2017: Our Year for “Crazy Faith Required” Things

Just under two years ago we left a place we had both called home our entire lives. Jon loaded up a U-Haul while I boarded a plane with our two kids and to head off to a place we had never been before. To a place that would bring us so many new adventures. A place that would bring us closer together as husband and wife. A place that would introduced us to some of our new lifelong friends. And to a place that would grow a dream inside of us that we could no longer push to the side, and that we’re now pursuing with everything we have. We are so thankful that we can look back to the exact night up here in Washington where we felt the strongest pull and tug on our hearts from God to go after the business and dream that He had been growing in us for such a long time.

If in March 2016 we would have still been in our home in Queen Creek, Arizona, neither one of us feel like we would have felt the pull and been able to run towards it. Jon would have said “that’s a good idea but I’m climbing the corporate ladder at my current job”. And I wouldn’t have believed in myself enough at that time, so I would have ran away from it, not towards it.

I remember like it was last night when we were sitting in our brand new dining room in our new home in Washington. The kids were asleep, Jon was sitting in his green chair at the head of our farm table and I was sitting next to him on our bench. We looked at each other with more emotions than we knew was possible to feel at one time. There was the obvious excitement that we both had such clear direction of building our own business together. But there was also the what in the world do we do? emotion with Jon never having picked up a camera before. There was also fear for a multitude of reasons. Fear about can we make this be successful? Fear for holy cow are we really going to finally build our own business? Fear about will this financially support us? Fear for wow, there sure are a lot of other photographers for people to choose from! And fear for the sake that that’s all the enemy would want us to focus on when we decided to go in the direction we felt the Lord moving us. Can I just saw how INCREDIBLE it feels that we didn’t let fear stop us!! We prayed, wrote our plan down on paper, set it into action, and we went for it. And now it’s all. paying. off.

As we shared in our blog post a few weeks ago we achieved our 4 year goal of becoming DEBT FREE!!! That was huge for us because it’s been our number one goal for a long time. With our big dreams of launching into full time business this year, we knew that being debt free would be our strongest way to launch.

But achieving that goal brought us to another moment of excitement and fear. We had come so far, but the next step and direction we felt we needed to take seemed so amazing, but so scary! We have felt like we’ve been learning the same lesson on repeat: ‘Let go of control and trust in the Lord’. Situation after situation had been challenging us, but at one point we finally realized we really hadn’t learned the lesson because we still hadn’t learned to actually let go of control and trust Him! So, with every bit of faith in us, we are practicing that lesson in real life and in real time and choosing to let go of control, fear, emotion, anxiety, and stress, and to let the Lord lead us.

We have now sold our house here in Washington. We listed it and it was on the market for one week before it was under contract and sold. We have packed our boxes and we have moved out. We just finished filling up a storage unit and moving our things into my parents house with the help of some amazing friends who believe as much as we do in what we are doing.

For the next few months we will be partying it up wit my parents and taking over their basement, because, the BIG news we’ve been talking about and have been SO excited to share with everyone is that…..

…..we are…..

MOVING BACK TO ARIZONA!! ????☀️

Back home and back to the valley of the sun where we cannot wait to begin our journey. It feels so good to finally say this out loud!! We have been keeping this a secret for quite awhile as we have been working out all the details, but we are so excited to share with you that we will be moving back this summer! You’d think that being a couple of Arizonans we would know better than to move in the middle of summer, but there’s nothing like 115 degrees of dry heat to welcome us back home, right? There’s also nothing like the Mexican food and Pita Jungle that will be there to welcome us back!

We are taking a huge leap of faith and putting everything we have into working full time for ourselves. It’s a time full of excitement for what lies ahead, and bittersweet sadness for the people, community, and perfect summers we are moving away from. But ultimately we know that God’s plan is greater than our own ever could be and there is no doubt in our minds that He is making all of this happen for our good.

Here’s to new adventures for our family and our business. See you soon, Arizona!

Love you guys!
Erica & Jon

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”

1 Chronicles 16:11 “Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face evermore!”