Tea and Sweatpants...

...or should I say life in general. Life, as you all know, tends to flow in a constant cycles of highs and lows. We ride out the high times with glee and we ride out the low times with sweaty palms and faith. The same is true (times 10) with this church planting stuff. A week ago Celina, Nick and I were ready to pack up and move. We had dealt with such crap from the people we trusted. Also it felt as if God created more mystery about next steps with...friends, neighbors, church peeps, church vision, etc. We were up in arms about what to do. We were begging with God to give us faith, confirmation, direction and grace. We tried laughing it off, crying, yelling about it and dumping our hearts to best friends and family. Then came this week...

Tuesday night DCAF (women's Bible study) had been canceled last minute (which isn't uncommon). So, we decided to combine men's and women's DECAF on Wednesday night...why not? We had been meeting separate for months. Just about everyone came! Jeff and Debbie brought dessert with their fresh new understanding of who God is, Jonas and Julia brought Mexican lasagna with their wisdom of the faithfulness of God, Craig brought humility and vulnerability, Matt brought brownies with a passion to connect, Celina brought soda with her passion to serve, and Nick and I brought fruit with his amazing abilities to lead. The Spirit lead the whole conversation and we all walked away blessed by this amazing glimpse of the Kingdom of Heaven. In the last few days of this week, after that time, I've seen my neighbors with a new spark of the Holy Spirit. God is Good. This is what we came here to do! When we came we knew it would take time but we never would have guessed it would take 10 months to gather our first small group of 10 believers. That though, is the culture of Christ. It's take this long (or this little of time) for neighbors who didn't know each other's name to feel comfortable sharing matters of the heart with one another.

Thank you God for allowing us to see a piece of the Kingdom of Heaven at work in the lives of us and our neighbors, especially when we were feeling so discouraged.

Thank you all who have encouraged us through my last post. Nick and I have had some wonderful discussion about it and I feel as if we've made some really important gains. I am still praying and processing a few things so I'll post on that later.

A different kind of trust is required these days as Nick and I are going to be required to trust an adoption worker to represent us well to the state! We are going to be adopting a child!!!! We are still early in the process but half way through being certified adoptive parents through the state. It is finally time for us to tell the world about our journey! So, I'm also trusting you! I am trusting that you will be delicate and excited with us as our hearts are somewhat vulnerable. Trust us and know that this is a place that God has drawn us to. He is preparing our hearts and our home for the perfect child He has chosen for our family. We have a new blog that we will be updating frequently so please check it out! muccifamily.blogspot.com

I tend to willingly trust just about anyone that I have any interaction with and expect the same in return. I don't know if this is good or bad...or maybe it just is. I will say however that it can be very painful. What I'm about to share is no attempt at complaining or seeking sympathy, you must also know that life truly is good right now. I think I just want you all to know about someof the realities that we face. The hardest part about our ministry isn't tough life stories, starting with just a team of 3, ministry in Portland, or fearing for our safety. It's being let down repeatedly. We have been spending every day of the last 9 months attempting to connect with our new friends and neighbors and I have been learning about risk. I think that having been surrounded by generally loving and trusting people most of my life didn't prepare my heart for having to risk not being loved and trusted in return. There have been several days where new friends/neighbors don't return a call, don't show up for dinner, or ask for money to satisfy an untold addiction. We got used to the "I'm not sure if they will actually show up" and prepared ourselves with a backup plan so that the evening didn't go wasted. We learned somewhat slowly how to ensure our money wasn't going to support an addiction. We even are learning to rebound when we feel so hurt by the lack of information shared. As I reflect on this day alone between the two of us we have been used as an ATM, learned of another drug addiction (not by the person), were told about no progress on a long awaited job interview, and even now I am supposed to be meeting someone for coffee who never called. With each of these common occurrences I expected the other person/people to share enough information with me to allow me to prepared for a letdown. I trust these people fully. In fact, most of them will even have a large influence on my children someday. Yet, I feel my trust is betrayed when these things happen. I want so badly to trust them and to make excuses for why they behaved the way they did and to say that they didn't mean to. I also want so badly to push them out of my life, to skip the letdowns and heartaches, and to shelter my future children and friends that come to be a part of this community.
So, I guess I'm asking for some good advice on how to move forward. I am sure all of you have felt some form of this at some point or another. Maybe some of you are feeling it repeatedly like we are...How do we cope? I do know the Sunday school answer...God is the only one we can fully trust with our whole hearts, he never lets me down. He shows up to every meal and always tells the whole truth. When He withholds information it is to protect us and for our benefit. I also realize that there have been many times in my life when I treated God the same way these few friends and neighbors are and I pray of His forgiveness.

I was playing cards with a student and another kid was walking by when I said "it's still your turn"
The kid walking by stopped in his tracks, spun on his heels, and said "you can't steal the game! That's just not right!" I'm sure you figured it out but for those of you who don't have regular interaction with small children he thought I had said "let's steal the...(game or cards)!"