Higham Update - 10.23.2013

Have you ever wondered just how much trust was necessary to say that you really trusted God? How much does one need to endure before he can say, "God, I really DO trust YOU!"?

It's been a number of months since I last shared an update about the Higham's and Harvest Church. And with all that we've been going through, I thought it might be a good time to catch you up.

At the beginning of the summer I shared with you about the financial difficulty that we found ourselves in. Well, the struggle went on for most of the summer. It was a very tight summer. In fact, things got pretty bad. For most of the summer we lived on the salary that we receive from Harvest. Still being a young and small church, it's not enough to make ends meet. So in early June, we decided that we would once again need to supplement our income by working a second job. I started filling out applications and send out my resume to every and any job opening that somewhat matched my skill sets. We had a couple leads to some possible jobs, but at the end August we still had nothing.

Along with our financial bind, we started dealing with appliance issues. First the dryer went down. After a couple weeks of hanging the laundry on a line in the back yard, the dryer was fixed. God sent a gentleman some who blesses people by fixing dryers. Shortly after getting the dryer running, the microwave decided it would stop working. Fortunately, the microwave was covered under the home warranty. Unfortunately it took about 7 weeks, four separate visits by repairmen, 2 bad replacement parts and 3 misdiagnosis's before the warranty company replaced the unit. The air conditioner went out on us twice, but that too was covered by the home warranty. While waiting for the microwave to be fixed, the dryer went out a second time, so it was back to hanging laundry in the yard. But thankfully, our new friend returned and make the repair. Everything is working just fine now.

The grass got kind of high in August as the deck on my little push mower cracked right by the front wheel, making it impossible to mow. A couple weeks passed as I tried to figure out what to do. But then one day, a friend from the church stopped by to take a look at the mower. He took it with him and about a day later, the mower returned with a new deck. In the meantime, my neighbor heard that my mower was down and he mowed the front and side lawn for me. Two amazing blessings!

School start at the end of August, and we hit the hardest week thus far. In trying to keep food on the table and the utility companies somewhat happy, I was paying a partial bill for our landline, cell phones, internet and TV service. (Everything was bundled together for savings. Yeah, right.) Anyway, the phone company didn't like my decision to feed the family over paying the full amount of the bill, so the turned off our service. We went a full 5 days before we were able to get it turned back on. It was a very humbling time as we have never had a utility turned off.

Now during all of this, I am still trying to keep my hopes up, caring for the church, studying and preparing weekly messages, and trying to find a job some where. I was sending out about 4 resumes every other day or so. Still nothing.

But Amy and I continued to trust God. While we didn't understand why we were being brought to a place of total brokenness, we believed and still believe that it will service some purpose and bring glory to God. Our friends have been wonderful as they did their best to walk with us through the difficulties. We were grateful for the special envelops, the food deliveries, the prayers, and the help. But mostly, we are grateful that God was beginning to use us as an example of what it means to trust in God.

Let me fast forward. Mid-September offered a glimmer of hope. Our neighbor came to me and said that one of their employees had to have emergency surgery and they needed help in their warehouse. A blessing. I started working that week.

I've been working for about 7 weeks. It has been a huge help. We still have some work before we are back to where we were financially, but we're catching up.

So the question is, how much trust is necessary to say that you really trust God? I don't know. But I know we are trusting God. We have to. There is so much that we just can't do on our own. We need God. We have to trust that He will provide, that He will sustain, and that He will be God.

Why us? Seriously, why us? Well, why not us! We stepped out on this adventure with faith. We've lived these last 14 months by faith. And if God chooses to use us to encourage others to be faithful and trust God, then we are pretty lucky. I don't know that there is an amount of trust that one must possess to say he trusts God. I think it comes down to living that trust out in your daily life. Trust isn't something you say you have. Trust is the testimony of your obedience as you live to glorify God.

- jay