In November we purchased “Hailey’s House”, as we’ve come to call it, from Scott and Lisa Walters. This decision is both an act of obedience and a step of faith for us. Ty does not have a job prospect in Michigan. We don’t have a buyer for our current home. There are no ministry positions, recording contracts, or can’t-resist-offers being made to us. From a financial standpoint this could be the best move we’ve ever made or the one that forces us to live from paycheck to paycheck. From a relational standpoint we could be leaving the best friends we’ll ever have… or we might become the best friend someone’s never had. From a ministry perspective we might be stepping into the promise land… or we might find ourselves wandering for years debating whether we should return back to where we came from. But we trust in this promise of Proverbs 3:5,6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your steps.”

The obvious question to ask someone who’s moving is “Why are you moving to such-and-such location?” Our answer to this question has been difficult to put into words. As reasonable, fairly intelligent, play-it-safe kind of people we want to give a logical explanation to the question, but our best answer seems to be “It just feels like we’re supposed to do this.” Hmmm, a feeling huh? Feelings are messy. Feelings change with circumstances. Feelings can be hormonal. Feelings are scary. But as we’ve tried to come up with better reasons we just haven’t been able to honestly convince ourselves that any of those reasons are actually good enough to make us leave behind what we have here. This isn’t one of those situations where the pros far out way the cons. You can’t put a price on the relationships we have here. Those things are not worth trading for warmer weather, a change of scenery, or different activities. But there is One thing that compels us to move through life with open eyes and open ears, and that’s God. Not just “a god”. The one true God, the One who has redeemed us through his very own son Jesus Christ, and the One who says “I know the plans I have for you…” Jeremiah 29:11

We have sensed for about 5 years now that we were going to be moving out of Alaska, but knew that our job was to be faithful to use our gifts and serve while waiting for the next step to be revealed. Prophetic words have spurred us on, but we never sensed a clear or specific direction until now. We could’ve never predicted that a family vacation to Michigan would turn into this. However, in hindsight we see many pieces of a Divine puzzle coming together.

Niki often journals about significant events or conversations, and those documented interactions have been one of the ways the Lord has shown us the unveiling of this plan over the past 5 years.

Going all the way back to April 2004, Chuck Flinn (anointed speaker with the gift of prophecy) spoke a prophetic word over Niki saying “The anointing of the Lord shall bless and strengthen, and you will be at the right place at the right time. Amen! So get ready! Because of your faithfulness there’s going to be an effectual door opening and you’ll see the promotion-end of the Lord and you’ll know thy God reigns. So get ready.” His prophecy was much lengthier and other parts of it were fulfilled within months and years. But the words “being in the right place at the right time… effectual door opening” was a lingering portion that we now believe was fulfilled the day that we were driving in the back alley behind Scott & Lisa Walter’s house. Her kids, Seth and Hailey, were playing and she hurried to get them out of the way. We ended up stopping to ask her a few questions about the house for sale next to hers. After visiting for a while she offered to let us look at her house if we didn’t end up liking the other one because they were considering buying another house. We took her up on that offer and toured their home two days later. When we walked out of their house we both knew that was going to be the house we would buy if we moved to St. Joseph. This was confirmed to us the 2nd day after we got back home to Alaska. In the morning Niki prayed and asked God to speak to both of us in a way that was almost audible and would help us to feel absolutely certain in this and not put the pressure to “hear from God” on one or the other of us.” Later that afternoon we were all driving in the car and the girls were napping. When Nya woke up we heard her mumble something from the back seat, but all we heard were the words “God” and “Hailey”. So we asked Nya “What did you say?” And Nya replied “God is bringing Hailey’s house to we.” She uses the word “we” instead of “us” a lot of times, but we knew exactly what she was trying to say. But just to make sure, we asked her again “What did you say?” And Nya repeated the exact same words very clearly. We didn’t want to make a big deal about it so we just tucked that moment away in our hearts. A few days later Niki asked Nya “Did God tell you something about Michigan?” And Nya said, “Ya, God is bringing Hailey’s house to we.” Over the next couple weeks we continued to talk with the Walters and made a verbal agreement to purchase their house. At that point Lisa shared with us that her son (six years old) told her the week before we looked at their house that he wanted to move. She said this was odd because they go to open houses every Sunday and he always says that he doesn’t want to move. The day we were in her back alley was the same day she toured a house that she said they just knew they were going to buy, even though they hadn’t put their house on the market yet. She said she hesitated to say anything to us about their house because she didn’t think anything would come of it, but “something inside her was prompting her to do it anyways.” Little did she know that invitation would result in the sale of her home!

