the Lord of the harvest

matthew nine

In the past few weeks, we’ve found ourselves sharing our story about church planting more and more often. From beginning to end, it can exhaust me a little to remember we actually lived it, are living it – until I remember that this is the very beginning of the story, the first page of the preface, if anything. We start with the night Nick felt the like Lord clearly speak to Him – Boston. You, Boston, Gospel Community. Then we usually rewind to the part where I told him, anything but church planting. Then we skip ahead to where he told me: Us. Boston. Gospel Community. 

And I folded my arms and turned my back to him. And pouted for two years. And in the middle of those two years there was doubt and indecision and there were very hard times. And all the Lord did, Oh, ALL THE LORD DID! He did so much, but the main theme of it was this chiseling down our biggest desires. Is it really all about Jesus for us? Has He really called us to this? Is He enough? For the city of Boston? For us?

And then at the beginning of this year, the Lord gently uncrossed my arms and pointed Nick and I in the same direction. And we stood on top of Bunker Hill, looking out over our future city, and He confirmed it somewhere super deep down in our hearts. The power of the cross that was radically changing us daily was enough to move us to Boston, was enough to transform there, even though we were never enough.

And you’d think, if you wrote the plan, that the next step would be breakthrough. But you and I didn’t write it, and what came was more and more intense chiseling. And we got to walk through grief, more doubt, temptation that looked more like absolute blessing, and through each of those – when all the dust was blown off, the end product the same: we are very sinful and broken. We need Jesus. He is enough for us. He is enough for Boston.

And now, we’re in this sweet stage of chiseling. I would call it practice, but it’s not! It’s never practice! Because it’s always real live hearts and real beautiful souls living around you. And you can only wake up each morning thinking about the future and Boston and how you’ll share Him for so long until you open your eyes and see the real, actual souls around you. Your kids. The other moms at preschool. The strangers at Starbucks. The coworkers. The blog readers. The new friends. The old friends. You can’t practice gospel community and you can’t practice being a disciple.

So this season has been that. Waking up daily and asking myself, “am I stirred enough by the Lord of the harvest to share Him?”. Or even, “Am I stirred enough by the Lord of the harvest to get outside of my plans, my schedule, my problems, my desires, my inabilities, and let Him send me out? Here. There. Every moment I have breath?”

Chiseling is turning into my favorite season so far. Adjusting our plans, but more than that – adjusting our motives. Constantly saying to Him, “You are the Lord of the harvest. It all starts with You.” Letting the Lord of the Harvest mess me up and shift me and move me. And I’ve found that you can only sit on your sofa, with your hands open, asking Him to stir your affections until they’re whirling and spilling out of the pot and you’re ready to start the day. And when it’s 10am and you’ve gotten frustrated with your kids and you’ve messed up any chances for a fruitful harvest for the day, don’t worry sister. His mercies are new every morning and the Lord of the Harvest is more than enough.  

what's next & Boston

Lately when friends email or call, my heart is warmed when they ask for a Boston update. It makes me so happy that a desire the Lord placed in our hearts (to see our family be a part of the gospel going forth in Boston) has transferred to other hearts, and now there are all these extra people praying and longing to see what the Lord is going to do. So here is my update. 


A few weeks ago we were visiting the church we spent some time at when we first landed in the East Coast last fall. The plan then was something like "fly to East Coast, pitstop with family, more fundraising, head to Boston". Somewhere really quickly in to that trip, we realized the fundraising wasn't moving forward and really, in all ways, the Lord was putting the breaks on the process. It was discouraging and disheartening. And we'd go to this church for worship and just cry our hearts out to Him. One song we were often singing was "you'll come" by Hillsong United and the lyrics are like this: 


I have decided I have resolved
To wait upon you Lord
My rock and redeemer shall not be moved
I'll wait upon you Lord

As surely as the sun will rise
You'll come to us
As certain as the dawn appears

You'll come let your glory fall
As you respond to us
Spirit reign flood our hearts
With holy fire again

We are not shaken we are not moved
We wait upon you Lord
Our Mighty deliverer my triumph and truth
I'll wait upon you Lord

Chains be broken
Lives be healed
Eyes be opened
Christ is revealed

I loved that song. And I'd just belt it out to Him. Screaming almost, begging Him to come. begging Him to move. To help us get to Boston. To help us break chains in His name. See lives healed in His name. For His glory to be revealed in Boston through our family. But first, just to get us there. When we realized the church plant was going to be postponed, I had to wonder if truly He'd come, if we kept waiting. 


