The Call

The Call

I now find others asking us: “What made you move to Kentucky?” And implicit in that question—from United Methodists anyway—is the understanding that the underlying question is “How is that you were called to Red Bird?” I’ve asked many people, myself, to explain their “call” to me, and was never satisfied that I knew just what they meant by an understood call.
So now the shoe is on the other foot and others wonder about us. Surely some sense of call motivated us to leave family, our friends and church, our home and possessions, and move to a very remote place in Southeast Kentucky. Our story won’t make any more sense to you than others’ stories made to us. We simply couldn’t not do it. It would have hounded us. As believers in the Christ, we say our lives are not our own, they are lived by and for a much larger purpose than that of simple human existence. So short of getting philosophical, theological, or weird, I can only say that our faith has been like stepping into a stream and it has carried us along our entire lives. (And water has so much spiritual significance that this seems an apt analogy.) It is the only life worth living and it is wholly satisfying.
And so we said yes to an opportunity to live and serve in the heart of the mountains and forest of Southeast Kentucky. We don’t know that it is for the rest of our lives. We say it’s not so much a destination as a direction. And that is enough for us.