In June 2005 a trusted older woman in our church called Niki and said the Lord had given her a word for us during her prayer time. She had Niki write it down exactly: “My beloved children I am here. I am watching. I am pleased you have questions. Seek first the Kingdom of God and I will give you direction. Look only to me and I will show you the path. On the 3rd day I will send you a sign. Prepare yourselves to receive my word. Clear yourselves of doubt and worry. I know the plans I have for you. Trust in the Lord and lead not on your own understanding.” It was on our third day in St. Joseph that we found “Hailey’s House” and met Lisa.

Throughout 2005 the word Chicago seemed to be popping up a lot. It was unusual how many times in a day the word Chicago would come up in conversations, prayer times, on the television, radio, and all sorts of interesting ways. It caused Niki to take notice and begin asking God what it was all about. It became so strong that we decided to fly into Chicago and stay a few days while on a different trip to Michigan in October 2006. We ended up staying over in St. Joseph for two nights with Ty’s cousin while on our way to another cousins wedding and found ourselves driving around looking at property because we liked the town. But after coming home we knew it wasn’t the right time to be pursuing that. When we returned back to St. Joseph on this latest trip we both felt that same feeling we’d had the first time we visited… strongly enough that we extended our stay in order to pray and explore the town further. At this point we’re not sure if Chicago will be a place of ministry for us, a place for schooling, or if God just used it as the destination that took us to St. Joseph in the first place. Whatever role it ends up playing we see this as one more orchestration of God’s divine leading.

In January of 2006 our youth pastor at New Life Assembly of God) had a dream about Ty and felt compelled to share it with him. He said he rarely remembers his dreams, so this was odd to him. He said: “The dream was very brief but you and Niki were in another location working in a job that you absolutely loved and were so excited about. There was a symbol in the background that caught my attention and it looked like a hexagon.” While in St. Joseph we visited First Assembly of God “The Blue Roof Church” and really enjoyed it. We spent about an hour afterwards visiting and praying with the pastors. After being back home in Alaska for a few weeks Tera (Ty’s sister) asked me if the church we visited was the hexagon one. She said when you look at it on Google Earth from overhead it is the shape of a blue hexagon. So I got on Google Earth myself and it’s actually an octagon, but could easily be mistaken for a hexagon. So, if we wanted to throw this one out on a technicality we could, but we both feel pretty confident that this is another fulfilling of prophecy.

When praying with the Associate Pastor at First Assembly in St. Joseph he spoke a word that stuck with us. He said multiple times “You’ll just know that you know. It’s like when you get married. You just know.” When we stepped out of “Hailey’s house” we both had that feeling. Then coming home we just continued to pray and the more we prayed the stronger the feeling got. That Associate Pastor even prayed against the spirit of sickness hindering us from moving to St. Joseph, and wasn’t sure why he felt led to pray that way. After we got home and all four of us got bronchitis, sinus infections, and two of us got pink eye, we knew we needed to press on and continue seeking God for the answer to our question about moving.

It has been so interesting for us to see how prophetic words spoken years ago have been brought back into our minds in order to confirm and direct this decision. Journal entries, tattered pieces of paper, and audio tapes that were laid to rest were all of a sudden brought back into our minds at various times almost as if the Holy Spirit was answering our questions with answers we already had.