So last week when we were visiting the church, this song came on. And as we belted out the lyrics, pictures and pictures and pictures flashed in my head. Nick praying over me last December when I was struggling with depression. Family dinners. Hard conversations. Praying over Glory when she was in the hospital. Long runs talking to the Lord. Date nights of laughing and light conversation. Family time. Extended family time. New church family time. 


Really & truly, He came. He showed up in this year so fully. 
His glory fell on our family in the least flashy of ways, but the Spirit ignited our hearts for growing as and making new disciples, not just planting churches. We learned that through grace, by faith - we can truly be not shaken, not be moved - because He longs for good for us. Even when the good looks like earthly hard. The victory of the cross is real - in depression, in loss, in small two bedroom shacks in South Carolina. Victory in Christ is victory. 


Chains were broken, 
lives were healed, 
eyes were opened, 
Christ was revealed. 


He was gracious to do that work in us. Not necessarily through us. But we can be hopeful and excited about ministering to others, having experienced just a taste of His glory so fully. If you're in pain, in any sort of pain, and no one has told you to rejoice in those sufferings - this is me saying REJOICE IN THOSE SUFFERINGS! Cry out to Him and lean into Him and get excited. He will not leave you broken. 


So after this year, we're left with hearts that still smile when we hear a Boston accent. Still hoping that when we sit around a table with our grown children, it's in Boston. But our hands and plans are very open. Because He'll come, we just want to grow as disciples and grow in making disciples. And that can and should happen anywhere, right? Right. 
So we're excited to see what He has next. 
Because surely as the sun rises, He'll come. 

b,b,b,b, boston.

Last week, I got a formspring question (to the right, to the right, look over there in the box to the right) about our church plant. How much we needed to fundraise, if we were going through a denomination, etc. Friends also sometimes ask what is going on with our church, our hearts concerning Boston, our future plans, etc... so I figured, no time like the present. 

frozen charles river

If you're new around here, the backstory is: the Lord called my husband to plant a church in Boston about three years ago. We postponed once for him to pursue a once in a lifetime opportunity to get his Master's in Missional Leadership, see here, and we postponed once again this past fall due to the Lord really putting some big hold on our plans and my struggle with the d-word. Around Christmas 2010, I'd say our hearts were pretty fragile about Boston. I could expound there, but I don't even know where to start. We both were feeling a million different things, and in general - just fragile. 

streets of charlestown, our future neighborhood in boston

Our trip mid-February changed all that. You can read about that here. We asked that the Lord would put our hearts on the same page and give us some clarity. He answered that prayer 1,000 percent. For the first time ever, the idea of planting a church in Boston did not seem big, scary, impossible, or even doubtful. And the Lord has slowly changed our hearts so that while we're still passionate about the church, it seems like our actual calling is to just move to the city and love people the way we should no matter where we are. We don't feel like we need to go with a majillion dollars or a team of thirty people. We need enough money to support our family and be generous to the community, and we'd love another family to do life with and grow into a church with. 


For once, there are kind of many little open doors. Church planting networks, possible funding, possible jobs, etc., but we're really just waiting to hear from the Lord with some clarity about when He'd have us go and HOW he'd have us go. We can jump back into fundraising and go that way if the Lord calls, or we can start working on Nick securing a job/transferring his current job there if that's what the Lord wants. We're just waiting to know one way or the other. And it may be, that He wants us in Columbia for longer. If so, we're great with that too. The calling is secure and firm, the timing is just not so clear to us yet. 


But to answer the specific question: We know a lot of churches have planting budgets of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And don't get us wrong, if someone is passing out the G's to further the gospel, we'll put it to use. However, our current plan is to grow the church budget as it needs it, as our body grows. We won't need five people on staff immediately, we may not even need one full time person on staff immediately. We won't be having a big launch with thousands of dollars with of advertising or renting space for quite a while. Because of the nature of the city and the people, it will look much more like our family and a few other families, settling in, loving our neighbors, and moving outward from there. And as far as denominations (this was in the question as well), we'll be non-denominational but we will for sure be under some sort of authority and accountability, most likely in the form of a church planting network. 


