were being obedient to what God told them to do.  Might be a bit of a stretch to put a La-z-Boy in the same category as a Biblical story, but you have to admit, there must have been some kind of blessing on it.

All of our kids were born in Alabama, they each spent their newborn days sleeping in a cradle I bought at a garage sale.  One of the church members was kind enough to fix it for us.  And then they graduated to a crib, also from a garage sale, that was pale yellow and in pretty decent condition.  I still have the cradle in storage, maybe one day one of my kids will use it for their own.  That would be a fun, full circle moment. The kids were highly loved by the people of the church and, like their parents, they “cut their teeth” on the back of a pew.  I can’t ignore the irony that the life I once thought I didn’t want was the one I passed down to my own children.

It was a busy life. We taught Sunday School, helped lead Bible studies for the youth, sang in the choir, led worship, taught youth group on Wednesday nights, went to youth camps, took mission trips, occasionally spoke at the schools, kept up with office hours, and volunteered in any number of events that the church sponsored.  

The days, weeks, months and years rolled by and our kids grew as well as our ministry.  We were holding on the best we could, continually trying to do our best.  When I look back, some of the days were a blur, so much happening that we didn’t have time to process it all, we just kept going. I’m not sure this is the healthiest way to live, but it was our reality and we didn’t feel we had a lot of choice; there were bills to be paid, mouths to feed and people depending on us. 

It was the spring of 1999 and, our youngest, Travis, was newly born when we found out the pastor we’d served alongside was moving.  In the Nazarene church when the pastor resigns, everybody on staff resigns.  It is then up to the new pastor to decide whether to bring in new staff or keep the existing one.  When this happened, we took it as a sign, because, remember how I told you Jeff worked part time as a music director (while still in college) for a church in Iowa? Well, the Pastor we worked for back then called just as the Pastor in Alabama resigned.  He wondered if we’d be interested in moving back to Iowa.

This was a really tough decision, but Jeff wanted badly to only have one job, and the church in Iowa offered this opportunity.  Many of you know that church jobs aren’t nine-to-five, they are life consuming, and he was tired of trying to balance the demands of ministry with driving a school bus.  After prayer, and a lot of conversations, we decided to go.

Unlike our move to Alabama with just the two of us, now we were a family of five.   We packed up our little house and loaded it in a moving truck and said our sad goodbyes.   We loved Alabama so much, and, I, for one, wasn’t looking forward to shoveling snow.  We didn’t own a single snow jacket, the kids didn’t have snow boots or pants, our cars weren’t four wheel drive; we were ill equipped to say the least.

But, when the Lord offers you an opportunity that aligns with your heart, you go in that direction.

I’m starting to notice a theme as I write all of this; seems like I was resistant to change.  I’ve always thought of myself as a bit of an adventurer, but now that I’m chronicling our lives, I’m getting a different picture of who I was.  I think I wanted to be adventurous but I also longed for stability.  When your choices are few, and we didn’t have many, you do what is necessary in spite of your fears. I’m grateful for that now, because the experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met along the way have made for a beautiful life.   I read a quote recently that I love, I can’t remember it verbatim, but the gist was let your hopes lead the way, not your fears.  Jeff and I let hope lead the way because giving in to fear simply wasn’t an option.  In full transparency, we may not have given in to fear, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t feel it.  

Telling the church we were leaving was one of the hardest things we’d done up to that point.  I remember being so sad at the potluck dinner they put together for us; so many tears and hugs and cards expressing love and promising prayers.  I still have many of those cards to this day.  This church will always be special because they gave us a chance to learn and grow, and loved us through the process.  What a gift.

I cried like a baby for the first hundred miles on the road to Iowa; I followed our rented Ryder truck full of everything we owned.  Abbie and Christian were buckled in tightly in the front seat right beside their Daddy while Travis and I followed in our trusty green van. (We drove that van for eighteen years, btw, it was like a member of the family.) True story, somehow Jeff got into a funeral procession while driving the moving truck and was almost right behind the hearse, it felt perfectly appropriate for how I was feeling.  Sorry to whoever’s funeral it was, we meant no disrespect.  My Mom and Dad had come over from Brewton, Alabama to help us pack, and they followed us for the first several miles as we drove out of town, I still remember them in my rearview mirror, waving and wiping tears.  

Ugh! That was such a hard time.

I was scared and maybe a little excited, but mostly heartbroken.

Life has a way of turning out nothing like you thought, it rarely mirrors our expectations.  I guess that’s what makes it such a spectacular ride. 

Next stop, Iowa, home of the Hawkeyes…

 and more church!