When Plans Change... — the aubuchon home

What will people think? Will people assume we failed? Or that we clearly didn’t hear God correctly at the start of this? Or that we’re giving up? These are just a few of the thoughts that went through my head when we made the decision to not move to Montréal. I felt slightly embarrassed and somewhat ashamed… but God quickly erased those feelings from my heart and head.

Ultimately, there’s not really one single reason we’re no longer moving to Montréal at this point in our lives… it’s a whole collection of reasons that just sort of all piled up at once and we felt like God was telling us to take a pause, pray, and seek Him. Through all of that, we felt like stepping away from NAMB and our move to Montréal was what we were supposed to do.

We stopped support raising in August and stepped away from NAMB sometime in September… and I’ll be honest, this has been a hard season. We’ve worked towards Montréal for so long and it’s been really sad and hard to step away from that vision for our family. We’ve clung to Jesus in this season, though. We’ve pursued Him and His plan for our lives. We’ve trusted Him deeply and have grown so much in this season of waiting and unknown.

So what are we doing? What’s next? Right now, we’re still living with family in Colorado. Sam is teaching and I am home with Zoïe. We’re in the process of trying to move back to Springfield, though. We feel God has been very clear since late August that we are supposed to move back to Springfield ( …even though we spent a good chunk of change to move ourselves and everything we own to Colorado at the end of June.) Sam has been offered a Pastoral Residency at a church in Springfield and I am in the process of joining staff at a nonprofit in Springfield. Sam’s residency will not be a paid position, so that’s the only reason we haven’t moved yet; he’s still searching for a full-time job that will give us enough income while he’s in his residency.

There’s really no reason that we’ve not shared this publicly, other than it just didn’t feel necessary. It’s something we’ve been processing and working through. It’s been messy and I’ve shed a lot of tears the past few months. It’s something we’ve really only shared with family and those closest to us.

Aside from wanting to share this information because we’re now really trying to sort through logistics of getting back to Springfield and will probably be posting about that on social media… I also wanted to share this to be transparent and hopefully encourage people who are in this boat now or might be in the future. Sometimes we pursue things while clinging to Jesus and it doesn’t end up looking like we thought. Sam and I have talked a lot about why we felt called to pursue Montréal for so long to not end up there right now… I could think about it all day and probably drive myself crazy… because I honestly have no answer. I’ve thought up reasons and answers in my head, but ultimately came to the conclusion that if we’re trusting God and being obedient… we don’t need answers to every question we have. All we need to know is that God has a plan and that He loves us.

To our friends in Springfield, we look forward to being back with all of you very soon. To our friends and family who have loved us so well through this season, thank you. We couldn’t have made it through this season without you.

- The AuBuchon Family