Year One
This week marks one year of blogging for me. A lot has happened since I started this blog to “track the spiritual and logistical journey of planting Calvary Spartanburg”. I thought a year in review was in order.
October 08:
-First blog post about God’s call in my life to plant a church in Spartanburg.
-Bought CalvarySpartanburg.com (and .org). This was the first time I officially declared Spartanburg as the planting site for the church.
-Confirmed there was not a Calvary Chapel work going on in Spartanburg.
-Invited my friends Cesar and Aliza to come plant with us. (Though God eventually showed them that they should stay where He has them, for now.)
November 08:
-Set June 22, 2009 as our date to move back to South Carolina, and bought tickets.
-I got the first staph infection in the family that made its rounds through the four of us until it was finally eradicated in June 09 over 8 months later.
December 08:
-Celebrated our last Christmas in Montreal, and our first one as just the four of us with no family.
-Began to pray for God’s provision for the church, and financially for us. I made a commitment to not to stress or strive when it came to God’s church or God’s provision. (It’s working out pretty good so far.)
January 09:
-Went live with www.calvaryspartanburg.com (with very little info).
-Started looking passively at who would take over my responsibilities at Calvary Montreal.
-Recorded 3 songs with my friend and fellow worship leader Andy Dibiaso. You can see them again here 1 2 3.
-Started to talk with a few pastors and supporters about our move and the about the church plant.
February 09:
-Updated www.CalvarySpartanburg.com with a new design and contact info.
-Announced on Sunday the 15th that we would be leaving Calvary Montreal. Everyone seemed to be sad to see us go, but many were excited for the adventure God was taking us on.
-Made the Blog live that night (it had been restricted access before that), and changed my contact info on Facebook. 83 people visited that first day.
-Started to actively look for people to take over my responsibilities.
March 09:
-Andrea had to go to the ER for a bad staph infection on her stomach. For the next six weeks we had to go back every two days to get the wound redressed (including Easter morning).
-I was invited to Regeneration in Oakland for a visit in August to teach.
-My mom came up for Jakes 3rd and Andrea’s [redacted] birthday.
April 09:
-Went to the Calvary Chapel Deep South Conference and wrote to recaps of all three days (I will not recap the recaps). I met several people that I now consider good friends there such as Scott Hunt and Jay Lathrop.
May 09:
-Kicked everything into high gear for our international move.
-Visited my good friend Andy Falleur (for the last time “sniff”) at Calvary Ottawa, and taught at their morning service.
June 09:
-Sophie got what would be the last of the staph infections that had plagued us for months. It came only 10 days before we where to move, and we had to make alternate traveling plans.
-5 days later, after a family visit to the head of Infectious Diseases at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, the doctors told us that Sophie was healing so well we would not need to postpone our move to the USA. We were also given rounds of tons of medication and treatments so we could eradicate these infections for good. God hears the prayers of His people.
-June 18th my brother Michael and his wife Donna arrived to help us pack and move. This was the first time they had been to Montreal, and Donna’s first time out of the USA.
-June 22 my two brothers and I crossed the US/Canada border in record time. After driving 24 hours straight, we made it to my mom’s place in SC.
July 09:
-After weeks of looking for a place to live in the Spartanburg area, God used a “chance” meeting on the 4th of July to provide us with a awesome house to rent in our price range. I still have a hard time believing we get to live in it, despite having been here several months.
-Left SC for a month-long trip to Albuquerque to visit Andrea’s family, and our supporters and friends.
-Calvary Spartanburg was incorporated as a church.
August 09:
-Taught at Regeneration in Oakland for both Sunday services.
-Moved into the new house.
-My friends Eric and Isaac sent a week with us as a part of their summer-long, international, vintage-VW-van-powered road trip.
-Finally felt led to pick Calvary Spartanburg’s starting date. November 8.
-Found a place to meet at the YMCA, which was about 1/3 the price of my next best option.
September 09:
-Made a Facebook group and added a link to the website.
-Held my first Board meeting. Resulted in a lot of god ideas like…
-Planning our first series of outreaches at Converse College in partnership with BCM.
