4/9/11 Tribute Story

The Story of the 911 Mission

Today is the 9 year anniversary of one of the biggest days in my family's history!

April 9th 2011 was the day we moved out of our home and set out to live life on a 911 mission to help people full time.

We left the security and certainty of our jobs and dreams, planned future and business inheritance, for what we believed was God’s dream for our lives.

We left a steady future and paychecks for a new dream, one that would require great sacrifice.
Money and security are idols in our society. “Knowing our future” and having a plan are too!
The idols had to die for this dream to come true.

We were called to go from “my father's house” to a new land that God would eventually show us. (Genesis 12:1,2)

This would require 100% trust in God (as best as we knew how). When you are called to trust that means you don’t get to see the map ahead of time. You just have to go no matter where the map may lead.

For years prior to this day… Amie and I had both seen the numbers 911 everywhere we turned. We saw them so frequently that it started to scare us.

Random times of looking at the clock… 911 - it was constant. Every time we saw it, it was like God was trying to get through to us!!

What did it all mean?

It was like He was saying, “HEY! What are you doing with your life? What are spending all your time, energy and money on? There is an urgent mission out there. Get with it!”

Eventually we began to see the numbers 911 as our mission.
A rescue 911 urgent mission to help people.

People in our world are in need of help! We all are in need of help. We felt that we had to give our lives to helping as many people as we could.

Enforum was Born

We started an organization to help people. We called it “Enforum.”

Enforum’s mission was to get the “faith community,” the various churches, to leave the buildings, to unite around a common mission, and to make a bigger impact helping people in the community. Bridging the gap and creating common ground was our purpose.

This was our mission, it was to bring God’s love to the world. It was a 911 mission.
Bridge the gap of indifference through common ground causes in our community.

All over the world and in every community there is division.
Division in homes.
Division in government.
Division in churches.
All over the world and in every community there are people pushing personal agendas.
Not heaven's agenda. Heaven's agenda is a united people under the banner of truth.

The devil's desire is to divide and separate, pitting one person against another, one government against another, one church against another.

People fall prey to the devil's desire to divide and take the bait of offense as a reason for setting sail in their “own direction.” They take their “differences” and start new denominations, causes and band wagons against whatever they do not agree with. They pack their purposes with personal agendas under the disguise of the greater good of people.

Parents do it.
Business owners do it.
Government officials do it.
And MOST unfortunately churches, faith based leaders and pastors do it too.
Some… Knowingly. Others Unknowingly.

As we looked around our world and community nearly a decade ago we desired to be part of the solution rather than sit around and talk about the problem.

Not that we had the answers really. But one thing we had was the desire to jump out and try to make a difference in people's lives and the community.

Our desire was to unite people, churches, community groups, business’ around common interests setting aside personal agendas for the greater good of the people.

Rather than speaking negative messages about what we were against… we thought and said,

“It’s time that we start talking a lot more about what we are for and less about what we are against.”

Out of the House

At this time, we started asking God to show us the way to step out into this 911 mission.

Step 1 was to sell the house.

One day a man walked into the store (our family business) and asked my brother if he knew any houses for sale. He said, “Yeah, my brother's house is for sale.”

At this point we hadn’t put it on the market, nor done any advertising.
We had just told my brother that day we were going to sell it.

The man drove by and looked at it. Said he loved it at first glance. He didn’t walk into the house.
He just said… “I want to buy your house. I can pay cash for it.”

Two weeks later we were moving out of the house!!!

4/9/11

We had just finished moving out the last piece of furniture.

This was the house that we bought when I was 21 years old. I was now about 30.
It was a sentimental moment to say the least. This was the only house our kids would really remember from early childhood.

That morning I read a passage in Joshua. It was chapter 4.
The section of scripture was called “Memorial Stones.”
The people of Israel were just about to cross the Jordan river to go into a new land.
They were leaving the old land, and entering new territory.

In a sense, my family was in the same position.

Joshua told the leaders to grab a rock from the middle of the river as a memorial stone for everyone to remember the moment. That when time would pass, they could tell their kids and the coming generations what God did.

The stone would help them remember the moment.

One of the cool things about our house was that my dad and I used his tractor and put 160 huge rocks all around the property to landscape. I had stones all over the place.

