The time has come to share a few things with you all. These past couple months have seen some pretty significant changes come our way. The first has to do with our church. On October 3rd, I handed in my resignation to the elders at Oikos and a few weeks later, on the 21st, the members voted to close the church’s doors for good, thus bringing to end a 15-year labor of love. Two months have since passed and it’s still hard to believe that it’s over. As we look back over the years, there’s no question whatsoever that God blessed this work and used us in many ways here in Bellingham, the Pacific Northwest, and amazingly even around the world. So we are sad, but very grateful, and believe that this whole turn of events was from the Lord.
So what’s next? This past week, on December 3rd, we were approved as missionaries Great Commandments Ministries (www.gcmacts.com or www.acts.training), which is located in Tieton, WA to the west of Yakima. GCM is primarily focused on discipling post high school and college-age kids through two four-month-long schools (ACTS Essentials in the fall; ACTS Ascent in the winter-spring) with a heavy emphasis on mission, and a college ministry called Pneuma. Over the past four years, I’ve taught at both schools, Pneuma, and in Romania (where they have a church in the city of Iasi called Eclesia International). Through this time, I’ve become very close to the staff and the work that they’re doing. We love GCM’s vision and have been very impressed by the fruit we’ve seen from their ministry and are super excited to have the privilege of being a part of the team.
As a result, we will be putting our house up for sale this coming January and hopefully moving to Yakima soon after. We would very much appreciate your prayers for us through this time of transition – that we would be able to find a buyer here as well as a house to buy there. We would also appreciate your prayer for us as we now will need to raise our own support. If you would like to be a part of our support team, please message me or email me at (willys.gig@gmail.com).