Mondays and Multiplication

Hello all.

It has been a while since my last post, but only because our life has been crazy busy with all that God is doing in this wonderful city. I wish I had videotaped the last couple months so you could see, but since that would be a really long movie, I'll try to hit the highlights in writing. Here goes...

The New Year brought about a renewed sense of purpose in our life. We began to ponder that next step that God would have us take to expand the circle of influence he had for us here. As we felt led, we began to host a series of dinners at our house for anybody to come and eat. I don't think it ended up working out the way we expected, but when God is in charge, does it ever? Our apartment became the meeting place for pretty much a group of "regulars". Most of these students, have some affiliation with the catholic student group on campus. How this came to be is a really long story of twisted connections.

The first couple of dinners in January were kind of get to know each other events. However, last week we watched Rob Bell's video of his talk called "Everything is Spiritual". You should have seen the group of us sitting there watching. I was nervous/excited/praying the entire time. It worked out GREAT. We were able to talk about some huge things and open the "idea" door pertaining to what we are planning on for Monday nights to look like from here forward.

That said, Monday nights, starting in February, will be a time when Rob and I will be opening our home to be the meeting place for a new "branch" of Shawmut Springs, our house church here in Boston. We are multiplying in order to expand that circle of influence and to further the kingdom of Christ. Both groups will still be under the larger Shawmut umbrella, but we will be the new addition called the Hillside House. This is an amazing leap of faith, and we feel like God has his hand on this transition. He is moving here in our city and we are excited to see what he has in store for us.

We just gone done with our Monday dinner for tonight. It was packed with mashed potatoes, meatloaf and dominoes. However, the most important event of the night was when we told the group that starting in February, this would turn into a house church meeting. They were VERY receptive and I think God was truly here in this place with us tonight. I can't speak entirely for Rob, but I know my mind is whirling. Faith is a funny thing. You try to have it, but then when you realize that you are and God is moving through that faith, it can be earth shattering. It's the kind of thing that gets your blood pumping. :)

Please pray for us as this is going to be an amazing, but busy and somewhat difficult time. I am in my last full semester of school and Rob is working hard as always. Pray that we would learn to manage this and that God would bless this transition. Pray that he would open hearts and minds. Pray that he would comfort emotions and quiet anxieties.

We love you all and are excited to be on this journey with you.

Heather