Six Months Lost at Sea (Part 1)

This is what life has felt like.

Six months ago, the unexpected happened. Our already shaky, unstable boat of life capsized with the unexpected passing of my father. And since then it has felt like we have been hanging on floating debris adrift at sea. (I'm sure this analogy is gonna break down somewhere, but just go with it).

BEFORE

What do I mean when I say our life was already shaky and unstable? Let me try to summarize what the last couple years of our lives have been.

Year 1 (of Marriage): Awesome. We were newlyweds, raising support to work in full-time ministry. We lived on Treasure Island, which was close to both of our families, and spent a lot of time together. Building our boat.

Year 2: We finally got to Miami and it was not at all what we expected. There was tension within our team, we felt overwhelmed with the workload, and we actually wanted to leave at the end of the year. But God told us to stay, so we did.
Set out to sea and tried to stay afloat.

Year 3: We got plugged into an amazing church and started to see little victories within our ministry. Meanwhile, our financial support started to drop, we were losing money and supporters left and right,  and we were receiving short paychecks. We had to take time off campus to focus on support. The year ended with us leading a short term missions trip with college students to Italy over the summer. When we came back from the trip we found out we were pregnant. 
Navigating through the rough waters.

Year 4: Things changed in our ministry and we found ourselves being the team leaders of a campus. It was a nice thought, but the reality was that we were ill-equipped for this role. Our support continued to sink even lower, sometimes not getting any paychecks at all. As we were awaiting our arrival of our son, we started reconsidering if this is where God wanted us. Dylan pursued other possible jobs, but in the end they all fell through and we found ourselves having to leave the ministry and our church in Miami. Our son was born (with colic) in the midst of all this uncertainty. Dylan and I were exhausted with our life.
Rocky waters started to steer us off course.

Year 5: We moved to Orlando with Cru to spend a year healing and considering other possibilities within the ministry. Really the main motivation was that our rent was free, so that was one expense we didn't have to come up with. Our time in Orlando was sweet. We were reunited with most of our friends from college and we felt truly cared for by the leaders in Cru. Half-way through the year we were thinking that we were going to leave full-time ministry, get normal jobs, and move back to Miami. After doing some self-assessment tests, we began to doubt whether that was the direction we wanted to go and began praying about other options. That lead us to joining our friends in planting Salerno City Church. Believe me, that wasn't the easy option. We knew that it was going to require so much from us: get our current supporters to catch the vision and make the switch with us, raise the support we had lost over the years, figure out where to live in the mean time, break the news to our families, and (as we found out in the process) get ready for the birth of our daughter that was due in November. After our time in Orlando with Cru ended, we moved into Dylan's parents house for the summer so we could cut out some expenses while we raised support there.
The (somewhat) calm before the storm. 

First Half of Year 6: I just started my third trimester. Our plan was to move back to Miami so I could give birth with the same doctors, Dylan could be mentored by our pastor, we could be close to my family, and so we could raise support. The move date kept being pushed back because we didn't have the money to commit, and my nesting instincts were really kicking in because I didn't have a home for my soon-to-be born baby girl. Five weeks from my due date, we scrounged enough money to make the move. Two days before we moved my father slipped and fell and tore his hamstring. This required surgery and he was pretty much confined to his recliner for the next couple of weeks. So, that meant that every Saturday we went up to spend time with them but once we were a week out from the due date we stayed close to home cause we didn't want to risk getting caught in Miami traffic. Our financial situation was in crisis and there was no way that we were going to meet all of our needs. 5 days away from giving birth I lost it. We were broke, about to have another baby, in the middle of a huge career transition and I saw no way out. Then a couple days later, after 40 hours of labor, Felicity decided to join us. We were not home from the hospital all but 16 hours when my father passed six months ago today.
Storm came. Boat capsized. 


...and that was only the "Before"