I mentioned in my last blog that we had some major changes coming up and it’s time to finally share some of them with you.
We’ve had several shifts in our lives over the past year: having a kid, changing our jobs several times, and finally starting our own property management/care business here in Westcliffe. We absolutely love the life that we’ve created here. We love the small town and unique culture. We love our friends and neighbors. We love our little homestead (complete with goats, chickens, ducks and cats). We’ve dreamt about expanding (Ryan wants sheep, I want pigs), and continuing to learn new things like making homemade soap and candles, experimenting with spinning natural fibers (alpaca, sheep, goat…etc) or expanding our farm products to sell in local co-ops or farmer’s markets. It seems that the options are limitless here!
However, several months ago God started to turn our hearts in a different direction, in a unique way only God could manage to do.
We don’t quite understand it yet, and it is bittersweet (for the reasons mentioned above and many more) but we believe God has something different for us that the life I just described. We have already sold our house, animals, tiny house and business and will be moving to Pensacola FL at the beginning of May and pursuing a life in some kind of ministry.
This has all happened pretty fast, and has been confirmed in many different ways. Since we moved so many times during the first 2 years of marriage, the fact that we are packing up and hitting the road again AND we both feel right about it, is a God thing. I definitely NEVER wanted to move again. I burned our packing boxes when we bought this place, remember??
We.are.going.to.miss.this.place. It is absolutely our preference to continue in the life we’ve created here. But we don’t want to miss out on the more God has for us, by clinging to our preferences. And so we are excited about whatever it is that God has in store for us. This is still our favorite place on the planet and there are so many things that we love about Westcliffe and Colorado. If God hadn’t made this move clear to us, we wouldn’t be doing it.
We don’t have too many details yet about what life in FL looks like for us, (perhaps Bible college? Def days at the beach), but we’ll keep you updated as we find out!
We recently took a trip to FL and Ellis absolutely LOVED the sand & ocean, and Ryan will enjoy the fishing scene there. Me? Gimme a book or knitting project and some shade and I’ll be just fine.
I’ll continue to blog about our lives here. We are still planning on living simply in FL, although that will look different without 50 animals and a large mountain range in my front yard ;) I’d like to write about the spiritual aspects of our lives as well and what God has been/will be doing, I’m just not sure if this will be the platform for that or not – I’ll let you know.
As always, questions are welcomed :)
Thanks for reading and following!
7 Comments
I really LOVE LOVE LOVE Pensacola. Lived there and was in student ministry there with my husband in the early ’90s. I got my degree in education from UWF. It’s a great place! You can possibly find some land in the Cantonment area, at least enough to have a few smaller animals and a garden. We loved it when we lived there. :) God bless y’all! And feel free to ask me any questions about the city, I’d be happy to help!
I know how the mysteries of the universe work. A year ago I would never have thought we would leave our beautiful home in Westcliffe. But once we decided, truthfully, I decided, we had to move for both our sake, everything fell into place. Things are still falling into place; which just convinces me that this is the right path. We will be closer to medical; real close to family; and I won’t have to be on oxygen. We won’t be far from you……….please come visit us if you ever get the chance.
That would be fun Anna! Keep in touch!
Wow, what a change! Glad you’re following the Lord’s leading. I’m curious about what God used to change your hearts and convince you about the need to take this step — though I understand the desire to keep some of that private. Blessings to your family!
Thanks!! And we hope to post more of what God’s been doing – we just need a little bit of down time to actually do that ;)
I found your page quite by accident. And find this to be amazing. We lived in Westcliffe for five months in 2011. If we could have made a living there we would probably have stayed. As it was, when the job finished we left and returned to Tennessee.
And here health issues are such that the docs have suggested highly we get to the ocean. And Pensacola is the place we’ve chosen, once all the ‘ducks are in a row’.
We should connect if we get down there.
Wow! That is crazy! And yes – please connect with us if you guys get down here! Our email is restoringsimple@gmail.com