So, some things you can pray with us for: 
- clarity about what else the Lord would have us do/work on during this season
- confirmation and provision about when is best to head to Boston
- at least one other family to follow Jesus' call in Mark 6:7-13 
& help spread the gospel with us
- when the time comes, fruitful fundraising
- continued peace, contentment, joy, and gospel-based community while we wait


So. That's what I got. 
I can't wait. I think we're all called to the great commission, to spreading the fame of Jesus where we can. I feel really, really, really thankful He's called and equipped my husband for pastoring in Boston, specifically. I love that place & those peeps.
Until then, loving practicing in Columbia. 

freedom!

I said I'd finish telling ya'll about our trip to Boston and I never did. Oops. 
The truth is, there's so much I'd like to tell you about our last two days in our future city - but I'm pretty sure these details are only mostly interesting to me. Um, and maybe my sister. She likes to hear me talk for reasons I still don't fully understand. 

he's got jokes

But I will tell you this. 
Saturday after a beautiful run and a delicious breakfast and some thrift shopping and a quick nap, (for real, who are we?!) my man and I headed out to do the freedom trail. The freedom trail is a network of historic sites in Boston that you can walk to in succession and see not only a beautiful slice of history, but a good portion of the city. It was literally about zero degrees with the windchill and getting colder by the minute. There was hardly anyone out and about on the streets, and yet we went forth anyhow. 

one gloved.

We'd already had some sweet spiritual-Jesus-connected-moments with our city, and we'd already had some romantic-oooooh-look-at-us-we're-married-connected moments, so really - all that was left was to have fun. And for the first time in years, Nick and I had tons of fun ALONE together for hours on end. We laughed and giggled and groaned about the (below) freezing weather. We snapped iphone pics and shared a pair of gloves and drank coffee and ducked in museums when we couldn't stand the cold any longer. 


We ate sweet potato fries and contemplated getting my nose pierced and Nick insisted that I read the historical info for each freedom trail stop in my (seriously nearly perfect) Boston accent. We took a video of said accent and we also popped in an Urban Outfitters just to remind ourselves of how incredibly uncool we are. Oh man, we're so uncool. 

we did pause to pray for Nick & Gospel Community on the steps of Park Street

The last two days of our trip were so wonderful and filled with awesome events, but I think that afternoon running around Boston in the cold with Nick will be burned in my memory forever. Every time I've thought about it in the past week, I've smiled and thanked God for His intense grace to let us go on that trip, to let our marriage be in the place it is now, to have let me married my best friend. 

these crazy awesome box seats they had in an old church. a whole family sits in them! and you could bring your pets and blankets from home to keep you warm. I don't have a pet, but I do love blanekts. And being comfy + church = score. 

And if you're married, here is my PSA for you: Please find a babysitter in the next two weeks, go and laugh your head off and play together and remember why you became friends in the first place. If you're in the middle of the best season of marriage or the absolute worst, just go and play for a bit. And then, repeat. And then, remind me to do it again too. 


So Nick and I can't go back to the freedom trail this weekend, but as we drove home from the airport last week, I emailed every closish friend I have who doesn't have kids and asked them to please help me with babysitting because I've got to hang out with my husband more often. Don't we all? I mean - you with yours. Me with mine, obvi:) 


What are you doing this week/month for date nights? 
How are ya'll having fun together? 
And what sort of accent are you going to fake? 
There needs to be an accent, take my word for it. 

eating through beantown

So, like I told you yesterday, I wrote a crazily long food post and accidentally deleted it. 

Blerg. So I've got to find some way to do this quicker. 

With that in mind, here is the most concise way I can describe the deliciousness that is eating your way through Boston. My intention is to tell you the absolute best places we ate, why you should eat there when you come visit us or move with us to help us plant a church (that's right I said it) and who I'd like to take to those actual places. 

Please enjoy. 

Regina Pizzeria

We went to this sweet little local pizza place on Thursday night as soon as we arrived. It was an hour wait and TOTALLY worth it. It's a little dirty, very local, and super awesome. The ambience alone was worth the wait. They were blasting New Kids on the Block & Billy Joel, and acted incredibly offended when we asked to hold the cheese and/or meat. Needless to say, I ate some sausage that night. 

Who I'd take here: anyone (not seriously vegan) looking for a casual, fun dinner who isn't very young or very old. It was for real a little loud. 

