My First Guest Post-- My beautiful Wife Theresa

Let me set this up and then you can take it from there. Theresa was talking to our Community Pastor Britt Sipe and couldn't get through it without choking up so she did what she- in my personal opinion- best. So here is how God is showing up in our lives each and every day through you, our friends.
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I told you that I would try to share what is happening with our family right now ... but as I sit here, I'm finding it hard to put it into words that truly give it the right amount of significance.

But, I'll try :-)

As you know, Mike hasn't had a steady job for a couple years now - temp jobs, jobs that relocated out of the area, contracts that weren't renewed, etc. But, for the first time in our married life, we actually had money in the bank, no debts other than our home, consistent places to serve, and a God-given circle of friends -- so things were going pretty good. Then Mike's dad (who lives with us) had to quit his job due to illness (Leukemia) so that instantly doubled our share of the mortgage and our savings quickly became non-existent. Employment has been pretty much non-existent for Mike too and so as of April of last year we have been unable to pay our mortgage. We tried working with the bank, talked to people about special programs, tried to sell our house two different times, talked to a lawyer, accepted financial gifts from folks that wanted to help, but nothing panned out. We've applied for County aide, but were denied because we were still listed as owners of this house -- even though we were in foreclosure. We were denied for food stamps because we own our two cars. Even County insurance for our kids (Medical) denied us because Mike hadn't applied for unemployment even though he couldn't because his last job was considered self-employment. So, we were in a pickle. As "churchy" as this sounds ... we turned it over to God. Without really realizing it at the time ... God immediately started meeting our needs. Groceries, work here and there, a vacuum, a gift card right when we needed it, school supplies, car maintenance, and many, many other things that God provided each and every day. He gave us peace. At a time when we knew we should be freaking out ... He gave us His peace and even when we'd have a bad day ... God would rally up support and encourage us in wonderful ways. We have been so blessed during this time and if we weren't going through all of it, I'm certain we'd be missing out on a ton. God has not only strengthened our family through this time, He has brought us closer to our friends and brought new friends to us. We aren't asking Him to give us strength ... we have come to the beautiful realization that He IS our strength. I'm certainly not going to lie and say that it's fun being in this situation and I'm eagerly awaiting "the bounce" ... but, how can we look back over this time and not see God's hands all over our lives? He has given us opportunities to serve Him in ways that we never saw coming, He has provided for us and comforted us and given us so many moments to rejoice and flat out laugh even in the midst of our situation. So, when the "poor us" moments come ... they are brief and quickly followed by encouragement and peace. We've got it easy compared to so many :-)

So, that brings me to this moment ... I told you on Sunday that you are one of the leaders of a wonderful church, our family has been completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love that we have received over the last couple years, but more specifically over the past couple months. Our house was due to go up on the auction block on January 14, but we had our home listed as a short sale and about a week before the deadline we received 3 different offers. So, it was obviously time to think about where we were going to live. With no income it was also obvious that we would need to be creative, so we were looking into long term camping spots and planned on using our pop-up tent trailer if necessary. We had offers from friends ... but, we wanted to keep our friends and knew that living with us might ruin those friendships :-). So, we committed ourselves to trusting in the Lord. He had provided for our needs already and believed that if we ended up in our trailer ... that was part of His plan. On Christmas Eve, Danny and Marlys Ruckel called Mike and me aside, they shared that they - along with Gayle Kreeger had formulated a plan to help our family. I don't know all the details -- but apparently they sent out an SOS for us and asked people to consider "sponsoring" us for a few months as Mike continues to look for employment. They sent out the email at night, and by morning were already hearing back from people that wanted to help us. So, on Christmas Eve in the Sunridge sanctuary we experienced the love of Christ though His people. This past weekend, thanks to Gayle, our wonderful Realtor - we were able to put a deposit down on a rental home in Temecula. The landlord wasn't really into working with us at first, but once Gayle explained our situation and the love that others were willing to give to us -- he caved and said that he'd like to do something nice for someone too. We are set to move in to our new home in February thanks to the numerous families of Sunridge and other families outside the walls of Sunridge that have lovingly and sacrificially agreed to "give love away" to our family. We have received "sponsorship" from families that we know well and others that we've never even met. It hasn't been easy to accept help from others, we aren't the ones that are supposed to be receiving help ... we didn't want to be in this position. But, we are and we know we aren't alone. The thing that we have found ironic during the past couple years is that God led us to be a part of The Brook right at the same time that we have been facing homelessness ourselves ... He truly does use all things for His purpose and to His glory. We are overcome.

So, there it is. Nothing earth shattering ... just practical, loving and Biblical -- we are blessed indeed.

Thanks for all you do Britt to keep the focus of Sunridge on Christ and being contagious for Him.

Theresa Dalton