It’s been a crazy year and the church hasn’t even started yet. I fully expect that this coming year will be much like the last– full of excitement, changes, and pain. But one thing will not change. Christ will continue to be the Anchor that I hold. He is with me and He has called me here.
Catch 22
Tomorrow my family and I return to Spartanburg after a 4 week long trip to Albuquerque. So much has happened in the last month that I’ve wanted to talk about but it’s kind of a catch 22 because its those same events that have left me very little time to blog about them. There is a lot I want to cover, so with out further adieu I present the “Albuquerque Trip Recap”:
-The biggest piece of news happened the day after we arrived in ABQ. Calvary Spartanburg was officially incorporated. I used a great site called Leagalzoom.com that was very easy, inexpensive, and fast. The time between when I filed the paper work to the time I received the notice back from the Great state of South Carolina was only 20 days!
-August 1-3 I had been invited out to Re:generation in Oakland CA. I’ve talked about Pastor Albert and the Regen crew before but I just can’t pass up an opportunity to reiterate that this is an awesome church and I love how they reach out so effectively to such a unique and diverse community. I got to meet several people who were excited about the church plant in Spartanburg and even got to meet a few fellow South Carolinians (Nico and Betsy, you are awesome!). Most importantly I got to share with this sweet church from the Scriptures at both thier morning and evening service. This reminds me that teachings are now available at CalvarySpartanburg.com including that evening’s message from Luke 14.
-Calvary Albuquerque’s missionary weekend allowed me to reconnect with a lot of my friends, co-workers and supporters. Some of my goals during this trip were to retain some of our supporter and to share face to face with them the need for churches that teach expositionaly in the South. This missionary weekend allowed me to do just that.
-I got a chance to sit down with fellow southern Calvary church planter Kevin Miller. Kevin and his team are planning a church in Clarksville TN (yes, as in “the last train to…”) called Awaken Church. The start date is in mid September but he’s already doing a mid-week home Bible study and weekly events in area parks giving out free food and Bibles. I’ve known Kevin several years but I’ve never really sat down and talked ministry with him but I’m so glad I did. We picked each others brains for idea’s and I can’t wait to try out some new things. Pray for Kevin, his family, and ministry team if you think of it, would you.
The best/craziest thing about this last month is that it has sparked a few dozen other things I need to do. When I get back to SC tomorrow I need to hit the ground running.
Pray for the job interview I have this week, though I submitted 10+ applications before this trip, this is the only interview I have.
Pray for a meeting space. I have an opportunity to see a really great place this week that feels like God’s provision.
Pray that God would bring workers to the harvest field of Spartanburg!
Now Where Did I Leave My Heart?
This weekend I’m in San Fransisco to teach the Sunday services at Regeneration (which I guess is technically in Oakland but still). Pastor Albert Lee has been a good friend and friendly ear over the years and is now a board member for Calvary Spartanburg. Albert invited me out this weekend to, pick his brain on a variety of subjects and share with his congregation about what I’ll be doing in SC and from the Scriptures.
Tomorrow I’ll be sharing from Luke 14:25-35 in a message I’m calling “Discipleship, you’ll hate yourself for it!”
Please pray for me this Sunday as I’m sharing at 9am and 6pm (pst). Pray that God would use me to deliver a message that He wants the congregation to hear.
Sunday's slide
Crossing Over
I wanted to share about our recent move, but quickly realized that it would take too long to talk about all of it, so I’ll share this story about the border crossing.
I had originally planned to be headed to the US border by 2 pm on moving day. “At the latest,” I told my brothers, who looked more and more skeptical with each new box that was packed and stacked in the hallway. Well, they were right. We loaded the last box into the truck and did a walk-through in the apartment at 6:30 pm. I took a moment by myself to thank God for that apartment and the blessing it had been for my family and I, then locked the door for the last time.
After the obligatory visit to DQ, we prayed with our helpers Jodhan and Justin (who were simply awesome and kept everything moving along and fun) and said goodbye. I drove the first leg and by 8pm we arrived at the border. We had prayed a lot for the crossing. We had all our paperwork and we knew we weren’t doing anything wrong, but they could still have us unload the whole truck and look through it all. My older brother Mike said he would walk home in that event.
