It’s finally here… time to announce the big news!

Life is full of opportunities to take big steps. Going on the World Race was a big step for me. Moving to Georgia, yet another.

My friend Jen says that when God wants to take you somewhere new, He calls you to surrender something else. Whether that’s the old way of things, or a comfort, or an old habit… it moves to make room for the new thing.

God is doing a new thing with me!

While I’ve been warring with myself, my schedule, and my heart for wanting to go in a million directions, God’s been constant. Many times, I picked up the phone and called my closest friends, venting that I didn’t quite know what to do with the growth of Phylla House and the transitions coming my way. It was a great answered prayer, blowing up all over my life. Thank You God? =]

I moved to Gainesville, GA in January of 2013, fresh off the World Race, still spinning from jet lag. Unlike most of the CGA apprentices, I came with a very specific dream to bring to earth: women’s ministry to divorced and widows. These women are falling through the cracks of The Church, and we’re ignoring their pain. Not okay with me. Not okay with Jesus. Calling? Check! So I came to Georgia to learn everything I possibly could from Adventures in Missions.

What did I learn?

• How to manage a website. Had phyllahouse.com up and running within the first month of being in Georgia. Stacy Chew fixed everything I broke, praise the Lamb for her.
• How to better manage social media. People contact me regularly saying “found Phylla House through twitter/insta/fb” so there you have it, it works.
• How to do ninja-like stuff with fusion tables, mapping, connecting, spreadsheets, Google Drive, tracking, metrics, I don’t even…. I can’t even. It’s Excel-lent.
• How to take a vision and simplify it to the bare-bones necessity, and start there. Like this…
  

  Nailed it.

• How to ask for help.
• How to put worship first.
• Myers-Briggs, Myers-Briggs, Myers-Briggs
• Strengths Finder, Strengths Finder, Strengths Finder
• That I’m an Exhorter and Ruler at the core of who I am.
• That sometimes having lunch with Karen Barnes can change your whole life, especially when she says the most obvious stuff like “start a Bible study, start there” and makes it all seem so possible… and then it ALL happened from there. Good God.
• How to star in baller videos, such as…
  

• What a sacred circle is, and what it means to guard it. This is a shout-out to my homies, you know who you are.
• That people willingly let you take their children overseas for a month, to Uganda? And I can never thank them enough, because their ‘kids’ blessed me more than I can explain.
• That a “short-term trip” can easily build long-term relationships.
• That God can open doors of mansions, churches, and homes. Much more, God can open hearts.
• That people who have been on the World Race have a special bond that not many people can understand. Getting to know more and more of these folks has been the biggest blessing.
• That you have to leave the nest in order to fly!

So here it is:

I’m leaving the nest of Adventures in Missions

My department wasn’t affected by the recent restructure they’ve done, but it is time to devote myself to the thing I came here to do, and do it well.
Phylla House is real now, seriously thanks to Adventures in Missions.

Don’t worry Gainesville, I’m staying until further notice. I’ll be helping with logistics at both Project Searchlights this summer!

Meanwhile, I’ll be working at the hospital and running a ministry, and enjoying the pollen, the lake, and love!

We’ll see how things go in the fall.
I can assure you, I’ll be living a great story and writing all about it.