Montana (?!?)

For those of you who have been paying close attention to our blog, it may come as a surprise to read that we are in Montana right now.  To be honest, it’s a surprise to us as well, but, here we are.  To understand how/why we are here will take a bit more explaining.

Those reading our blog, by now, should be familiar with our family’s incredible experiences at the Heritage Homestead in Waco, Texas.  I can’t remember if I have written anything about the other locations around the country and world that the model of the Heritage Homestead is being practiced, so I will take the time to do so now.

The Heritage Homestead was establish in Waco, Texas roughly 40 years ago.  This location is by far the largest and most complete expression of it’s practices and values.  In recent years though, the model of their community has started to express itself in other locations outside of Texas.  These locations include Mexico, South Africa, New Zealand, Israel, Virginia, Idaho and Montana.

When we found out that they had a (much smaller) community in Deary, Idaho (less than a 6 hours drive away from our home in Seattle, WA) we were very excited to visit and see how it compared to our experiences in Texas.  Obviously, Idaho is much closer to home than Texas.  And because our originally planned route home was taking us from Boise, ID to Seattle, it would hardly be a detour to visit Deary, ID on the way home.

Knowing that the Heritage Homestead also had a community in Montana, we thought for a minute to visit that location on our way home, but we realized that it was going to be too far out of the way to travel there on our way back home and so we decided not to visit there at this time.

That is, until about one week ago.  When we called Mel’s Uncle Ken and Aunt Shirley to coordinate our schedule with their’s, we discovered that they would be leaving for Seattle to visit Mel’s family the same time we had planned on visiting with them.  We were able to eat dinner with them for just one night.

Call it coincidence, fate or something else.  Suddenly we had an unexpected hole in our schedule.  Mel and I both thought the same thing.  Maybe we can go to Montana?  With a few phone calls, we connected with a family that lives in the Montana community that we met in Waco during the conference.  They told us they would be delighted if we visited them and we made plans to do so.

So here we are, in Montana.  We have been here only three days now, but I could write many things about this place.  I could talk about how much closer Montana is than Texas.  I could talk about how the landscape and the climate reminds me of home.  I could talk about the way I felt when we drove alongside the snow-topped mountains.

All these thoughts and more consume me as we are embraced by a community of people who are so much like the people we met down in Texas.  So much are our hearts alive as we earnestly pray for God’s guidance and wisdom as we surrender our lives to His future plans for us.  I do not pretend to know the future or have all the answers.  All I know is that I have never felt this way before.