New Jersey...kinda

So you might be wondering what is going on in my life?
Well, to tell you the truth, nothing and a lot, if that makes sense.
We arrived in New Jersey on Saturday, September 29th in a little town called Kearny near Newark in the North of Jersey. Interestingly enough, we never planned on coming here. Jersey, yes,  but we were going to go to a bigger church a little bit south called Old Bridge, but I was looking through my messages and a friend of mine had messaged me before we even started the trip & said that we should stop by her church. That's another funy story-years ago when I lived in Orange County, I became great friends with a girl that I worked with. She was great friends with a girl from her school, Alice, so I would randomly see her around. Now, years later, she's graduated & moved back to the east coast & all of a sudden it makes sense why we met-God knew that one day, when I was walking with Him, I'd be doing this trip & He really wanted us at Calvary Chapel Kearny! Ok, backstory finished, we showed up at CC Kearny & planned on being there for about 3 days and then heading south. Two and a half weeks later, here we are, still in Kearny. So what happened?
Well I'm not really sure. We spent the first couple of days here-we went out witnessing, had dinner with Alice & her husband, Jim, and did our usual thing. On Tuesday evening, we went to the church again-they were having a servant class that Jim & Alice attended & invited us to, and we like to get in as much church as we can, so we went. Afterwards we were talking to different people & we met the pastor, who invited us to stay in his downstairs apartment, so we did. The next day, he literally spent almost the whole day with us. From 10am-6:30 pm, the three of us hung out & he just poured into us. He taught us, he shared his heart with us, and he even bought us lunch. Mmmmmmmmm :) So we ended up stay for church that night. Instead of the usual mid-week service, they had a time of prayer, worship, & sharing. I felt like I was supposed to share, but I really didn't want to because I wasn't sure if it was from me or not, but I ended up getting up.
I introduced myself & gave a very brief background of our trip, our trip home, and our return. I also shared with them how I prayed and prayed that God would let us go home. The last week of being home, I realized that I didn't want to leave. I wasn't ready. I could be used there, I loved it there, I was with all of my friends-right where I wanted to be. Adventure time was over, I was ready to be done but I knew I couldn't be without God's blessing, so I prayed and I prayed. And He said, "No". It wasn't time to go home. We had a mission, a great commission, to fulfill and we weren't done. I tried to encourage the body-there are going to be things that God wants us to do that we don't want to, but we have to remember that we don't live this life for ourselves. We live it for the glory of God and to bring others to Him. After all, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" I know I should be blessed that God would allow me to serve Him and most days I am, but some days I just miss my friends. I just want to be home doing ministry, but God has called me here, so here I am, trying my best to be obedient.
So anyways, that was Wednesday. Then Marc was invited to the Men's Retreat that weekend. He didn't want to leave me alone, but I really thought that he should go, so he did. In the meantime, I moved from the pastor's house, to stay with a family from the church, the Loaiza's. They are super awesome. They have been so welcoming and truly treat us like we are family. God is good to us, man.
So we've hit the streets a few times and had great conversations and not so great conversations. It's hard to get people in this area to care about what we have to say-everyone has an attitude of "What do you want?" so it can be a little bit tough to break through that. Mostly, I think that God is teaching me (or trying to teach me) about being a good wife. You always hear about letting your husband  be the man and not trying to take control, but I think it's pretty easy for us to justify why sometimes it's ok not to, but really, those are excuses, and bad ones. So I'm trying to work harder on following the design that God set out for marriage-for me to submit to my husband, to let him lead me, and to follow him as he follows Christ.
I feel as though there is a reason that God has had us here for so long, but I'm not exactly sure what that is. Either God hasn't revealed it to me yet or I haven't been listening hard enough. I'm not really sure which one, but I seek Him nonetheless.
I'm sitting here, trying to think of stories from New Jersey to tell you, but all I keep thinking of are mindsets and lessons I've learned. I guess I just have a lot on my mind today. Today's blog is a bit scatterbrained it looks like!
One good story-we were talking to this man in Newark and he goes to church but doesn't exactly believe in heaven/hell. That's about as much clarity as we got from him on that topic-he was kind of ambiguous. He seemed to have the attitude of "religion is helpful, but it's just psychological". As we were talking, he said, "Besides, the Bible has been changed so much over the years," and before he could even finish, this panhandler jumps in and says (loudly), "No it hasn't! People just think that because nowadays you have these watered down versions like the NLT & NIV!" It was pretty funny. She was very passionate, though.
Perhaps my brain will allow me to blog a little better later, but for now, that's New Jersey.