Our news

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Our big news is…

Stephen was laid off Wednesday.

I filed this under Ministry Miracles because God knows what He’s doing. And there’s a really neat miracle that happened tonight.

The school doesn’t have enough students to pay Stephen’s salary now, so they told him Wednesday that they’re letting him go. The other teacher there at the school will be taking over Stephen’s class. It had nothing to do with Stephen himself, but since they needed to cut salary somewhere, it needed to be Stephen. He’s the highest paid teacher there, so it was only logical. It wasn’t fair to him to ask him to take a huge paycut, when he’s the breadwinner, so they just gave him advance notice that he needs to find a new job. He will receive his salary through the end of December, and after that, it’s over. As of January 1, he will no longer be employed by the academy.

We were absolutely devastated.

Honestly, everything makes sense. We were expecting this any time now. We just didn’t expect it to be mid-year. We just figured that the school would close one year, and not reopen the following fall.

The school will still be open for the rest of this school year, and then things will be re-evaluated. There’s just no way that they could pay two teachers for the rest of the school year.

There was a meeting with all the parents tonight before church, and everything was announced then. That’s why I can finally announce it here. The meeting went as well as could be expected, but there are some families that are pretty upset (and understandably so).

So you’re probably wondering by now what that means for us. We’re not exactly sure. We’ve started looking for a new job for Stephen, and we have some leads, but nothing concrete yet.

PCC has a Placement Office that connects employees with their alumni, so we contacted them on Thursday. They sent us 8 pages (two-column!) of churches and schools that are looking for staff. The thing is, though, the closest one on those lists was an hour and a half away, so even if we did end up at that ministry – we’d still have to move.

We’re not against moving, really. I told a friend tonight at church that I’m only afraid of a couple things. I’ve made some really good friends here, and I’m a bit afraid of the thought of having to say goodbye. That’s really the number one thing I’m afraid of. God has moved us from ministry to ministry enough in our marraige, that the thought of packing up and moving somewhere (even cross-country) doesn’t scare me. To be honest, it’s kind of an exciting thought.

We will stay at Pilgrim until God shows us clearly that we are to move elsewhere. And yes, we are looking locally for a job for Stephen as well.

Right now, we’re just exploring all our options and not ruling anything completely out yet. We greatly appreciate those of you who have been praying for us – especially when you haven’t known what for!

Our biggest prayer request is that God would make His will for us very clear. If we are to stay here in the Clover area, great. We’d love to stay here. But if God wants us to move somewhere else, we’re totally at peace with that as well.

Then, after church tonight, one of the men came up to Stephen and handed him $200 cash! We have no idea who the money is from (this man was one of the men that counts the offering), but we sure are thankful! We’re really wondering where the money will come from, so this was a HUGE blessing!