The Paramount: 

Just good old nicey breakfast. In Beacon Hill, a fancierish part of Boston. Gourmet, but small and quaint. NC got the the banana caramel french toast & I went with plain old oatmeal because I was still pretending like I wanted to eat healthy on this trip. Bahahahaha. I should have gone waffles or something. It was still delicious & award winning in my book.

Who I'd take here: my parents, any girlfriends on a getaway (talking to you Danielle & Casey), all of my Seattle or Columbia ladies.  

T popcorn: 

I don't know what to say. I was hungry. It was buttery and fresh. It only cost $1. The smell was filling the subway. I had a moment. I would not share with my husband. Please tell me you've had a food moment like this where something that normally totally disinterests you presents itself and you HAVE TO HAVE IT. And you fall in love, for a moment in time, with the morsels in your mouth. I mean, I didn't overthink it or anything. 

Who I'd take here: myself. Over & over again. 

Cafe Vittoria: 

In Boston, the North End is historically known for ridonkulously good Italian food. For good reason. There is much debate over where, however, you should go for good Italian pastries. Mike's Pastry vs. Modern Pastry. I'm here to tell you: skip both. Go to Cafe Vittoria. Delicious coffee and desserts that will make you weep. I walked in, sat down, ordered a mocha, dark chocolate covered cannoli, AND gelato. Nick said, "who are you?!" and truly I didn't know. But I loved being me for those five minutes:) I had to leave the mocha & gelato half eaten because the cannoli-baby in my stomach had left no room. But I tell you what, that cannoli is literally THE BEST THING I've ever eaten. Hands down. And I'm already working on a vegan cannoli recipe to try this weekend. 

Who I'd take here: Anyone & everyone. And they'd want to move to Boston to plant a church with us (just throwin' it out there) because they'd love that cannoli so much. 

Centre Street Cafe: 

This is one of the only places I knew I really wanted to eat at before we left Boston. Good, local, mostly organic dinery-gourmetish breakfast food. In sweet Jamaican Plains, this place is a gem. I got a breakfast burrito the size of my face. And it was no joke. Nick got some sort of strawberry & creme pancakes that tasted just like donut batter. 

Who I'd take here: Kalle Stinson. Just like our fave place, Melanie's in Boone. 

Lastly, 

The Other Side Cafe: 

If you can, imagine a bar and a vegan-deliciousness hipster joint rolled into one. Beer served with a side of vegan bacon. A pabst blue ribbon with your pancakes? Slightly dirty tables with waffle-egg-bacon sandwiches that will make you sweat hungry on top? Make sense? Nope. But it doesn't need to. Nick got a waffle sandwich that literally looked like the most appealing, awesome thing I've ever seen and has me searching craigslist for a waffle iron STAT. I went breakfast burrito with a side of bagel & vegan cream cheese. We held off on the beer, but LOVED their coffee. Best restaurant pick of our whole trip. 

Who I'd bring: Not my kids or my girlfriends. Maybe Hunkle Josh & Rubes, or any of Nick's friends. And ANY vegan or vegetarian looking for a delicious meal. 

Also, I feel the need to address the Dunkin Donut situation.

Everyone has warned me that in the northeast, Dunkin rules and Starbucks drools. I have to say, in our actual neighborhood - there are no Starbucks. There are PLENTY in the rest of downtown Boston, but it does seem there is a Dunkin everytime you turn around. In all fairness, I decided to give it a shot. My honest opinion: it's gross. It's watery and it doesn't taste like coffee. I'll drink it occasionally to seem like a real local if necessary, but I think I'll stick to home-brewed and local coffee shops. I had to pour out about 80% of my cup and I can't remember the last time I did that. Sad day. 

Now, you should know. 

Collectively Nick and I gained about six pounds and I've encountered a vast number of intestinal issues due to eating dairy & meat for days on end. I'm back to spinach smoothies and black bean salads and feeling much more normal and much more empty inside all at once. I'll be better once I make some successful vegan cannolis. 

I still highly suggest you go to Boston and eat these things PRONTO. 

stay tuned. 

hometown glory.

