The Mission

It seems as though a lifetime has passed since moving back to our small, mountain town/home town. In reality, it's been nine months. We've lived with family, we spent a week in a guest house, we house-sat for family friends through the winter, Derek started his own excavation business, we moved back in with family and now, (ready for this!?) we are living in a motor home INSIDE a shell of a building that looks like a giant, Spanish church. (I mean, honestly, did you expect anything less from us?!)
We're buying said shell from Derek's grandparents and 'the plan' is to frame it in this summer/fall. It's gorgeous. It has enormous potential. We are stoked. And..... I dragged my heels until the last possible minute.

Derek was scheming on this venture right when we moved back in October and I was quick to shut down his idea. I'm usually up for most anything. Jump out of a plane with a parachute on my back..... SURE! Backpack through a foreign country and attempt to converse with the locals and share about Jesus... TOTALLY! Move to the jungle and set up camp in a greenhouse.... YES! But I've put myself through a lot in the past year, including moving our entire life across the ocean and giving birth to our second child. So, as New Years came and went I found myself in a state of despair and desperate for normalcy in any form. This idea of glorified camping in the midst of a construction project seemed like just enough to push me right over the edge.

Fast forward several months to when our house-sitting gig was coming to a close and we were, at last, in the final stages of purchasing a 'normal' house in town. Although it needed some remodeling, we could've moved right in and I was finally seeing a light at the end of this wandering, nomad-style tunnel. And then I had a dream.
Dream-me was in the kitchen of 'The Mission', as this Spanish church shell-of-a-building is called by all the locals, looking out over a grassy courtyard where my boys played. Now, there is currently no kitchen in this building. It is literally cement floor, metal beams and plywood walls stuccoed on the outside. And the real-life courtyard isn't exactly somewhere you want to frolick barefoot. But in my dream all was as it should/could be and I woke feeling enormous peace. We cancelled the contract on the other finished and livable, complete-with-white-picket-fence house, and chose to walk our family down a different path.

[our very favorite place to spend the evening..] 

We moved into The Mission on June 1. We have house plans and hope to start framing soon. We are applying for a rehab loan that would enable us to really expedite the entire process and possibly be in a 'real' house by Christmas. But, plan B is bit-by-bit, as we save the money, doing as much as possible on our own.
Derek has already put in a new driveway, seeded the dirt for grass and planted several trees. We sleep and eat in the motorhome and do most of our living in the shell/courtyard area. It's simple and amazing in many ways. It's also camping with two tiny human beings and I'm learning yet another level of patience and endurance.

The temperature in the building literally varies by 50 degrees every day; up into the 100's in the heat of the day and down into the 50's at night. We have water in the motorhome but still need to haul drinking water. And, although it's possible to shower/bathe in the motorhome, it drains our tank so quickly and we usually head to the ever gracious in-law's for bath/laundry day.
It takes a specific skill set to look at what is not and see what could be. My husband has that gift. And I am learning to trust. I trust that God goes before us and He will make a way. I trust that my husband is not only the most capable and inventive man I know but a true visionary! I can't wait to see what The Mission will be when we are done with it. And I'm excited for the adventure that will be every single day from now until then. Our mission, since we have chosen to accept it, is literally 'The Mission'.

If I had to sum up our adventures in one sentence I believe it would be, 'Why do anything the normal way?' Or maybe, 'You can have the easy route, we'll go ahead and take the hard.. plus all the fantastic stories accompanying it.' But seriously, this is the good stuff! It's crazy. It requires all of us and I will readily admit that I don't easily arrive at the daily choice to embrace this new venture. I am currently chugging water from a gallon jug as my sweat discovers new pores to leak from. But I wouldn't trade this for that white picket fence because I want the stories. I want the adventure. And I have a peace that carries me through the hard, helping me focus on all that is to come and the beauty of right now.
I'll never forget being torn between the life in Hawaii which we absolutely adored and the undeniable call to go 'home' and begin something new. In the midst of this painful decision making process, Derek shared this verse with me from Isaiah 43:19, 'See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.' I will continue to cling to that verse and the Way-Maker as we venture forward and watch Him transform this place (and us) into something awesome!
Stay tuned for more adventures in The Mission.... and pictures of the new casa!