"I wanna go to Afwica!!"

Well, it didn't take long for my married life, my mommy life and my ministry life to come together all in one post! My precious husband has a heart for missions, he's been to Bolivia and he's been to Africa and I, on the other hand, have not. Let's just leave that for another post at another time!!

Anyway, he loves missions and really would like to nurture and grow that in the hearts of our four children. So he resigned himself to the fact that he would take each one on a missions trip once they turned 12 years old so that he could expose them to the world outside of our plush lifestyle. For Tucker that is only just over one short year away and he's totally on board with his dad's plan. Well for sweet little Ellie, that trip is a long 81/2 years away even though she's heard about the plan and has heard Bruce's stories about going to Africa last summer. Are ya trackin' with me????

So, Cumberland Church (where we are on staff and attend each Sunday) has recently partnered with an organization called African Leadership in an effort to serve African families that are seeking refuge here in Nashville. We just held a backpack drive for the children of these families and collected over 100 backpacks!!!! So in order to get them to these kids they had to be delivered to the apartments where these families are living. So for Bruce this made a light bulb go off in his "missions head" and he decided this would be a perfect service opportunity to begin to expose our kids to serving and missions. So the plans were made and the kids were ready!!

So yesterday, I get everyone fed and in the car to meet Bruce at the church for them to go up to Nashville. Well somewhere along the way no one thought to tell Ellie that she wasn't quite old enough to go. So from the backseat of the car I hear this little voice say: "I wanna go to Afwica!"
To which I say, "what?" and she says " I wanna go to Afwica to do the backpacks!" So Tucker pipes in and says "We're not going to Africa, we're going to pass out backpacks to the African children that live here in Nashville now." To which Ellie replies, "But I love Afwica!" (with as much enthusiasm as her 3 year old body can muster!).

As I think back on Ellie's words, the question that comes to mind is "why don't I feel that way?" Not that I don't want to help those less fortunate because I do but where's her fear? What is it in me that is keeping me from going to the ends of the earth to be Jesus to those that don't know? (And I'm talking about something as short as a missions trip not necessarily packing up and moving.) The easy answer, for sure, is fear on a lot of different levels!!!!

So what about you? What are you afraid of, what would you do if you could do anything in the world but like me, fear is holding you back? Send me your comments and we'll discuss them together.... What do you have to fear?

Everywhere-n-between.....

Everywhere-n-between sounds like quite the fitting phrase for a mom of 4 kids and the path that I've traveled over the last four years. I've come to the realization through a good friend that many of you only know the Sunday morning side of me (crazy with four kids in tow all going to different places at different speeds!) and not the "everywhere-n-between" that has brought me to where I am today. So here goes....

When my husband, Bruce, and I got married we had both been born and raised in Atlanta and had no intentions of ever leaving the state of Georgia! For 11 years that's exactly how we lived and we were just fine with that. Our parents still lived there as well as our extended families and not to mention the great circle of friends that we had there. We were livin' the life we had always wanted for ourselves until God brought some friends into our life that had the courage to start speaking some truth into our lives. We began to see that we wanted more for ourselves and for our family than what the world and our current path could give us. We had always known God but we began to have a hunger to know Him more. So in March of 2005 after much prayer and discussion we started our journey.

We were attending North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, a northern suburb of Atlanta. They decided to plant a church in Dothan, Alabama (to see their story go to www.wiregrasschurch.org and click the "our story" tab), and as I'm sure you can probably guess, that was the first stop on our journey. Bruce left his successful real estate buisness and I packed up our family of 3 children 6 and under (and did I mention that I was pregnant at this point with our 4th child) and in June of 2005 we moved to Dothan! Now please know that this momma and her kids didn't go quietly! There were lots of tears and we won't even mention the fear! But that was what we were supposed to do so we went. So we lived in Dothan for a year and cut our ministry teeth so to speak. It was in this "foreign land", this is where I mean that it was different from where I grew up and lived for 30+ years, that God really introduced me to Sarah and what she went through when she followed Abraham down the path that God had chosen for them. I would sit in my quiet kitchen (during nap time of course) and do Beth Moore's study The Patriarchs, which I highly recommend if you have not done it yet!

Bruce and I welcomed Ellie to our family in November of 2005 and that completed our little Brady bunch. She was the only Brady not born in Atlanta at Northside Hospital, she's kinda like our "little rememberance stone" of Dothan, Alabama.

So fast-forward to June of 2006.... Pretty much a year to the day that we moved to Dothan, we felt like God was calling us to Nashville, TN to start yet another church plant of North Point. So in August of 2006, we packed up our house and now our 4 kids (7 and under) and moved to an apartment in Franklin, TN while we waited for our house to be built. Did I mention that we were a family of 6 living in a 3 bedroom apartment with all the stuff that kids and babies accumulate to function happily? We're spoiled...

February of 2007 Cumberland Church opened it's doors for the first time at 6 in the evening at the Marriott hotel. Since the opening I have been the Waumba Land Director (birth to preschool), the UpStreet Director (elementary) and now the Women's MInistry Director. I've experienced a lot and seen the good, the bad and the ugly of ministry. I've learned things about myself that surprised me and I've shed some stuff that used to weigh me down. I've laughed and cried but grown stronger through it all. So my journey everywhere-n-between I'm still on and will be until the day I die. I wouldn't change a thing that I've done or experienced on this journey. There's been a lot and much more to come!