Transition

How did we make this decision?

After our NeXt closing meeting, Jill and I answered 5 questions together.  They were:

• Where do we want to go?
• Who would we want to live near?
• What would we want to do?
• If we had all the money in the world, what would we want to do?
• What churches would Danny feel comfortable in? (Yes, this was a question, and Jill forced me to come up with 3.  It was tough…)

We answered all those questions the week after we closed NeXt.  We got to the end of that list and just kinda shrugged our shoulders.  Nothing was really standing out to us.  And we got pretty crazy with the list too.  (Hawaii had a special ring to it, but I think we were just comparing the beach to our Beijing winter)

After making those lists and sitting with them for a while, we noticed our schedule was tightening.  It was early November, and we needed to be out of our apartment in 5 weeks.  But we had no where to go.  We even started some packing and organizing for our move, but didn’t know what we were moving towards.  We knew we were moving, but didn’t know where.

In Mid-November, Danny went to a conference in Chiang Mai that was hosted by a mentor and a group of close friends.  At the first dinner in Thailand, Danny sat next to the senior pastor of a church in Wylie (Keith Spurgin), and they started a conversation of what life in Wylie might look like.  (Keith and Danny have been in the same online small group for 4 years.)  Danny didn’t take it too seriously as it was quite outside the box, and would need serious amounts of God speaking to come to reality.  Although, Danny mentioned to Keith that his church (New Hope) was on the list of 3.  That was Tuesday.

On the Friday, Danny had a long talk with two ladies, one of whom is the equipping pastor at New Hope.  The other lady is also in leadership at the church.  (Lynn and Alicia) They really blessed Danny and encouraged him.  At the end of the conversation, he stood up and said “Wow, you guys are Momma Bears.”  Lynn and Alicia recognized the transition we are going through. (Lynn is also in Jill’s online small group that meets 1x/month)  Lynn mentioned that they would love to be a family for us during this transition that we are in.

That night, Danny had a conversation again with Keith, the senior pastor.  They talked for a long time, and one of the key takeaways was that he fully understood our transition, but also understood some of the deep things of our hearts.  He could see where we were at.  Danny could even see the Father speaking to him about us during the conversation.  It was a pretty cool experience.  Again he reiterated that we would be welcome in Wylie.

The next day, the topic of the input session at the conference was ‘distilling your core message in community.’  The main speaker was talking about how there are messages that God has given to each one of us, but most of those messages can only be discovered through the help of a tribe/family.  The family you are surrounded with are critical to the journey.  Danny happened to be sitting next to Lynn, and she leaned over 2 or 3 times giving big nods implying that the New Hope family would like to be a tribe to us during our transition.

On Monday, Danny arrived back in Beijing at the same time that Lynn and Alicia were also arriving in Beijing for a long layover. We spent the day with them taking them around the sites of Beijing.  It was an amazing time.  At lunch, Lynn and Alicia told us they had a few things they wanted to say to us.  Again, they gave us a very strong invitation to community in Wylie for this transition season.

From there, 2 other New Hope families we know also invited us to join them for our transition season.  In all, 2 weeks from the first talk with Keith, the associate pastor, 2 elders, and another key leader (And most of their spouses) had all invited us to come to Wylie for our transition.

So relationally, we felt well supported and invited.  It was quite overwhelming.

We decided to talk with our NeXt elder team about it, and they also felt positive about it.  We continued to float the idea with a lot of people we trust, and everyone was affirmative of the decision.  We were also running it by Elena and Maia to get their thoughts and to invite them to voice their opinions about the decision. So we felt we had a wealth of relational support.

Transition Neutral

Throughout our marriage, the rhythm of things has tended to be that endings are followed by neutrals, which are then followed by new beginnings.  As we are in a major ending phase, we were naturally looking to Father to lead us into a neutral phase.  But as we thought about a sabbatical, it just didn’t sit right.  We couldn’t figure out why.

As we were considering Wylie, one of the elders from New Hope wrote us quite out of the blue.  She explained that there are sabbatical neutrals, and there are transitionary neutrals.  We are heading into a transitionary neutral.

She explained that this kind of transition is going to be defined much more by who we are with, rather than who we are separating from.  In our past neutral spaces, it was time to be alone.  In this upcoming neutral, we feel that it will be defined by who we are with.

Logistically

As we talked about it with friends and family, we were offered a place to stay in Wylie for free, and my dad offered us to use his mini-van while we are in Wylie. (It’s the same mini-van that carried us through our epic roadtrip in 2014).  And so we had a free car to use as well.  Our plane tickets turned out to be ridiculously cheap, adding further logistical confirmation.

Spiritually

But even more important than the relational or logistical confirmations were the spiritual confirmations.

Abraham

About 6 months ago, I (Danny) was reading Genesis when the call of Abraham jumped off the page at me. (Genesis 12)  It’s quite a famous passage, and I’ve read it quite a lot, but this time it hit me hard.  It’s where God says to Abram “Go…to the land I will show you”  I mentioned to Jill and one or two other close friends that I felt that the Father was calling us to go somewhere.  But I didn’t know where or when.  When we had our time in the States this summer, I knew that this wasn’t that time, but still felt that Father was calling us to go somewhere.

