God has been speaking powerfully to us lately and we finally heard Him loud and clear and have moved forward with some big changes for our family. These decisions were finalized the day before Frank left for the mission trip, but not shared since we hadn't told our staff family yet. We shared at staff retreat and now I want to share with you. Below is a copy of the email we have created to help people understand what's going on with us. As it says, please keep us in your prayers. I like to summarize it all by saying that I am stepping out so that God can lead me back in. Pray for His leading to speak clearly to me over these next few months as I recover and heal and make decisions of how to move forward.
After some intense prayer and a very rough road over the past year, we have come to the point of needing to make some changes within our family. When we first moved here and began our ministry work, it was our intention to both work equally. This worked well for over a year, especially since we had only one young son, who was pretty easy going. Within the past 2 years however, we have added another son (which began as a very difficult pregnancy), and a teenage "daughter." This past year Carisa began homeschooling Paxton, and overseeing Kirsten's cyber-homeschool experience. Kyler also grew up to be an extremely high maintenance toddler (now 15 months old). Frank has spent over 6 months with an intense schedule renovating the Miracle House. Thankfully it is complete and his transition into full time recovery ministry is almost complete. The transition in his ministry life has also taken place this past year, which has meant double-duty in many areas as he still led many teen things too and continues to be involved with aspects of the worship team.
There have also been some personal issues within our family that we would rather not go into detail about, but that have played a huge part in the difficulties we are now facing. It has come to a point of needing to change something, in order to maintain our life and family. Carisa has gotten to a point of needing to back away from her roles as a leader in ministry. For the past 3+/- years she has led Kids' Club, Prayer Pals, God's Girls, God's Girls Sunday school, and Reading Rocks. She co-leads a few of those but the ultimate responsibility has been hers. She also handles work for the church website, and all administrative duties of being a missionary family (finances, thank you's, newsletters, emails, etc.). It was fine when we just had Pax and he wasn't being homeschooled. However, many things have changed and she has hit a low and needs to recover. Please keep us in your prayers as we take these next few months, until January, to recover from a trying time in our life. Frank is moving into the full-time ministry role and will be taking over many of Carisa's responsibilities while she stays home to focus on homeschooling and being a mother. As the transition occurs it will be difficult, as people who are used to working with Carisa, now begin to work with Frank. We know it may be difficult for people to understand and some may be shocked because we might have given the impression that everything has been fine.
The bottom line is that we want to be a missionary family, we want to live in the inner city, we want to do what we do. The truth is, it is VERY hard. Life is very different here and very different than it used to be. Life has spiraled out of control and now we are trying to pick up the pieces before it gets to a point where we say we don't want to serve God full time. To protect our family, our ministry, and our walk with the Lord, we feel Carisa needs to take a step back for awhile.
At least until January, Carisa will not be working in any ministry role. Her leadership will be handed over to someone else during this time and will be reevaluated in January. She will continue to teach her God's Girls Sunday School class, as we believe it would not be healthy for her to back out entirely and this is an area she can maintain in more of a volunteer type status. Frank will be taking over the administrative duties of our missionary family life. Trish and Denise have stepped up to lead Kids' Club and Trish will be taking over Prayer Pals entirely. Please pray for them as they assume these big responsibilities.
Please pray for us, pray for healing, pray for peace. Please thank God for his leading in our lives and ask Him to keep the path laid out clearly for us. Pray as January arrives that we will be clear on how to move forward from that point.
Thank you for understanding, listening, and above all praying.
Love in Christ,
Carisa & Frank
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