One Reader’s Story

After I spoke with Andrew on the phone, I asked him to write up something about his journey.  I think it may speak to many in this community who feel all alone in the walk.  Here’s what he has to say:

Even before we married in 2000, my wife Renee and I discovered that we shared a common life dream: to travel fulltime and live on the road in an RV. The dream originated from our mutual love of exploration and adventure. However, YHWH had deeper purposes in planting that desire within us.

Life during our first few years of marriage was a wilderness in many ways. Renee left family, friends, a career, and country (literally) to join me in Minot, ND where I was stationed in the Air Force. Less than a year later my next assignment moved us to the Washington, DC area. We didn’t know anyone locally with whom we could share our rich discoveries in the Hebraic paths of our faith. Yet, YHWH faithfully used those years to establish our growing family and teach us to depend on Him alone.

I got out of the Air Force in 2005 and continued working at the White House as a technology consultant with Hewlett-Packard. We had a very comfortable, urban existence, but even as we started to home school our children and discover home birth options, we were already growing restless to raise our family outside of all the typical middle class socio-industrial norms. That same year Father connected us to a group in central Pennsylvania, and we experienced our first “big” gathering at Sukkot with several fellowships from that region. We couldn’t believe there were so many just like us that we had never met before, and knew that Father must be working the same way in parts all over the world.

In the beginning of 2008 with the elections looming, Renee and I sensed that Father was bringing a shift in our lives. It seemed scary and impossible, but everything in our spirits pointed to taking a leap of faith towards a literal family exodus, and we prayerfully embarked on a 1 year timeline to get ready. We never imagined that we’d be chasing the original nomadic dream with (now) 5 children, but we started to get a clear sense of how YHWH might use our travels to connect His people in various parts of the continent through the experiences and testimonies that we would carry with us from place to place.

In April 2009 we pulled away from our current life on the day after Passover with everything we owned in a camper trailer, and we have been traveling ever since – staying days in some places and months in others. Our personal Testimony of these journeys is full of wonderful and difficult times punctuated by YHWH’s continual, miraculous provision. But I want to focus on encouraging those of you that might be going through your own wilderness experiences right now. It is all for a purpose! And as Father completes this season in your life He has also been preparing others with whom to connect you.

In our journeys we have personally met Spirit-filled, Torah-keeping parts of the Body of Messiah in and from various pockets across Canada: British Columbia, Manitoba (where Renee is from), Ontario, and Prince Edward Island; as well as the U.S.: Virginia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Kansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Delaware, New York, Missouri, Texas, California, and more! We’ve had the joy of celebrating YHWH’s Appointed Times in many different locations with some who have been keeping the Feasts for decades and others who are just observing them for the first time. At one Sukkot in Manitoba we met immigrants from Israel and Germany. Near the end of the Festival we discovered that we were actually cousins to the German family through the marriage of our relatives, and we had never even met them before! Father was saying: “I am reconnecting My Family – My Feasts are Family Reunions!” It is worth seeking out new set-apart gatherings for the Appointed Times of our Creator – especially Sukkot – to meet other brothers and sisters in Messiah, even if it means making a mini pilgrimage of your own.

The Scriptures are still being written from all of our lives (Malachi 3:16), and I can’t wait to watch the Director’s Cut version of this incredible Family Re-gathering Saga in His Kingdom. Some additional connecting resources: Our Testimony Blog (highlights from our journeys and YHWH’s faithfulness in our lives);

The King Reigns!

andrew@theedgeofall.com