Isaiah 30

During the time of the conference, Jill was at home in Beijing, and she got a text from a friend from Isaiah 30.
²³ He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. 

That same day, I was in a conversation with a friend while I was in Thailand, who also mentioned the same chapter. Also Is 30.
¹⁸ Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.  For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!  ¹⁹ People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.

And as I read through Is 30 for myself after these two words from these two friends, this verse struck me hard.
²¹ Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

By my spirit

A few weeks ago, I woke up one morning with a strong urge to read my bible.  We usually have our family devotions in the morning, so this was out of the ordinary for me, but I did it anyway.  I randomly opened my bible to Zechariah 4 and my eyes fell directly on this verse “Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord.”  In reading it, I knew that the father was saying that our steps would be directed.

Go Get It

As the idea of Wylie has come on the radar, I’ve been feeling a strong pull towards my Texas roots.  I (Danny) was born in Plano, Texas which is about 10 miles from Wylie.  My family on my mother’s side has a long history in Texas and it feels like I am going back there to recover some of that legacy or heritage.  I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I feel a strong sense that it’s time to go back there to get it.

We made the decision to go to Wylie on Tuesday.  On Thursday night, Jill and I were on the way back from our small group, and both of us noticed a license plate in front of us.  Beijing doesn’t have customized license plates, but this one said GET615.  We both felt like it was significant in our spirits, but didn’t know what it meant.

That night, I spent some time looking up all the 6:15’s in the bible.  I started with Matthew 6:15, then Mark 6:15 and on through.  I felt quite dumb doing that, but I didn’t know what else to do with 615.  I felt the spirit say “You’ll know it when you see it.”  I landed on Hebrews 6:15.  It says “And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.”  Abraham got it.  GET615.  And we feel like we are in exactly the same place.  We feel like the father has something for us in Texas, and we need to go get it.  I’m not exactly sure what we need to go get there, but we felt that this license plate was a further confirmation of the many things he has been speaking.

The Decision

So from the first conversation I had with Keith in Thailand to the day we made the decision to was exactly 3 weeks.  Those three weeks were some of the most challenging weeks we have ever been through.  The pressure of having to make such a huge decision in such a short amount of time was extremely taxing on our family and our marriage.  It quickly became clear that this decision was too big for us.  There were way too many factors and variables to consider in such a short amount of time.  There were moments of panic and fear which would be interspersed by faith and hope.

Here’s some of the factors that played into it.

• We can’t do any fundraising because we don’t have anything to fundraise for.  (We aren’t doing any ministry right now because we just closed down NeXt)
• We have to move out of our apartment by end-Dec, and all the rents in Beijing have sky rocketed in the last 2 years.
• At first, we didn’t have any indication what Father was saying about where to go, or what to do.  So there was no good reason to live anywhere.

When I (Danny) was in engineering school, they taught us how to make complex decisions.  This decision was extremely complex.  I finished my analysis of our situation, and sat back and realized that I don’t have the intellectual or emotional capacity for it.  Even more scary, I knew our marriage didn’t have the capacity for it.  It was just too big and too quick.  (We also decided to upgrade our frequency of conversations with our marriage counselor to 1x/week.)  But in that realization, we knew that we needed to be rescued.  That it wasn’t going to be by our figuring it out, or by our intellect, or by planning.  The only way this was going to work was if God showed up.

But by the end of all the conversations, and all the ways that God did speak to us, we knew that God had revealed himself.  By giving us a car to use and a place to live, we knew that he had made a way for us.

On the day before we made the decision, we said to each other that we had enough data to know that God wants us to go to Wylie for the season ahead.  We prayed and let him know that’s where we were at, and that if it was not supposed to happen, that we now needed a BIG ‘no’ from him.  We didn’t get a ‘no’ that night, so we had a meeting with Maia and Elena to hear if they had any more thoughts about it.  They did not.  So we decided to push the big green button and step into whatever God has for us in Texas.

From the day we made the decision to the day we leave Beijing is also exactly 3 weeks.

Right now, we are busy packing up our apartment.  We are able to use a free storage facility just outside of Beijing (Another HUGE blessing), so we’ll be moving all our furniture on Monday (our 18 year wedding anniversary).  And then we spend Christmas here, then have a second Christmas with Danny’s parents in Virginia Beach before driving to Texas.

The Emotions

The last 3 weeks have been some of the most emotional weeks of our lives.  The last 4 months have been some of the most emotional months of our lives.  From the NeXt decision, to the Wylie decision, to packing all our things up in boxes, we are ready to be in neutral.

I categorize the emotional roller coaster like this:

In closing NeXt, we’ve felt happy and glad that it was an amazingly fruitful season.  We’ve felt sad and angry that it’s over and closed – 2 distinctly different emotions about the same thing.

In looking to the future, we’ve been hopeful and excited about what could be coming our way.  And we’ve been terrified at the unknowns – also 2 distinctly different emotions.

Waking up in the morning, we didn’t know what emotion would hit us first, only for it to change upon remembering something else.  Up and down, and back and forth.

But now that we’ve made a decision, a lot of that roller coaster feels like it has settled some…while our home is filling with cardboard boxes and packing tape.