A letter to our church family

Dear Friends and Family,

We are excited about the direction God has us moving in. Many of you we know well, and have been sharing in this journey with us, while others are part of Grace Chapel, our home church, and only know us through an occasional smile and nod every other Sunday. One way or another, we believe God is calling us to communicate to you the exciting adventure He has us on.

God is calling our entire family to the mission field. Not to the traditional “mission field” that many of you are envisioning right now. Rather, in the original “church of Acts” sense, one with an apostolic vision, meaning, we will be traveling from place to place, spreading the mustard seed of God’s love and the Gospel of Christ. We plan to travel the United States intersecting the lives of the poor and marginalized and spreading the love of Christ to them through acts of love and compassion. Some of these acts may be monetary, such as buying a homeless family lunch, or new sleeping bags, or they may be acts of love such as washing a homeless man’s feet and sharing with him the Good News that God loves him. We plan to go to laundry mats and begin conversations about the love of God. We plan to buy pizzas and approach homeless camps under bridges and talk about our hope in Jesus. Sometimes we may show up in an inner city slum and say nothing at all, just provide the basic necessities that the poor so desperately need. As the old adage goes, “preach the Gospel and if necessary, use words.”

We desperately want to begin His Kingdom now. Our vision is not to go around and get people off the street, but to show people that there is hope, and that they are important and loved. We want the people we come across to know that the loneliness, sadness, and hopelessness that is prevalent in our country today is nothing when compared to His love and His hope.

The details. I am a teacher at Woodburn High School, and I plan to resign at the end of this coming school year. We will sell our house sometime this year and with some of the money left over we plan to purchase a used motor home. We will spend the left over cash from the sale of our house on the people that we intersect. We plan to sell all of our belongings and contribute that money to the same fund. We are also in the process of starting a non-profit organization that will allow people to contribute not only to helping the poor, but also to support us through basic living expenses. We also desire a non-profit organization that will have a board of directors who will keep us accountable and help us maintain the vision God has for us. We are very open to God’s leading, and our itinerary will most definitely change. We plan to leave in July of 2008, and as of now, our trip will take us to around fifteen cities throughout the United States and Canada. We will hopefully be able to find a church, faith community, or faith organization that will support us while we are visiting each city. Our plan is to stay at each of these cities for around ten days. We pray that God will lead us to people who are open to His word and that the Holy Spirit speaks to them through our words and our actions.

We know that this ministry will impact the poor and marginalized throughout the areas we travel to, but we are extremely excited about what this is going to teach us as a couple, as parents, and as a family. With three children Avery (4), Allyson (3) and Eva (1), we will be doing plenty of parenting in a 30ft motor home. Ultimately I pray that this ministry will show our kids what it truly means to be a follower of Christ. We fully understand that although this may be an “adventure,” it will also be filled with times of stress, sadness, fear, and exhaustion, but we also believe that we can rely on God, knowing that Christ carried His cross and through His strength we can pick up ours each day and follow Him.

A lot of details need to be worked out, and a lot of miracles need to occur for our journey to begin. We are sending this letter to you for one major reason, we covet your prayers and desire for our home church to walk along side of us as we move towards obedience in Christ. We would appreciate your prayers for the following things:

1) That the stress of quitting my job and living without income will be over-ridden by God’s ever-reaching sovereignty.

2) To sell our house, this is the key to beginning our ministry, and we are truly relying on God to come through.

3) Someone knowledgeable to either a) walk along side us and guide us as we sell our house “by owner,” or b) have a realtor sell our house for very, very low commission.

4) To find a used motor home at a reasonable price that would not only fit our needs as a family of five, but be in good mechanical condition.

5) For someone who is knowledgeable about the process of starting a non-profit organization (accountant, attorney) to come along side us and guide our decisions.

6) A laptop computer in order to keep in touch with supporters of our ministry and keep records of finances, etc.

7) That we will be able to make contacts with churches, faith communities, or faith organizations that will be supportive of our ministry in each of the cities we plan on visiting.

We thank you for taking the time to read this letter. If you have any comments or any questions for us, please talk to us at Grace Chapel, or email us. If you would like to offer support in any way, or would like to receive email updates along the way, please email at:

serenity@sterling.net or andy@sterling.net

Sincerely,

Andy and Serenity Coulombe