Richmond, VA

Well, the decision is made and we are headed to Richmond, VA.  We are hopeful that the move will be early this summer, but there are still pieces that need to fall into place before the move can commence.

This year has been riddled with discernment for us.  An opportunity to perhaps work at Swiss L'abri - our dream job in so many ways, but far from family, and paper work to get Italian citizenship (in order to get a visa) has taken hours of work and weeks of waiting for documents... this still isn't resolved and won't be till fall.  It didn't feel right to wait for this uncertain possibility.  The thought of working at a college in Lithuania - what a vision the school has, what an amazing adventure that would be.  An arts pastor in Illinois?  A upper school teacher in CA, TX, OK, ID...?  All thoughts that have been tossing in our heads and taking so much imaginative energy and thought.  There were times when I wondered if we would ever be truly content choosing any one of these jobs.

But, in the end, a small (but growing) k-12 classical school in Richmond, VA just seemed right.  It is close to my family (at least in comparison to Scotland).  Opportunities for Jim to teach college or seminary classes seem like a possibility.  The school has a vision for community that is in line with ours... the vision of L'abri (hospitality) came up in conversations and Jamie Smith's book Desiring the Kingdom was on the headmasters desk.  Jonah will go to the school, which we are excited about (I'm sure I'll write more on this later).  And with a nine month contract, summers to write and travel are very alluring.

It is funny, because I think if you had told us a year ago that we would be genuinely excited about Jim taking a upper school teaching job I would have been surprised.  But, we are so excited, and not just to have this job, but to be moving to this place at this time.  We have a vision of putting down some roots in this place and building community in Richmond.

We feel content with this choice.  More than that, I feel a peace that this is the right choice for our family right now.  And, while I feel sad that we won't be at L'abri this year and that other interesting adventures are not ours, more than anything I feel grateful for all the options and choices that have felt overwhelming through the year.  Somehow in this crazy process of thinking about what is next, we've figured out where we are to be and it is somewhere in all that imagining that we became confident in this choice.

So, there it is my friends.  Another grand adventure lies before us.  Richmond, here we come!