I got the idea to do what Joshua did.

I told the kids to go get a decent size rock from the yard and bring it to me.

What we decided to do to celebrate this new season was to sing a song and sign the rock so that we would remember what God just did.

He provided a buyer for the house miraculously so that we could get onto this 911 mission.

After singing, everyone in the house signed the rock. There were about 10 of us.

Someone yelled out, “Don’t forget to write the date on it!”

I said, “What is the date?” I’ll never forget the voice when it came through.

It was my buddy Jesse! He had a big deep voice. He said…

“IT’S 4/9/11.” For 911.

Out of the house 4-911

I immediately burst into tears. I don’t know what everyone else heard. But for me, I heard clear as a bell…. You are leaving this house for the 911 mission. For 911.

My mind was completely blown away by God’s incredible timing. He had this day all set up. It was like he had it planned just this that way the whole time. He sent a buyer on the perfect day.

The BIG Lesson

Looking back at the miracles, it’s easy to see that God had it under control the whole time. Through all the sleepless nights of worry, He has a plan. The times of stress, questioning, wondering if God would come through for us, He had a plan.

When you look back at your life and see moments like this peppered throughout the journey, moments where God shows up right on time, it teaches you that you can trust Him no matter what the circumstance looks like.

When you feel like you are up against a wall with nowhere to turn. God can and will come through when you trust Him. When you don’t know what to do next or how to make things happen, God knows how to make it happen.

His timing really is perfect. Being patient is part of the process. Patience requires persistent trust when things do not look like they are going your way.

What a Journey

What a journey it has been. We’ve had some successes and many failures since we left the house, the family business, and the security of knowing what the future holds.

There are many days I look back over the last decade and wish things turned out different.
But any time I do look back in regret, I am reminded of God’s perfect timing.

We chose to step out on what we believe was God’s mission for our lives.

We believe God confirmed it through miracles and cool little wonders along the way.

We will stand by those wonders and the God who gave them to us until our dying day.

That’s why we celebrate 4/9/11. That’s why we stay the course no matter what comes against us.

The Devil Doesn’t Like Us

We stand for unity. We stand for bringing people together not tearing people apart.

We don’t stand for hypocritical leadership and we will call things like we see them.

Because that’s the case some people have left us, started their “own” things, and told people lies or “partial truths” about us to break down our reputation. The devil wants to take the very thing you stand for, and get others to believe that it’s actually what you are against.
He’s tricky, but his lies won’t win in the end. Truth will shine through.

Here is the beauty in it all.

God knows our hearts. He knows what we left. He knows why we left it.
He knows our desire to see unity in the community, and church.

We know we can trust God through every battle, every breakdown, every lie, and that in the end, our hearts for Him and for the 911 mission will ring true.

If you are walking down the road and you don’t run into the devil every once in a while,
it might be because you are going in the same direction.

One thing I know for sure… we run into the devil a whole bunch…

The 911 Mission Defined

The mission we are on is about people! It’s about helping people. It’s about loving people.
It’s about being real, honest, and up front with people.
It’s about standing for something worth dying for.
It’s about standing against lies. Manipulation. Personal agendas. And Indifference.

You might be asking…

How can you stand for unity and “bridging the gap of indifference” and yet clearly stand against certain things.

Here’s our answer...
If you don’t stand against those things which break down unity,
there is no way to be truly united. Our unity would be a fraud.

Therefore we stand against gossipers, whisperers, and backbiters. The two faced people who say what you want to hear and then turn around and tear you down.

We see it everywhere. You see it everywhere. The best way to beat it is to confront it.
Confront it with love. Confront it with humility. Confront it with truth.

“Real friends stab you in the front, not the back.” The truth in love is real friendship.
Telling people what they want to hear to win friends is called deception.

Proverbs 27:6 “Faithful (helpful) are the wounds of a friend…” (a true friend will be loving and real with you in order to show you kindness and help you) “but the kisses (lies and telling people what they want to hear to make them feel better) of the enemy will deceive you in the end.”

To have unity we have to have common ground.

The mission of Enforum is to bridge the gap of indifference through common ground causes that impact people in our community socially, spiritually and politically. This is a 911 Mission.

Let’s Go! Neal and Amie