Maybe we were a little nervous because it had taken my wife 1 1/2 hours to clear customs in the airport. As we arrived, I think I pulled into the wrong area, because the guard’s window was about 6 feet higher than our moving van and was clearly designed for 18 wheelers. The guard simply looked down at us with an expression I couldn’t clearly read and asked “What are you doing?” While trying to retain a composure that said “I’m not a drug runner, honest!” I quickly explained our situation and handed him our passports. After a moment of running them through his computer he asked us to pull forward a few feet and join him at the back of the truck.
The guard asked me to open the door, and after almost being hit by a mattress and a tricycle, he asked me to close it. Walking back to the cab he asked “So, driving all the way to South Carolina, huh?” My brother Michael replied “Yes sir” as I watched the guard’s eyes quickly read Mike’s shirt. It read: “I’m not just a legendary fisherman, I”m also a chick magnet.”
“You boys have a nice trip,” he said as he handed the passports back.
As we drove away laughing, I realized that the whole ridiculous thing had only taken 10 minutes. Praise the Lord!
The Day Has Come!
We move in less than 24 hours.
Currently, Michael and Donna are taking apart furniture while John and Andrea play with the kids out in the park. By this time tomorrow Andrea, Donna and the kids will be in the air and my brothers and I will be on the road with the uhaul. I’m going to try and do twitter updates regarding the progress of the road trip. You can follow along here www.twitter.com/goteemills or on Facebook.
See you in South Carolina!
And They Change Again
My last post spurred many of you to pray and I want to say thank you. God has definitely acted on our behalf. I knew that there was a chance that we would not have to change our plans because of treatment for this infection, but it was a small chance.
On Tuesday, the doctor assessed our situation and prescribed a series of antibiotics for the whole family: 2 antibiotics by mouth for a week, a cream in the nose for 2 weeks and a special soap for 4 weeks. He also confirmed that Sophie is healing fine and should need no additional intervention.
What all this means is that we are able to leave for South Carolina this Monday, without any changes to our original plan. All the plans B, C, and D that we spent the last week making are no longer needed, we won’t lose our airline tickets, and we are really get to go!
We really see God’s plan and provision in this time; through all of you who prayed and let us know that you were there for us. Even though this infection came at a difficult time, we see His provision in that too, because if this had happened after we moved, we would have been without health coverage and it would have been quite expensive and difficult to get treatment.
Thanks so much for being there with us! We look forward to seeing what’s next.
A Change of Plans
As some of you already know via facebook, our daughter Sophie is currently recovering from a staph infection. Last Monday we noticed a large, hard, painful lump on her bum, a lump that we knew all too well. Andrea took her to the ER that night and returned with antibiotics, 5 hours later. On Friday we had a follow up appointment where the doctor reported that she was healing well and wouldn’t require any surgery, which was exactly what we all had been praying for.
The problem is that Sophie’s infection is just the latest in a string of infections my family and I have endured over the last 7 months. So, this Tuesday the whole family will be seen by an infectious disease specialist, with the hope that we will be able to rid the family of this recurring problem
Between Sophie’s healing time and the treatment for the four of us, it looks like we may have to delay our move to South Carolina by a few weeks. My brothers and sister-in-law will still come up as planned to drive the U-haul with all our stuff down to SC, but we will remain until we are done with doctor visits. This is a pretty drastic change of plans for us, but we’ve found some new flights and our awesome friends Andy and Suzy have opened their home to us, so we will have a place to stay.
Please pray for us during the next few weeks.
-Pray that we will kick these infections quickly and entirely.
-Pray for the moving process, incluing the U-haul truck border crossing, customs, and the drive down.
-Pray we can find someone to fly with Andrea down to SC to help with the kids.
-Pray for me, because I now have to drive our mini van down, instead of towing it behind the U-haul truck.
14 Days
We’ve got two weeks left until we move to Spartanburg. Andrea has made it her goal to pack one hour every day and she is doing a great job! We can’t decide if we are packing too slow or too fast– often it feels like both at the same time. Boxes are already starting to pile up along the walls and in the corners of our house. I don’t think our move has ever felt as real as it does now.
The countdown has begun and today it sits at 14 days.
