The Hardest Night of Our Lives

A while back, we were contacted by First Baptist Church of Millington. We expected like the other offers to pray about them but politely turn them down. After praying, praying, praying and fighting God on this, He made it very clear that we are to go whether we were ready or not.

This has been a long painful process. We've decided God needs to put us in one church for the rest of our lives because this part stinks. We're smart enough to know that when God leads, we must follow, but that doesn't make this any easier.

We went in view of a call last Sunday. Its customary to go in view of a call on a Sunday morning and then go back and tell your current church that Sunday night. Due to Sunday being Easter and us not having an evening service, our announcement had to wait. Bro. Eddie wanted to announce it on a Sunday morning so that meant waiting a week after we were introduced to FBC Millington. Since we are still in the same area we knew it would be hard to keep that a secret for a whole week. We had heard that people from Millington had friends at Hickory Withe so there was def talk and word was out. Thankfully Bro. Eddie gave us the green light to tell our students last night rather than waiting until Sunday. We wanted to tell them before we told the whole church anyway and we wanted them to hear it from us and allow us to explain.

I knew this wouldn't be an easy thing, but I never imagined it being this difficult. Last night at 6:15 we pulled our youth leaders together and explained everything to them. These are our trusted adult helpers that help make our youth ministry what it is. They were gracious and encouraging and prayed over us before we went downstairs to tell our students.

Daniel spoke an excellent message on what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. You must first come to Jesus, listen to Jesus, and live for Jesus.... even when its hard. You must obey even when it hurts. Yes, this was a message for our kids, but for us as well. He prayed and I walked up there. I couldn't even look at our kids so my eyes stayed on the floor or on D. He explained to them that we weren't looking to leave but that a church had contacted us. As much as it hurt and wasn't what we had necessarily planned, we had to be obedient to Christ. As our voices gave way to emotion, our adult leaders surrounded us and talked when we couldn't. I have never felt so supported and loved in my life. We explained to our students how much we loved them and how it was ripping our hearts out to leave. But we encouraged them that this student ministry isn't built on Daniel and Candace, but Jesus... and that won't change. Our adult leaders reassured them that they would carry on our routines and events until God brought the next youth minister in.

We know we are being obedient but this part really stinks. We love these kids and leaders so much... saying goodbye just hurts... plain and simple. We are so thankful we had 3 1/2 years with them. Our lives are better because of it.