This post is going to be kind of long. It includes our story about coming to LA, and its a blog I have been meaning to write since last summer, but the story continues, so its a good thing I haven't posted it yet, and the beautiful thing is, the story will always continue, on and on.
Read Exodus Chapter 16. You've heard it before, but its amazing.
About a year ago to this day, my wife, myself, and my friends Landon & Tony made a decision that we were going to move to California from our home in Michigan. Playing music and traveling like we did, being away from home was nothing new to any of us, but there was a lot to consider with an all out move. Needless to say, we made the move, even when nothing about it made any sense.
2 weeks before we were suppose to leave, Dawn and I had absolutely no money. No way on earth to pay for even the gas to get to California, much less eat or pay for any place to sleep... people would constantly ask us, are you sure you are suppose to do this? Our answer was yes, but sometimes even I had my doubts, but I acted out our decision and what I believed to be our calling in confidence. Literally about 10 days before our departure date, the basement of my house, where Dawn and I lived and rented out the upstairs, flooded. All of our stuff was ruined, 2 computers, cell phones, carpet, the list goes on and on, what a nightmare. I woke up, stepped out of our bed and into a huge puddle of water and remember just saying, "no no no no no!!!" I absolutely panicked.
Then an insurance agent came and examined the mess, and told us that we probably would be able to get some cash out of the disaster but that he recommended we put it into the walls and stuff to repair them... and that he knew a guy. Everybody always knows a guy. So he cut us a check for 5 grand and said that should cover "his guy" but that was all the agency would cover for basements.
We had Dawns dad help us fix the basement, cleaned it all ourselves real good, and took the money and ran!
That seemed like a lot of money at the time, but it turned out to be just enough. (we had a lot of bills) It got us to California... where we jumped from house to house staying with every family we knew out here and looking for a job, trying to bring some order to our lives. We basically roamed the land out here all summer, watching our money dwindle away, sometimes sleeping in our car, most of the time staying with friends but all of our friends lived so far from the city, and we felt like we were suppose to be in LA. I got discouraged, I did not know what the heck I wanted but I didn't want to wander anymore and I definitely started to think, "maybe we made a huge mistake"
Then we got the brilliant idea of living on a sailboat. Rent out here is so stinking expensive and we didn't have jobs yet. At this point, about the start of August, we had about 2,000 dollars left, which was just enough to buy a sailboat in these times, and then we would just have to pay slip fee's of about 300 dollars a month instead of rent. It sounded like a dream, living on the ocean, it was definitely a "Dave Ramsey living as simply as possible" method while still getting to be on the water in Los Angeles.. we were stoked! While we were looking we stayed with our friend Sarah in Long Beach, and we made our way over to the Los Angeles Dream Center & Angelus Temple, just looking for a good church to get involved with... we needed community, and we needed encouragement through it all, and we had heard great things about this place.
The first service we went to was "Saturday Night Redefined." The Saturday night youth service. I had just finished working an internship at an Amazing youth group back home in Michigan... my mind is very youth focused. I was blown away by this service. It was amazing. I had checked out the website a couple times before going, so I could put a face to the Pastor and get a feel for what church in Los Angeles would be like, but it did no justice :) For whatever reason, Dawn and I decided to sit in the front row, I think I just really wanted to get the full experience... about 2 minutes before the service started, I saw the guy standing next to me catch a look at me out of the corner of his eye, and I think realizing that we were new, he looked at me, extended his hand, and said, "hi, I'm Brad." It took me about two seconds to guess that this was the Pastor. We talked for only a few seconds, then service started, but right when service ended, he found Dawn and I and said he wanted us to meet his wife, and we talked a bit more. The next couple of weeks we continued to goto the service, while we lived in Long Beach and looked for a sailboat that we could live on, each week we talked a bit more to Brad... I wanted to volunteer to help him build videos for the service, but at first Dawn wasn't to eager to do that, at least not until we settled a bit and figured life out.
We finally found a boat that we could afford and at the time seemed like something we would enjoy to live on... in fact we spent two nights on it before deciding to buy it. Thursday we told the guy that we wanted to buy it, and to meet us Friday and we would finish the deal... On Friday he called and said something came up and he had to push it until Monday, and on Saturday we went back to LA (this boat was in Ventura) and went to church. For whatever reason, that day at service Dawn finally had a peace about offering to volunteer some time at the Dream Center and help them build the youth service, so after service we approached Pastor Brad and offered to help. He invited us to a leaders meeting the next day at his house (which got moved to Olive Garden)... while we were meeting with this new team, he leaned over the table and told me that on the ride home, for us to remind him of something and we will talk... So we did, and he offered us a job.
This was a big deal. We suddenly were thrown into the opportunity to build weekly events that have upward to a thousand students weekly attending and thousands reached through what they do. We were suddenly in a place that without realizing it at first, was exactly the place we always wanted to be, the dream of building church in a way that often times is more creative than what the world is doing. A place that allows us to do what we do, do it well, and throw Jesus in the center of it all.
After getting there, we have been thrust from opportunity to opportunity, growing our ministry and our personal vision for what could be... we are now getting more organized and not only run the entire youth media but also are doing all of the video announcements for the entire church and building a team and have people working with us to grow into something amazing. But its not because we had a comfortable journey getting there, because we didn't. Its because we never ever gave up and even though we got discouraged and felt like we were "wandering" in the wilderness, God had his hand on us every step of the way.
--Ultimately, I told you all that long story to get one point across. FAITHFULNESS. Not even that it is important to be faithful to God and the call he has given you, yes it is important, but its not the point. The point is Gods faithfulness to us. Whether or not we want to give up, whether or not we feel like we can't go on, God is always faithful to provide the bread that we need to bring us through the hard times, and into a life so beautiful that it could only be a part of his magnificent and brilliant plan.
The same week that we got our first pay check from the Dream Center was the same week that our 5,000 dollars finally dwindled to nothing. I believe we had 7 dollars left when the check came. We had more bills then we had income before we up and left to California, but we trusted that God was going to remain faithful and one way or another he did, every step of the way. He did the same thing in the wildness for the Israelites as he gave them only enough Bread and Meat for each day, every single day for 40 years before bringing them to the Promise Land. When they gathered more then a days worth, it would always go bad before they could eat it... if they gathered to little, it was still enough, and though they wined and complained and ate the same thing for 40 years, at the end of it all was a whole new life, the life that had been promised to them.
I have dreamed my whole life of doing the things that I am working towards doing at this point, and though I don't have to eat the same bread every day anymore, if I did, I would eat it every day with joy for 40 more years with the peace, knowledge and understanding that there is a Promise waiting for me, and because of God's faithfulness, I will see it all come to pass.
Moses had Aaron place 2 quarts of the Manna into a container for safekeeping, it later was placed in the Ark of the Covenant... just to remind future generations of God's faithfulness to these wandering people... I don't have a container, I just have a blog, but these things will never be forgotten.
J-Cub
