This year starts our 3rd year of Metron Ministries. It feels like we just started but we look back on specific churches, trips, and individuals and it sounds like it has been much longer. When we began we believed God was leading Marie and I (rather strongly, I might add) to stay mobile and, specifically, to live in a motorhome. We are sailors and had dreamed of life on a sailboat, but we had never had any desire or leading towards RV life. But we sold everything and, two years ago last week, we bought a motorhome and moved in full-time.
After two years we can say that we are loving life in the motorhome. It is cozy, comfortable, and suits us well. But we have never quite understood why we needed it… I mean, why couldn’t we do most of what we are doing from any kind of home? Two years ago, we imagined life on the road would be driving between churches and overnighting in church parking lots. It didn’t take long to realize that was very impractical. Driving the motorhome is expensive and, at times, stressful. Our schedule often would have us in Chicago one weekend, Virginia the next, and perhaps Alabama the third. That would require non-stop driving and would cost much more than flying and staying in hotels. So, for the most part, the motorhome has stayed in an RV park in Houston providing us a home base while we traveled nearly 170,000 miles over the past two years.
This year, however, a couple of conversations surrounding our role with Vineyard Missions provided an opportunity to try something new. It was proposed that we take our home and spend part of the year in each of the 3 Regions we support and serve.
The 3 regional offices are located in Texas, Ohio, and Illinois. However, the Gulf Coast Region spreads from Texas to Puerto Rico and has a second office in Florida.
Therefore, we are going to be leaving Texas the first week of March and we are relocating to Brooksville, Florida for March and April. Then we will move to the Cincinnati area from May through the end of July. We will then head over to Champaign/Urbana for August and September before returning to Houston for the winter.
We hope that we can have more impact in those regions by connecting with more Pastors, attending area Pastor’s meetings, and stirring missions in each area. It may also reduce some of our travel as we arrange our schedules a bit more locally based on the region where we reside. We are looking forward to having more time we can spend with a church or area.
We will still be booking events outside of those regions and flying back and forth. We already have a Colombia trip booked at the end of March flying out of Orlando. But I do expect that it will reduce the amount of travel while potentially increasing the scope and impact of our work.
Keep us in prayer… specifically for opportunities to minister in these areas and for churches and leaders to be built up. Pray that churches are energized towards missions and partner with each other to impact nations. We are grateful for your encouragement and support.