(blerg. somehow my food post got deleted & it was loooong. in the meantime, here's where my heart is at about Boston & specifically Charlestown. food update soon.)

bunker hill monument

"At the end of the day, it's just a city", my sister told me over the phone. We were discussing our family and Boston and what in the world the Lord had in store for us when she made this sweet declaration a few weeks ago. In all honesty, she's right - but I have a feeling that anyone who's ever considered planting a church in a city other than their own knows how untrue that statement can feel. For us, Boston is an idea that carries these heavy ideas and memories and dreams and desires. It started as a unrealistic dream and morphed into potential risky venture, and somehow we've found ourselves with it settled in our hearts as a delayed hope. Sort of a future picture with stained edges, a hazy focus, and the undeniable tint of doubt. Would the Lord have told us this for some reason other us being able to see it accomplished? Did He in fact tell us this? Will we ever make it there? It seems likely, but so have other things in the past. Faith tells us to be sure in what we hope for, humans tell us to be cautious, and our history with the Lord tells us to love Him no matter what He has in store. 

So, right, it's just a city. A city with thousands of people in need of Jesus, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't carry so much more. 

My only real hopes for the trip were to connect deeply with my husband, follow my counselor's strict orders to "play" and "rest" - which inevitably took a little planning, and I had a hope in the back of my heart that I'd hear from Him. The last time I went to Boston, I was basically just a kid, with no thoughts of church planting or preaching husbands or gospel proclamation. So I prayed a sort of wimpy prayer, asking the Lord to, you know - if He would, speak to MY heart about Boston. Nick has had his marching orders for years now, and I have had mine - but I've only felt assigned to my husband so far. The fact that the statistics just made sense to me simply added to my assurance of his call. Husband feels called, ok. 16,000 people in a neighborhood with no protestant, english speaking gospel-proclaiming churches. Done and done. I'd let the Lord decide if I needed more. 

A few hours into our stay in the city, I confessed to Nick that I didn't feel connected. Walking around the North End and the Financial District, Beacon Hill and Back Bay - I was impressed, but I wasn't home. It didn't feel like "just a city" and it didn't feel right for us. I felt out of place, small, and frustrated with feelings in general. On Friday morning, I was reading and praying and going about business as usual and all of a sudden, I felt like the Lord gave me a clear command. Maybe the first He's given me in a while. 

streets of ctown

from psalm 24: 

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord & righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. 

Jessi, please stop making an idol of this city. It is the Lord's. All of these people who are scaring the poop out of you, they are His. Not yours to compare yourself to or cower in front of. His. And who will ascend the hill of the Lord, historically meaning - enter into His church? Clean hands. Pure heart. Not the one hunched over in the corner, stressing out over her fittedness for this role or lifting up her soul to the false expectations she's been dreaming up herself. Clean hands. Pure heart. He will do the rest. 

And on we went to Charlestown. 

Walking through the neighborhood, my heart was thawing. 

This isn't about us. About our ability or our timeline or our goals or even, our family. 

Sixteen thousand people. Needing Jesus. Literally, needing Him. And we know Him. 

The Bunker Hill monument sits up on a hill, in the middle of Charlestown and once you climb the steps, you can just do turn all the way around and see the whole beautiful neighborhood. The million dollar homes, the projects, the corner stores. The hundred year old cathedrals and the boys and girls club. With each step I took up those sweet old steps, tears were just pouring down. This place is our home. This place, where a battle was fought, essentially for our freedom, is most assuredly a place where we (me, too!) are being called to fight for the freedom in Christ that is available for this city. The rest of Psalm 24 came rushing back to me, Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty the LORD, mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors,  that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory!

Those ancient doors are shifting, grating against two hundred years of hardened hearts and cold ground. 

And we're moving to Charlestown. 

boston. blog. beginning.

*** I would like to publicly apologize for the overuse of iphone pictures as we left our real camera at home because we were too lazy to bring it in an attempt to carry less baggage. To make up for it, I'm filling this post with a plethora of links for your internet perusal! ***

It's 4pm on Sunday & I'm in the beautiful logan int'l airport. 

I miss my kids something fierce and I cannot wait for an interrupted night of sleep. 

My heart is full. I've spent the weekend in Boston kissing, praying, and eating. 

So I suppose what follows is the Christian-less-well-written-more-cannoli-filled-version of Eat, Pray, Love. I have so much to share and I've devised this schedule to relay the contents of our lovahs getaway. 

Monday: first two days

Tuesday: foooooooood. 

Wednesday: state of the heart, a.k.a. ugly crying on Bunker Hill

Thursday: Saturday & Sunday

Friday: fashion friday, an essay on how to borrow clothing from friends & family to attempt and look cute for four days in a row when you're used to yoga pants and hoodies

Let's get started! 

