“… You belong to God’s family” (Ephesians 2:19 NCV).
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).
When we first learned that the company I worked for was transferring me to Wilson, NC, we weren’t excited. Both my family and Robin’s lived within easy driving distance. We both came from very close and connected extended families. Holidays, vacations, birthdays and weekends revolved around being with them. We didn’t want to leave.
When we arrived in Eastern NC we didn’t know anyone. Our children were ages five, two and one. Robin was a stay-at-home mom and I worked a corporate job that averaged 70 hours a week. We were overworked, overwhelmed and lonely.
I’m glad we found a church. We soon got very involved. I started teaching Sunday School for young couples. Before long, teaching this class became the catalyst that moved me to answer God’s call to preach. So, I quit my job, went to seminary and planted Wilson Community Church.
Now over 23 years have passed, 19 since we planted the church. When we first moved, we thought we’d only be here a little while. Surely, we would move back home to Virginia in only a couple of years.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, my children have grown up here. They have married spouses here. We have two grandchildren born here. And God has given us an extended family here too. Actually, it’s much bigger than the one we left behind. And it’s daily growing!
I’m thankful that God never calls us to leave something that He doesn’t replace a hundredfold. What at first seemed to us a temporary transfer has now become our home. We once felt that we were leaving family to be here. Now, we have family in both places.
On top of all these blessings, God has also given our Wilson family a home of its own. I’m thankful to God for a family that would work and wait together for this wonderful day. After 19 years of being a “portable church,” we just cut the ribbon on our very own building on April 30, 2011!
Have you left family or houses behind somewhere? Are you overwhelmed and lonely? Call out to God. He wants you in His family.
And if you live near Wilson, come join us. We’ve found family here.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3-5 NIV).
There’s one area that our hopes are finally being fulfilled. After 19 years of existing as a church that met in rental facilities, we’re finally moving into a home of our own. I have to admit that when people have asked whether we would ever see this day, I have usually responded, “I hope so.”
“Without warning, a furious storm came up” (Matthew 8:24).
Of all the places that this tornado could travel, it entered Wilson on the side of town where we are remodeling a building for our new church home. As it entered the intersection of Tarboro and Forest Hills, it stacked cars on top of each other in the Walgreens parking lot, flipped a 18-wheeler on its side, threw a boat still on its trailer onto the roof of Medlin Buick’s garage, blew out windows in the Holiday Inn, spearing it with debris, then made its way like a precision guided missile for our property. Crossing our parking lot it seemed to empty itself of all that it 
had vacuumed up… trees, metal roofing, a dumpster. It came right up to the edge of our building, grabbed a porta-potty belonging to our contractor and threw it 200 feet into the woods. Then, it suddenly turned hard left, going around our building, destroying the privacy fence in the back and throwing trees onto the neighboring houses and apartments behind us.
“They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
“I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me” (1 Corinthians 16:8-9).
“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew…To those not having the law I became like one not having the law …To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).
“The women said to Naomi: ‘Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer'” (Ruth 4:14).
The imagery of the threshing floor is found throughout the Bible. In Ruth it symbolizes the place where we lay down at the feet of our Redeemer and surrender ourselves to His work on the cross. In Luke we see it as the place where Christ the Judge separates the good from the bad, believers from those who don’t believe.
“Why have I found such favor in your eyes” (Ruth 2:10 NIV)?
“In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab” (Ruth 1:1).
On a trip to visit Aqaba on the Red Sea, we passed through the land just East of the Dead Sea that was once called Moab. As we journeyed South we passed by snow covered hills that seemed out of place in the desert setting. Other than the modern highway we travelled on, this land looked as if nothing had changed in centuries. It was a good thing our bus driver had a full tank of gas because I didn’t see anywhere to stop for miles. The land of Moab was as it had always been, a land for sheep and goats, and little else.
Having passed through Moab I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live there. Yet, Elimelech took his wife Naomi and two sons from Bethlehem (Hebrew: House of Bread) to Moab to live. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Like a lot of men, rather than praying and staying, Elimelech decided to go try living outside God’s promised land for a while. Perhaps he could see the snow capped hills in the distance and thought they meant better rain. He probably only meant to stay for a while. But man’s worldly schemes never work out in the end.