In the summer of 2008, God called Nathan into ministry. Our roller coaster began!

We spent the next year preparing for the transition that would bring us to Abilene. We researched schools, visited schools and began preparing our house to sell. We said to many people that if God wanted us to go, then he’d have to move 3 big mountains to make it happen: sell our house, provide a place to live in Abilene and provide a job for me.

We felt like God had told us to be ready to go in April of 2009, so we rushed to get our house ready to go on the market in March. We were sure we would be moving sometime that spring.

March passed. Then April AND May. The listing on our home was set to expire in mid-June, and we’d barely had any interest on our house. We were very discouraged. We extended the listing for another month and reminded God that if he wanted us to go, he’d have to move that mountain. It needed to crumble quickly if we were to be in Abilene by the time school started.

With just two weeks left on our window of opportunity, a buyer came along. Mountain #1 moved!

Now, we had a contract on the house and were set to close in under 4 weeks. We both gave our notice at work, quitting our steady and decent paying jobs—SCARY!

We had applied for married student housing as an afterthought in May. We called HSU the day after the contract was signed and asked about the housing situation. We were told that there was a waiting list that was 1.5 years long for married student housing.

We were almost 700 miles from Abilene. There was not really any time to come scout out a place to live, and we were really hoping a student house would be available. With this news we realized we could be both jobless and homeless in just under 4 weeks—VERY SCARY!!

We prayed for God to do a miracle and move that second mountain by providing us with a student house even after being told it was basically impossible for us to get one at that point. The very next week, we got a phone call that one of the houses would be available for us, and it would be open the exact day that we would need it! Mountain #2 moved!

This all happened around the first week of July. I had been applying for jobs in Abilene since at least February. No job had opened up yet, but we were certain that when we got to Abilene, there would be one waiting.

Little did we know … that we would be the ones waiting in Abilene for a job instead of a job being here waiting for me!

Almost 8 months passed without a steady paycheck. There were several odd jobs here and there, but nothing that would provide a steady and predictable paycheck, which was VERY, VERY SCARY!

That was a very, very dark time in my life. I felt like we had given up just about everything to come and follow God’s call, and he’d forgotten to move the 3^rd mountain. During this time God taught us that he is capable of providing for his children, and he is not limited to doing so through a job. He provided in some very creative and miraculous ways. We never missed a meal or a bill. Even knowing that, I came to the end of my faith rope sometime at the beginning of February 2010, 6.5 months after quitting our jobs to come to Abilene.

I began crying out to God begging him to show me why he had not moved mountain #3. I needed to know why things weren’t working like we’d thought they would.

After about a week, I had a very vivid dream one night. In the dream, I was climbing a mountain, a very steep one. I could see the top of the mountain. It was only about 10-15 feet higher up, but all I wanted to do was lay down on the side of the mountain and give up because there was no more strength left in me. About that time, a member of our church, who had been praying for us, came beside me in my dream and encouraged me to keep going and not to give up because I was almost there.

I mustered the strength to finish the climb in the dream, and on the top of that mountain was a glorious view. I was so glad that I had not given up.

Then I woke up and had to face reality again. The dream was very realistic, and it hung with me all day long. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I finally asked God to show me what that dream meant.

God guided me to Isaiah 49:11 where it says: “I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up.” God gently spoke to me that he had heard our prayers for the movement of the 3^rd mountain, and he was working. However, this time instead of moving the mountain, he was paving a road over the mountain and would move me instead.

That dream gave me a visual reminder of God’s faithfulness even when everything looks hopeless and impossible. When I would think about giving up, the picture of how close that peak was in the dream would flash in my mind. I was able to hang in there for a few more weeks, when the job finally came through.