A New Adventure

Come June, The Kennedys will be living in the Sunshine State.  Yep, we'll be heading down to Tallahassee, FL (it's gonna take a while for me to get used to writing FL) for Joel to do Young Life there.  There have been many phases to this journey that I'll try to fill you in on.  It's long, but I guess that's what happens when I try to condense the past 6 months into a blog post. 

The short story...for the males.  After lots of praying and some tears, we are excited about moving to Tallahassee.

The long, detailed story...for the females

To start with, Joel met with his boss back in September just to talk about a restless feeling that he's been having...not really with a desire to leave Macon, just wanting some perspective.  At some point in the conversation, Joel was asked what kind of area would intrigue him if he were to leave Macon.  He mentioned a few areas in the region and then threw out Tallahassee, knowing that they had an open spot and how much he would love doing YL in a town with a large university.  A couple of weeks later, his boss called to ask how serious he was about Tallahassee.  Joel said, "not really...I haven't even talked to Katherine about that."  When he told me that, I think I laughed and said I'll pray about that (while screaming NO WAY!! in my head)...very similar to how I reacted when Joel first told me that he loved me.  My next few weeks looked like this...crying, praying, ugly crying, ugly praying (not quite sure what that is, but an image of a tug-of-war comes to mind). I didn't know how serious Joel was about it until he talked about the fact that he would be giving up his UGA season tickets.  I knew that the Lord was doing something pretty big.  I say that laughingly, but I literally, for months, couldn't think about Joel giving up those tickets without crying...not because he was giving up something trivial like football tickets, but because he was letting go of something he clung to for life and letting Jesus be enough.  Going to Tallahassee would be moving farther away from everything we love...our family, friends, the town that we raised our babies, an amazing YL region, UGA football (for Joel), the mountains, the Braves...and moving to a state that was never on my radar.  Joel's sister and her family recently moved to the Middle East.  Over pillow talk one night, I remember talking to Joel about the fact that Anna could move to another country, and I'm having issues with crossing one state line.  That state line, at the time, felt like the Grand Canyon.  Every time I processed through something with the Lord, the bottom line always came down to God saying, "But let Me be your Comfort."  I was on a run one day, boohooing, when I had a clarifying moment...  If moving farther away from everything that we love meant moving closer to Jesus, then I was all for it.  With a sermon that my brother-in-law preached on my mind, I realized that I was holding the pen to my story and my children's stories way too tightly.  It was time to hand the pen over to the Author of life, the God of the Universe that writes a far better story than I ever could.  So, I was to the point that I was willing to move...now, we just needed to know if we were being called to move.  We still really, really, really, really did not want to leave the region.  I think if Tallahassee were in Georgia, it would've been so much easier.  We decided to take the next step, which was Joel having a phone conversation with Florida's Regional Director, Frank (which was in late October).  Funny side note about Frank...He became the Area Director for Columbus while I was in high school.  I was super upset about our current AD, Bill Beumer, having to leave so I started a petition and sent a letter to the Regional Director, Dave Brinsfield, making my feelings known.  He sent me a kind reply, reminding me that God's plans are bigger and better than ours.  Dave reminds me of that letter every time I see him.  Now, Frank's going to be my husband's boss...funny.  Anyway, Joel talked to Frank...and, we prayed some more, but we still did not want to leave the region.   Frank and Joel both felt ready to take another step, which was Frank coming to visit us and talk more specifically about things.  Before that visit, Joel and I agreed that if the door stayed opened, we would walk through it (even though it meant leaving the region..and we really didn't want to).  On the morning that Frank was to visit (late November), I was praying specifically for clarity in our calling to Tallahassee.  During this process, I tried really hard not to read too much into "signs".  In fact, most of the "signs" I saw could have easily pointed to staying or going...and, we were ok with either.  If we knew we were called to Tallahassee, then that's where we wanted to be.  If He wanted us to stay in Macon, then that's where we wanted to be.  On this morning that I prayed for clarity, the first scripture that I read was Isaiah 58:11"The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail."  This was not the only clarity we received, but I could feel the sun.  We had a great visit with Frank, and we decided that we would drive down for a sneak peak of Tallahassee.  At this point, we both really felt like Tallahassee was where the Lord was leading us...but, we wanted to be excited about it too.  We really wanted to like it and like the people.  Oh, I'm sure some of you are wondering what my mom thought about all this.  We told her about things at this point.  When we told her that we had some news, she went from being elated (thinking we were pregnant) to deflated (thinking we were going to tell her we were joining Joel's sister in the Middle East).  Tallahassee didn't sound so far compared to that.  She took the news...and then cried all the way home to Columbus from Macon.  She called Frank (who was her boss when he was in Columbus) the next morning to give him a hard time, but told him that he could call off the watch dogs.  Frank said that he never had a phone call from a mother-in-law before.  We had told Joel's parents a lot sooner, in hopes of some wisdom...their reply was, "We'll pray for you."  Probably, more wisdom in that than we know.  So, we drove down for a night and stayed with the board chairs (who are so great) in early December.  We really liked the city and the people we met, smiled a lot, got asked some tough questions, and headed home to pray some more...but, still really didn't want to leave the region.  We were asked to have an official interview at the beginning of January and we agreed.  We shared the news with our Macon committee beforehand.  It's been quite bittersweet to share the news with Macon friends, committee, leaders, and high school friends as they have been family to us.  We are excited about the opportunity, but sad to be leaving them.  We had a 3 day interview process, which included significant time with the board, leaders, and staff.  It was a very thorough process, and we both kept receiving affirmation after affirmation from the Lord that this is where we were being called.  We really felt at home and connected with the people that we met.  We said our goodbyes, bought the kids some FSU shirts, got Joel a hat, and headed back to Macon to wait to hear if they liked us as much as we liked them.  We were expecting a call in a week...they called the next day to offer us the job and we accepted.  There are many daunting things about this job for Joel, like having multiple ministries to balance, having twice the leadership, and no other staff (he will have an admin and some awesome volunteers...praise the Lord).  It'll be quite impossible for one guy, and I think that's what intrigues him about it...he knows that he won't be able to do it without the Lord.  He'll have no choice but to lean on Jesus.  We still really don't want to leave the region, and these next few months are going to be really hard saying goodbye, but we know that Tallahassee is where the Lord is calling us.  He has been faithful to us in Gwinnett, Griffin, and in Macon, so we're not going to doubt his faithfulness now.  We are really excited about this new adventure, and are looking forward to what God has in store for us in Tallahassee.