The Rest of the Story Part 2

I have been wanting to finish the story of how/why we came to Kansas City, but with moving into the new house and everything else going on, it has taken a lot longer than I had hoped. However, here I go to try to wrap it up.

I last left off with Dec. '05 and Rachel and I having listened online to the Children's Equipping Center do the Christmas presentation for the church here in KC. We were shocked and moved by the way these kids were full of the power of God and we wanted desperately for our kids to experience this too.

We were determined to move to KC, but we had no idea how or when. I remember one night laying in bed with Rachel and we put a 30,60, and 90 day plan together. We had a 1000 thoughts and concerns of what all had to take place in order for this move to happen not the least of which was that our house had to sell. Understand that nothing sells in Fairbanks in January or winter for that matter.

We began preparing for the move by cleaning up the house and getting things sorted and widdled down. The previous summer we had painted the house and redone the floors so really, it should've been a slam dunk. Silly us. Right about the time we signed the paperwork with a realtor to list our house, our forced air oil fired furnace cracked the heat exchager. When this happens, the nasty, sooty exhaust does not vent up the chimney like it is supposed to, it 'chimneys' into the house. This was also during weather that was -40F (no wind). We were in panic mode. We stayed at a hotel the first night and came home to a house that had become soot covered. You could tell where all the nails were used on the drywall because the soot gathered particularly well on the nail heads making them look dotted.

For almost a week we had to live in a hotel while we battled the bad furnace. The Saturday before the Super Bowl, the guys came to install the new one. They were there early and said it should be no big deal and that they would be out in a few hours. Silly us. They got the new one installed, fired up and went around to check the vents to make sure the forced air part was functioning properly. Nope. After I pointed out to them that the air was blowing the wrong way out of the furnace, they scratched their heads, muttered a few unmentionables and admitted they had installed the wrong furnace. The following Tuesday, they were back with the right one and we were finally all set. Only thing was that we had to repaint the entire house beginning with an oil based Kilz (super stinky). The house was a mess.

It was during the whole furnace dibacle, that we were still looking for answers as to the how and when of moving to KC. We had thought that we would like to move down after the school year in June. There were so many unanswered questions. After talking to many people and not really nailing anything down, I decided to do my first ever fast.

A fast is basically denying yourself (usually eating) so that you can press into God for clarity. I had never done a fast before, so I asked around how to do one and even looked online. I found a great line going something like this, "A fast is not something you choose, it chooses you when you can find no other breakthrough". When I read that I thought, "this is it!". But I was chicken. I wanted a sign that I was supposed to fast. I prayed, "God, if you want me to do a fast, then it needs to be -45F (no wind) in the morning so that my work is closed, if so, then I will do it." Next morning, sure enough, work was closed.

I chose to do a fruit and veggie fast meaning that is what I would eat. I read a bit out of my Bible and then I was sitting there wondering what else to do. I saw my journal. I began flipping through the pages and came to the month of Oct. holloween night to be exact when I had two dreams. For the sake of space, I wont type them out, but the point of them were that I got two sets of numbers. 1816 & 242. When I had the dreams I wrote them in my journal and wrote, I should look up scriptures with those referrences. I didnt then, but now that I was fasting and had nothing else to do, I figured this was as good as time as any.

I went book by book through the whole Bible.
For 1816 I landed on Luke 18:16 "Jesus, however, called for them and said, "Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away. For the kingdom of God belongs to people like these."
For 242 it was
Act 2:42 "They continually devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to times of prayer."

I was so excited when I read those scriptures. Not only because I got the referrences from a dream, but becasue they were speaking so pointedly about the journey was family was about to go on. it was as if there were a huge bell hanging over my head and these two verses were the sides and the bell was claning side to side while God said "Do you hear it now?"

While this was pretty cool, I wanted more. I wanted to know for sure that God wanted us to do this move. a few nights later, I ahd another dream. I dreamed that i was sitting in a conference room. My grandmother who passed away years ago was sitting next to me and we were catching up on everything. It was so good to see her again. we were having a great time talking to each other, but at the front of the room there was a man standing and speaking that just would not be quiet. He was huge. He seemed like he was 8 feet tall and about that wide. I kept loking at him through the corner of my eye wheil talking to my grandma wondering who he was. He was wering a robe that looked like burlap and it had a redish brown sash across the chest. I kept ignoring him, wishing he woudl be quiet, all the while talking to my grandma. Fianlly after getting thoroughly annoyed, I turned and looked straight at him and thought, "who is this guy?" I no sooner thought that, and he was stading directly in front of me. His finger was pointing at me, actually pressing into my eye, I could feel the pressure. He said, "I am John the Baptist, and your ministry is going to be more!" I woke up, looked at my watch and it was 3:16am. I was so stunned I did not know what to do. It was by far the most real and intense dream of my life.

A few days Rachel and I were laying in bed and I told her, wouldnt it be a miracle if our house actually sold before we left. The very next day, while were repaintign after the furnace experience and our house was a disater area, a guy and his wife came in, and made us an offer. A few more days later, our realator bought our boat and drove it away in the middle of a blizzard. God had prepared the way and all we could do was obey and keep moving forward. There were tons of other experiences and confirmations tht played out over the days and weeks before we left Fairbanks. Throughout the whole ordeal, God instilled such a huge portion of faith in us that we are so thankful to have. Now that we are here in KC and things are falling into place, it is nice to be able to have the faith to say that God will provide.