Corrie Ten Boom is one of my wife’s heroes. When Lynn was a young girl she read everything she could get her hands on that Corrie wrote. The Lord used Corrie’s writings to affirm the call on Lynn’s life to love and serve the Jewish people. Over the years we have often, “gone back” to things that Corrie wrote in order to find comfort and encouragement.

 Sometime after Corrie’s detainment in a concentration camp, she was invited to America. She had a place to stay in the U.S. for one week, that’s it. She had no guarantees for housing after the first week. Corrie stepped out in faith and followed the One she knew loved her the most. She travelled all over the world sharing about the faithfulness of God and the power of forgiveness. Her quote, “Never Be Afraid to Trust an Unknown Future to a Known God”, has challenged us time and time again. We hope this simple quote by Corrie encourages you during these days of uncertainty. We hope the things that we share in our blog about the Lord’s faithfulness, in the midst of our family’s journey, will cause you to pause and reflect on His faithfulness in your own walk with Him.

A couple of years ago a friend in Israel suggested that we start a blog. She felt that it would be a blessing to share testimonies of how the Lord has called, sustained and provided for us in the most unusual ways since our journey of faith began in 1993. As we began to see our new website come together, our new Kiwi friend and web designer, Mike, asked us if we’d like to have a blog. Immediately, I remembered the words of our friend in Israel. Perhaps this was the time to begin sharing our stories in print. We have had numerous people over the years encourage us to write a book about our journey. The thought of writing a book has always seemed equal to sitting in a cockpit of an aeroplane. 

 I have wondered and prayed about what to share in our very first blog. Just as I was getting close to sharing our first entry, I learned that blogs have names. Ok, what in the world do we name our blog? The credit for the name of the blog goes to our oldest son. Brandon said that “The Next Step” might be a good name for our blog because for as long as he can remember, we have been seeking the Lord for the next step in our journey with Him. We came to learn from our journey of faith that we had to take the time to pray and wait on the Lord in every situation. It wasn’t just Lynn and I on this journey, we had three little boys who were going with us. Every step was going to affect them, every step was intensified by the fact that we had a son who was a liver transplant patient. The name, The Next Step, just seemed to fit. As we have journeyed these many years, we often didn’t know where the next step would lead us. Once we were in a home group meeting in the Atlanta area and during a  time of prayer a brother approached us. He prayed for us and felt the Lord wanted to encourage us with this word, “Many, many times, you won’t know before you go.” We received that word in 1994 and that is EXACTLY how the Lord has led us over these many years.

When we left our Southern California home in 1993 we had NO IDEA that it would be the last time we knew where home was. We had no idea that we were about to enter into a lifestyle that would require us to diligently seek Him for everything! Lynn and I had always intended on serving in ministry overseas through our denomination. After our youngest son Stephen’s transplant, the mission board disqualified us as candidates because they wouldn’t appoint any family who had a member with a preexisting condition. We really had no other plans for ministry. We had no idea what our next step would be.

So, for the five years after his transplant, we continued to serve in our denomination’s churches thinking we must have “missed it” with our call to overseas ministry. Honestly, in 1993 I was a prideful young man. I loved the Lord, but if I couldn’t serve overseas, I wanted to be the pastor of a big church. There was also a desire in me to be known within my denomination. I was “married” to my ministry and after 11 years of marriage, Lynn and I were on shaky ground. I was totally at fault in this because of my pride, which I hid well from others.

In September 1993 we were new to a pastorate in the Boston area, we had been there six months. We had left California where I had been a pastor in a church plant that did not “take”. The short version is that we learned the deacons were embezzling church funds. Instead of paying me a full salary as promised, three deacons siphoned funds into their own pockets. I had to find a full-time job to support my family. I had a master’s degree from a seminary, what else was I qualified to do? After much searching, I found a job selling cars. I wasn’t very good at selling cars but I did what I had to do in order to put food on the table. The scandal of the deacons embezzling the church funds was a “death blow” to the young congregation.  

About a year later we were sought out by a church in New England. We were told that the church wanted to have a worship band, home groups and transition from being strictly traditional. We were excited at the possibility of returning to New England and being in full-time ministry again. When we got to Massachusetts we started looking for rental homes. “That one is too far away, that one won’t fit your budget.” These are the things we heard from the deacons every time we found a place we could either afford or was within the distance requirements of the leadership. We could not find a home that we could afford to rent within the area they wanted us to live in. The search went on for six months. When we were weary and discouraged by the long search we decided we needed to talk to the leadership. We hoped something could be done to help us finally settle into our new community. I set up a meeting with the chairman of the deacons. We had been living with a lovely family from the church for the six months that we were in Massachusetts. When I shared what was on our hearts with the chairman, I was heartbroken by his response. He looked at me across the table and said,  “Well Mike, Jesus had to suffer, so…so do you.”

On September 16th a British man of 74 years was scheduled to preach at our church. Brother Norman Smith preached at the church every year when he came to America.  After the service, he invited me to breakfast the next day. The next morning we shared a somewhat uneventful breakfast until he asked me this, “How are things going Mike?” He was like the grandfather I never had, so I opened up. I said, “Norman if this is all there is to being a pastor, you can have it.” I told him about our previous church and how funds were embezzled. We were so tired of hearing people debate hymns versus choruses or chairs versus pews. I said to Norman, “I’m so tired of all the politics. I got radically saved in 1978 and I want to see people saved, not church folks fighting among themselves. There’s got to be more than this.” He smiled that warm grandfatherly smile at me and said, “Oh yes, there’s more.” I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. What happened next was a major milestone in our lives. The Lord brought an elderly brother all the way from England to minister to me. The Lord heard my heart’s cry, and He was leading us on to…The Next Step.