11 years :)

11 years on 11/11/11 :)

Yes, 11 years ago today I met and starting dating the man whom now is my husband of five years and the father of our three wonderful babies.  At the ripe old age of 15 I fell in love with a skinny little Jacob Scott Lowe who stole my heart with his humor, kindness, good looks :), and compassion towards me.  I was head over heals for that boy, and am so thankful for the years together that God has blessed us with.  I mostly thankful for the path God has lead us on and our journey on that path to this point.  Looking back I think, "Oh, I get why that happened now!"

11 years ago we were kids falling in love, making dreams and plans while star gazing, enjoying each and every available moment together, laughing so very often-to the point of tears, and were consumed with our own little worlds. A little over five years ago, we stood in front of family, friends, and church family and committed our lives to each other in marriage with the hopes and plans of living out the "American Dream."

One year ago, after the birth of our third beautiful child, Livi, we realized God wanted more out of us in our lives... And last Sunday we stood in front of our family, friends, and church family again with our news hopes, plans, and dreams in life... God's hope, plan, and dream :

Our testimony begins with feelings that God laid on our hearts from the beginning of our life in Christ….Is this enough?  How much is too much?  We always felt a pull to become more involved.  More involved with church, with our relationship with Christ, with people.  What we didn’t know, was that it was the Holy Spirit calling us to a life Sold-out to Christ. 

God continued to guide us through our walk by harvesting feelings of love towards ones we once ignored.  Feelings of complete compassion towards those that are starving, homeless, parentless, and lost.  Unknowingly, the Holy Spirit touched both our hearts at the exact same time and we began to feel a call and pull towards missions.

In a whirlwind of thoughts, prayers, and emotions over the last four to five months God has made it blatantly clear that he wants us serving our each and every day in Africa seeking the lost.  God gave us sermons like, “No More Status Quo” and “Be Transformed.”  He placed church leadership in our lives, and gave us opportunities of meeting with Andy and Stephanie Gable, and serving with Rob and Rochelle Denning.  He gave us His Word and encouraged us to read and learn how to live a Christian life every day of our life-not just Sundays.  He put scripture in our minds to live by, like “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2”   Each and every one of these moments in our lives were the work of God “transforming” us and making our hearts open to where God wants us to be. 

During the next two to four years we will be enduring and completing the process of becoming affiliated with CMF International in hopes of long term missionary work in Africa.  This process will include new education towards Christianity and Missions, a vision trip to Africa in the next 6-12 months, cultural training, fund raising to support the mission, as well as homeschooling our children, dealing with emotions of our families, and learning how to live in a completely different lifestyle and culture with completely different languages.   

It is important to know that the “Jake and Taneille” we know would have NEVER decided to leave our comfortable home, our families, our careers, our lifestyle; but through the work of God He has made it so crystal clear that our comfortable life wasn’t enough.  Lives are lost every day to the gates of Hell because there are unreached people who are living life without the knowledge of Jesus Christ while we sit inside the walls of our comfortable home.  We want to be Sold-out to Christ whom is the essence of our being.  God gets all the glory in this.  Our purpose in life has been written…”If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” Luke 9:23- We will choose to follow Christ!