I know it’s been an excruciatingly long time since I last wrote, but I have an awesome story to tell, so it should make up for the time that’s passed. For those of you who don’t really know how we started committing our Sundays to North Point, I’ll give a brief summary:
*edit* ok after completing this, it’s not so “brief.” You’ve been warned…
It all started about 3 or so months after moving to Atlanta for my new job. After trying out a couple of churches, we decided to call our pastors from Phoenix and ask them if they could recommend. This is what they said, almost verbatim, “You absolutely HAVE to check out North Point Community Church in Alpharetta! Stop your looking, believe us, you will LOVE it and it’s great for your kids!” So we went. Neither Kim nor I were big fans of the “Mega Church,” but being since we completely trusted our pastors, we decided to not feel too intimidated. We enter the building, and we were hooked.
4 months go by, and Andy Stanley does the push for Global X missions. After the service, all of the Global X leaders were in front of Upstreet in a half circle with little informational kiosks for people (such as me) to ask questions, take pamphlets, etc. I immediately walk up to this guy, who looks pinoy (hah), and think “hey, he looks easy to talk to I’ll ask him how I can get involved.” While Kim is off picking up our girls, my main goal was to see how I could possibly push my faith even further by going on one of these trips to Africa, or China, or some other crazy third world country…alone. Of course, God had something completely different in store. After talking to this Mr. Billy Nolan (don’t really know about the pinoy part just yet), he really inspired me to talk to Kim about going on a trip together. I thought I’d have to set it up, strategize and go for the kill. That was not the case, Kim was so open to going that it really seemed as if God was speaking to both of us to go…so we applied, and got accepted, and went.
I know I don’t need to remind some of you how many challenges Kim and I have had to overcome in our almost 9 years of marriage, but I feel that I do need to tell you that this whole “God” thing does work. Moving to Atlanta was by far the best thing we could have done for “us,” as a family. Having no family and no friends in a different city was extremely tough, we missed our family so much, but praying faithfully and committing ourselves fully to Him, led us to the “Dream Team.” The team that God put together for our first Global X trip to the Dominican Republic, I like to think was put together specifically for us. Because of that trip, we now have life long friends and mentors. I love you all so much.
Now, to the “full circle” part of this novel, after all it’s the title right?
Kim decided that she wanted to be baptized. Even after the church we both came from never practiced it. As a matter of fact, they almost looked down upon it. Knowing what she has had to overcome, internally, and from her past, it absolutely amazes and inspires me to no end. Again, the “God thing.” So she decides to get baptized, and I tell her I don’t want to hear her video speech until Sunday so it will be a surprise for me. I mean, I had an idea what she was going to say, but still…
So Sunday comes, worship is over, and BAM there she is on the 2 screens saying her testimony.
I’m usually a trigger happy type of photographer, but this time, my jaw had dropped and I couldn’t focus on anything but Kim talking. The best part about all of this, I mean really the icing on the cake, the thing that makes this story come Full Circle…
BILLY baptized her!!!
I don’t think at the time he had realized the impact he had on us, how he was part of the catalyst that started our path to a better life for our marriage and family in Atlanta.
I have to say, if it weren’t for that simple 2-3 minute conversation I had with our pastors, and that 2-3 minute conversation with Billy, I can’t even imagine where we would be now. I can’t even express how much I love that those series of events have impacted both of our lives, our children’s lives, our marriage, our family, our commitments to each other, and our ever so growing faith in God.
