Unexpected Move!

About 18 months ago I heard a Focus on the Family broadcast and I started to pray that God would give Chad a job that would be the desire of his heart. I knew that he was struggling at Consumers. There were parts of his job that he loved, but others that just dragged him down. I knew that he was not at peace where he was at.

In the fall of 2013 Chad read a book by Charles Stanley about prayer and it challenged him to think about, if he could do anything as a job for God what would it be? After some thought he came to the conclusion that he would like to be a Christian Camp Facilities guy.

Tuesday March 11, after an especially hard day at work, Chad went to a website for Christian job listings. Once there he found a job listing for a Facilities Manager at Springhill Camp in Evart, MI. He applied, but knowing how camps are generally small budget operations, he did not really expect that they could pay enough for a family as large as ours.

Friday he got the call for an interview. He had kinda expected to get an interview, but was glad to hear from them anyway. Then we decided to do some research on this camp. As we looked at the website we realized they were MUCH bigger than we were expecting. It has over 200 buildings! They have campus’ in Michigan & Indiana. This was allot bigger than we had thought.

Also while online we discovered that there were two positions that were being hired for: The Facilities Manger that he had applied for and an Operations Director. The job descriptions of both seemed perfect for him.

The afternoon of Monday, March 18, he had his first phone interview with Human Resources. It went very well. During the conversation he discussed that he felt that he could do either the Facilites Manager, or the Operations Director jobs. At that time they changed what he was interviewing for to the Operations Director.

When he came home, he brought the online camp map. We all marveled at it! 3 sets of zip lines, 2 rock walls, a horse barn, an indoor pool… and on and on it went! This place looked AWESOME!!!

The next morning they emailed to ask him for a second interview. They gave him a ballpark on his salary and he started to crunch the numbers. Initially he said that we could swing it, but the second look brought a bit of doubt. We would HAVE to sell the house here for $140,000 so we could walk away debt free. AND the camp would HAVE to provide us housing until we did sell the house. We went through waves of doubt, but confidence that God could provide, and around and around...

Wednesday at 3 he had an interview with the Camp Director, Andy and the Retreats Director, Eric. He felt good about the first half, but not so sure about the second half. He got off the phone and was rather discouraged.

He was teaching in Wednesday prayer meeting and as he wrapped up his lesson he shared that we had an unspoken request about our plans for the future. When He sat down he checked his e-mail and saw that Andy had emailed him back asking the family to come up for a final interview the following Friday. Chad then told everyone in prayer meeting, (including me) that he had a 3rd interview. There was almost a gasp in the room. Carol Wagenschutz muttered, “Do we have to pray that he gets the job?” After prayer meeting I gathered around with the ladies and gave them more details. They all were saddened, but happy for us. They all agreed to pray.

Sunday the camp emailed again asking if could come up on Thursday instead of Friday. We said sure, as soon as school was over we would come up. The next morning they told Chad they needed us all day on Thursday. I made arrangements at work, and with the kids’ teachers so we were able to come go up Thursday. The camp sent us a schedule, and told us to bring our swimming suits! We were all so excited.

Thursday morning we got to camp and it was awesome. They brought us to the volunteer house for us to stay for the night. There were 3 bunk beds and 3 full/queen beds. Everyone ran around trying to find where they would like to sleep. Next was our tour. Zack & Terri took us on a tour of the camp. We started the founder’s house and found out the story of how the camp originated. Next we drove up to Copper Country the 4-6th graders camp where everything is set up in the theme of Michigan History, like this cabin based on an old U.P. Copper Town General Store.

Next it was down to New Frontiers, the 6-9th Grade Campus, where everything is from American History!(Including a cabin housed inside an actual Vietnam fighter plane!) Finally we made a loop through Storybrook, 1st-3rd grade area, with all kinds of fun things like Safari Village, tree house, and firehouse cabin areas, the castle play area in the lake, and the Bugs Life splash park! Impressive to say the least!

After lunch we made the rounds to the schools. The Middle School was old, and not very impressive. The elementary school had a very nice principal and the kids seemed to like it. The high school was newer and their freshmen courses are nearly identical to Western, so Faith was happy. The overall feeling was that this is a MUCH smaller and not nearly as affluent as our current schools.

We went back to camp, where the kids & I got to enjoy the beautiful indoor pool, while Chad met with Andy & Eric to get a more job specific tour. The pool has a very cool water slide area. SO FUN!!!

That night was dinner with Andy & Eric’s families. Andy’s wife is Kate, and Eric’s wife is Amanda. They are both brunettes, and they joked that I was gonna fit right in. J They shared about how they love camp ministry, and allowed us to ask questions. It was a great night of fellowship and new friendship. 

The next morning Chad had a 4 hour block of interviews, meanwhile the kids & I got to go play! They had planned for us to be able to use the high adventure area! We got to play on the Euro-Bungie! They are the trampolines you see in the malls with the bungee cords to help you go SUPER high! It was so fun.

 Next we got to check out the new indoor high ropes course. David was terrified, but I was so proud of him for going up. Once he got up Taylor (a guy who works at the camp & was helping us for the day) helped him walk across one obstacles. I was so proud he worked hard to conquer his fear.  Joy was also really scared but she was able to go across 2 obstacles. Hope as usual was fearless. And the others climbed all over having lots of fun. I even got to go up and climb a bit.

 We met back up with Chad for lunch to have another interview with the staff he will be working with. It was fun for me to sit in on the interview and hear Chad’s answers. I thought he did amazing. I even got to answer a few questions. I felt like he had nailed it. After about 1 ½ hours they called it quits so that we could get back to Scott & Joni’s wedding.

We got back in time to go to the wedding. It was beautiful and sweet. During the wedding we found out Chad had a voice mail from Andy. After the ceremony Chad & I went to a classroom and called Andy. They unofficially offered him the Operations Director position, waiting for his background check to come back. We unofficially accepted pending our prayer over the weekend. They have offered us the house we stayed in overnight for three months rent free, to give us the opportunity to sell the house here and find one up there. We are overjoyed!

Next it was back to the wedding reception to tell our family and closest friends.

Now we are fixing up the house to put it on the market, selling things (so we can get more money to fix up the kitchen), packing things to go with us, packing things to be stored here until we have a house up there, cleaning the house and staging for showings… Preparing to move… on April 12!!!

These last few years have been a whirlwind! Two years ago we accepted the offer on our old house, and lived with my parents for 3 months while we closed & remodeled our current house. We got such an amazing deal on this house that it is entirely possible that, we will be able to walk away after our house’s sale, debt free. Something we have struggled for many years.  In July of 2012 we found about David, Joy, & Josh and their need for a forever family. In August & September they moved in. (If we had not moved to this house we would not have had room to adopt them!) March of 2013 we finalized our adoption of the new kids. And now March of 2014 we have applied for this job and will be moving April 12^th! We are simply amazed by God’s Hand on our lives. We are sure that there will be many adjustments to our move, but know that God will be with us every step of the way, and that brings peace beyond understanding.