Colorado Bound!

Luke 8. 

The disciples get in a boat with Jesus to go to the other side of the lake. A storm comes. They freak out. Jesus asks “where is your faith?” He calms it and they end up on the other side. 

Synopsis: I’m moving to Colorado Springs and will be working at a transition home for at-risk youth! 

I felt like the disciples this past week. I’ve known since February that my time at Adventures would be ending in July. I made the decision to not take another squad way back then before anything Covid happened– you can read more about that decision here. 

Long story short I looked at jobs in a lot of different places but just kept feeling the draw to Colorado. Longer story that I’ll tell you if you care to read: I started talking with an organization back in March before I was about to leave for 3 weeks to Thailand and Swaziland. I had heard a lot about them and was very interested and they seemed interested in me and we planned to talk once I got back home. And so began the journey. 

I was in Thailand and the decision was made to pull all participants off the field. The whirlwind of Covid 19 started. I worked almost 24 hour days while I was in Thailand running a debrief and working with the office in the States to get my squads and myself home sooner than expected. I got home, had a night at my house then went to Atlanta with the hopes of debriefing my squad, hugging their necks and having some closure. 

While all of this was happening I was talking with this organization to set up an interview since I was back home quicker than I thought. And we kept going back and forth scheduling and rescheduling because of Covid and all that was happening with them and with me. We finally got it set up and it was great and wonderful. 

I have felt pretty confident in this job the whole time. I kept feeling like the Lord was saying it was mine and not to worry so for a while I wasn’t worried. I felt certain. My friends felt certain. It was all lining up. Then this past week I started to flounder a bit and wonder if I had heard the Lord correctly. If it would actually be that easy to get the only job I had interviewed for (I only sent my resume into 3 different places) or if I had made a mistake and put all of my eggs in the wrong basket. I was getting frustrated, not at the organization but at this pandemic that is wreaking havoc in all things including a big move. It had been over 2 months since the first email with this place. So I decided to start networking again and researching and putting my resume out to other places. I was getting stressed because a few months ago these same job sites had hundreds of pages of jobs and now there were only a few thanks to Covid.

But God. 

Ya know what I mean? 

One of the directors called me on Friday afternoon to offer me the job because she didn’t want me to have to wait through the weekend. Aka God heard my cry of wanting to know about this job by the end of the week!

I feel like there are a million things I could say about this whole process and here are a few thoughts: 

Remember the word of the Lord– if He says we are going to the other side of the lake, we are going to the other side. 

The Lord’s hand has been on this process in more ways than I can even list. He truly has opened the doors and directed my steps. It shouldn’t be this easy to find a job right now. Sure, I had to wait a little while longer than I’d like but it wasn’t like I was getting rejection after rejection and feeling hopeless. I was just kind of frustrated. It’s also a job at a pretty small organization and one of those that only opens once in a blue moon. 

For me, moving to Gainesville was for Mentoring. And for the last few years the job has been my main focus. I come and go, I work weird hours most days of the week and I don’t have much capacity for anything outside of work. It’s been incredible and one of the best seasons of my life and it’s also been its own beast that not a lot of people understand unless you do it. 

But Colorado… I wanted Colorado before I wanted the job. The job is going to be awesome, it’s going to be so full of goodness. I’m actually so PUMPED and it’s going to be a great fit. And as pumped as I am about the work, I’m even more pumped about the mountains and the friends and getting to be planted and rooted and not leaving every few weeks. I will get to consistently go to church, be involved and dig deep into new community. I will get to serve and find ways to do what I love. I will get to go hiking, camping and running. I will get to travel because I want to not because it’s something I have to do. I could go on and on and on. I know Colorado isn’t going to be perfect. It will be transition and it’ll take getting used to. I don’t know how to drive in snow. I don’t even really have warm clothes. I will be figuring out a new job with new bosses and new co-workers. I will be finding new community and where I fit in it all. I will have friends near that have only been long distant. And friends that are long distant that have only been near. And no season is perfect. But I can feel it deep in my bones that it is going to be so full of life and so refreshing. 

I’m looking forward to getting to a place where I don’t have to think about what’s next. For Adventures I knew that Mentoring wasn’t a forever job(even though I did think I would be here much longer than I was), it’s not sustainable for that. So every year would be figuring out if I was going to take another squad or not and every year I would just wonder what’s next for me. I’m going to Colorado with no plan of leaving. That doesn’t mean I won’t. I could pack up and go somewhere else after a year or it could be 20. I could work for this organization forever or for just a little while. That’s how it is with following the Lord– we go where He leads.  

But for now it’s Colorado and the what’s next question is put on the shelf for a while and I couldn’t be more excited about it. 

I’m very much in the tension of excitement and grief. So, excited for what’s next and so sad for what I’m leaving behind. This isn’t at all how I expected my last year of mentoring to go. I should be in South Africa right now for Final Debrief and this summer I should have been working all of the Training Camps and really living it up for my last few months here. Instead it’s been cancelling all the things and being in quarantine but it’s been exactly what I’ve needed. A whole lot of rest and running and getting ready for a big move. We are talking all the details this week about start date and moving time but I feel as though I will be out in Colorado by the time July rolls around. I bought an atlas (I know my dad must be proud) to plan my road trip out there and I really am so, so pumped and cannot wait to see the Aspens in the Fall and Pikes Peak in the winter and the stars in the mountains.

 

We are going to the other side of the lake, ladies and gentlemen. And it’s going to be a fun time!