Sweet Home…Oklahoma? Pt. 1

Many of you may not have really heard the story of why we moved to Oklahoma, so I want to share it. When Colby and I got married we started feeling this sense of emptiness. Like something was missing. We were both working, and I was going to school. We never saw each other, and we’re both fairly miserable. Ask any American though and we were living the dream. 

We knew better though. We knew that God had called us to be married for a greater purpose…but what was it? We didn’t know, so we asked. I began praying to God and asking what He wanted our lives to look like? 

Missions. Everyone around us was talking about missions and following God. I feel like every sermon we went to, every book we read, and every significant family surrounding us was pointing towards leaving everything behind, and losing our lives for God’s purpose. 

So then we knew. I talked with people and I actually caught a lot of flack when we even brought it up. Surprisingly from some of the people I thought would totally understand. Through this, God confirmed even more that we were on the right track. So we started giving God more authority in our lives. Over small things, our money, babies, school, whatever we felt led to relinquish control.

Then we started asking each other what should we do next. We pondered back and forth on whether we should quit school and jobs. Our heart’s greatest desires were to study what mattered the most to us, God’s word, and we also wanted jobs that would add value to God’s kingdom. Now if you asked us this before we got married those would not have been our desires. We truly believe God laid those on our hearts. He was communicating to us what He wanted our lives to look like by giving us His desires, but we still didn’t know what the next step was. So we did the only thing we knew how. 

We got down on our knees before The Lord.

 We told Him what we desired to do, and we told Him that only He could make a way. We knew that we had too much student debt to go anywhere. We knew it would cost way too much to leave Americus, our home at the time. Lastly we knew without Him we were not eligible for any kind of job. A wise friend once told me that God doesn’t have a budget. So we prayed that to God.  

Then something amazing happened! 

God opened up the heavenly flood gates. Colby’s old pastor from Byne Baptist called him out of the blue. Colby was so surprised because he had been contemplating calling Pastor Matthew to get some advice about what we could do as far as pursuing missions and what to do about our debt. The pastor and his family had served overseas for many years, and Colby had even been on a mission trip with him once before to China, so he was a great connection to have. After Colby had said these things to Matthew, Matthew replied with, “I think I can help.” He proceded to tell Colby about a job position being the maintenance manager at the church he is currently pastoring. That wasn’t all though. The church was offering to let us stay in their mission home for $100 a month.  It was such and answered prayer, a job serving the body of Christ and a great start to free up our money so we wouldn’t have to be slave to the lender anymore.

There was one thing though it was in Oklahoma City. This was amazing news for me though.  Not only was the family that had been discipling us from Oklahoma, but I also had always known since I was little that I would live there. Funny story actually, when I was younger we lived in a trailer park and at the end of our gravel road was a concrete slab that was shaped like Oklahoma, and throughout my life I had seen that shape on several more occasions.  

 So when Colby came home and told me that news I was immediately on board! Now, there is no doubt in my mind that God had been telling me that all along. 

So then we began telling people that we were moving. As you can guess we caught more flack from family and loved ones. We stayed in Ga for two more weeks. The last two Sundays there we heard two sermons that ultimately confirmed in our hearts that we were doing the right thing. 

There were more obstacles though. We had to break our  year lease that we had only completed five months on,  and we had to break our internet contract. Plus how were we going to afford to move? Well God had a hand in it all. I shared what we were doing with our landlord and she only made us pay the last months rent. Then the church mailed us $1,000 to cover moving expenses. Lastly the internet. Mediacom in Americus is known for being a stickler, and we just knew we weren’t getting out of the 200 dollar fee and our last 50 dollar bill. So I went to the office prepared to pay the bill. The lady took me by surprise. She said you know you have to pay a fee, to which I replied yes ma’am, and pulled out my debit card. Then she said “I don’t usually do this, but can I ask why you’re moving?” So I got to share this wonderful news with yet another person. After she charged me $1.45!!! I left in tears just so grateful for God’s mighty provision and confirmation. 

So that was it. We were married 5 months, and off to Oklahoma. But the blessings didn’t stop there. 

Stay tuned to hear about what God has been up to using little ,ole, ordinary Ashley and Colby in the great big state of Oklahoma.