My husband became a youth pastor at Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach in 2014 where he faithfully served for almost 10 years. When God called Nick to the ministry, he was at a point of trying to figure out his life. As time went on, the call to church plant was placed on his heart and has never left. He has always felt called to move out of state to start a church. Hope Chapel has a long history of church planting and my husband was excited to one day be part of that. I loved growing up in Southern California but throughout my whole life I always said I would move for my husband if I had to. So when Nick shared his heart with me when we first started dating, I had no problem with it since I always had it in the back of my mind that I could leave California.
We got married in 2018 and were talking about moving from that moment on. Through different people, verses, visions, and prayer, we knew that this is what we were supposed to do and the Pacific Northwest, specifically Portland, was the place to do it. After three separate visits we settled on Vancouver, WA as our starting point.
There were a lot of talks about moving in Fall of 2020 until the pandemic hit… My husband and I were of the rare few that actually enjoyed the “lockdown” that COVID brought. We both were blessed to keep our jobs and enjoyed all the time we got to spend together at home. During this time, Nick was able to spend ample amounts of time reading the Bible as well as many other theology books. He loves to learn, especially about the Bible and all that God has and still is revealing to His people. We valued this time of reading and praying together and I was able to glean so much wisdom from him since he was always right there to answer any questions I had. We continued to pray for the people of Portland and tried to stay focused. Our moving date kept changing and I eventually got annoyed and stopped thinking about it and praying about it. Aren’t we glad that our actions don’t change the plans of God?! The calling was still there. We were going to move whether it was in the forefront of our minds or not. Fall of 2022 was finally confirmed that we would be moving to the PNW!
Similar to the timing of our marriage, God’s timing has once again proven to be so much better then ours. If we would have forced a move when we wanted according to our plan and our agenda, we would have missed out on the growth that God wanted both of us to have before we moved.
During this year and a half I was able to grow in my faith, learn more about church and how to be an effective leader, and what it truly means to be a supportive and helpful wife. Nick's reading and studying not only grew him as a man and pastor but also as a preacher. I can confidently say that God brought Nick to a place that he was ready to be a lead pastor.
Proverbs 16:9 says “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
I love this verse because we can’t do anything outside of the will of God. He gives us choices and we can either choose to walk with Him or not, but we can’t change the plans of God. Isn’t that so comforting?! The only real power we have is to sin and deal with the consequences.
“Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always..”
1 Chronicles 16:11
There has been years of excitement, prayer and anticipation leading up to this big move that we knew all we had to do was seek His face and His will and do our best to not get in the way.
Jess T.
Prayer Requests:
Unity and protection with packing, moving, making big decisions
Peace and comfort with leaving my family
That Zion would adjust well to his new surroundings
Prayer that we would seek the Lord's face always
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