I left you guys on Tuesday, and oh my goodness did I leave you in the best care or what?! Did you read those guest posts? They were my fave! Casey, Karissa, Beth, & Carissa - thank you soooo much. If you haven't checked all those out - pause for a sec, and do so. 

Then come back and here about our trip:) 

So Wednesday. 

Wednesday a.m., I woke up at the crack of dawn and triple checked all our stuff. I had the kids & I all packed and we hustled our little hinies down to Charleston to get them settled at their Nonny's house. We spent the day playing with Auntie Rubes and the A-kids, unpacking their bags, and lecturing them on being kind to their Nonny & Poppy while Mom and Dad were gone. 

Thursday I woke up ridiculously early to Benja screaming, "MOMMY! LOOK AT MY PUPPY!" at 4:45am. After two hours of shushing Benj, I got the kids dressed and ready and we all headed to Seacoast to hear the Rubes do some teaching for women on gospel identity. This is my public plea for her to do a guest post next week on what she taught on. Come on Rubes, do it. 

I immediately jumped in the car, sobbed for 3 minutes about leaving the kids, and trucked it back to Columbia to pick up Nick. Quick repack of the bags, little bit o' kissing (sorry, it's true), and a fast drive to CLT to catch our flight. Big thanks to Larlar for the airport drop-off, and that's it. We were headed to beantown. 

We rode from the airport to our sweet hotel wide-eyed and excited. Got settled, freshened up, and headed back out into the unusually warm night to grab some local pizza at Regina Pizzeria. (Regina Pizza? Pizza Regina? Pizzeria Regina? Everyone says something different!) Hour wait. Totally worth it. Blasting New Kids on the Block music inside. Perfect. Back to the hotel where I experienced awesome trip experience #1: putting on a hotel robe & my uggs with no intentions to be woken up by anyone. Ever. Well, for the rest of the night. 

freshened up. city folk.

staring at this door for an hour is worth it.

uggs. hotel robe. & I believe there was 30 rock involved.

Friday

Friday a.m., we'd declared sleep in and rest and cuddle morning. Of course, at 5:30, my internal alarm went off and my go-light was on. Nick didn't even curse me as I tapped away loudly on the laptop keys, rustled my Bible pages, and giggled as I g-chatted with whoever I could find awake and online. It was still a glorious and lazy morning. I mean, I was still wearing the hotel robe, how could it not be? 

all the makings of a lazy, perfect mornin'

sights in Beacon Hill

We walked through Beacon Hill and Back Bay, two beautiful areas of the city, and I slightly wished the Lord had called us to plant in those areas, but alas - we can't related too much to billionaires and we'd never afford their rent. We can, however, eat breakfast in their neighborhood and we loved The Paramount. Of course, I already want to tell you more, but I'll save it for food day tomorrow. 

Next, my first T ride took us to our actual future home of the neighborhood of Charlestown and I walked around in love. We dipped into the Bunker Hill museum for a potty break & realized they have a room that would be PERFECT for our first public meeting as a church. We prayed for favor for the space and jokingly invoked two statues as our first elders. 

Second T ride to the South End to meet with Nick's mentor and we had a lovely two hours of coffee, church talk, and just straight up encouragement. I had a moment with a T popcorn vendor because we hadn't eaten lunch. Food rules or not, Michael Pollan, if you're a hungry foodie walking by a public transit popcorn stand - sometimes you just have to stop. I loved Nick's mentor, Ralph & his wife Judy, and I'll for sure tell you more about them in the future. Back to the hotel, I went on a beautiful Charles River run, Nick took a rest and we were ready for dinner. There was something really freeing and invigorating about darting about in five o'clock traffic as I ran through the city. There was also something really humbling about every single runner on the Charles flying past me:). 

c-town. Makes me want to start singing Adele's, "hometown glory".

bunker hill museum & our first elders

the frozen charles on my sunset run

The North End (and Italian food, in general) called our name again and we headed to Ida's. Again, I'll tell you about the food later - but I can tell you straight up right now that Ida's is a definite back-alley-legit-five-families sort of place. Afterwards, we walked a few doors down to our second restaurant of the night for cannolis. Ahhhhhhh. Moment of silence for cannolis. I'm pretending like I just ate a cannoli, but there was also a sugary drink and some gelato involved. Oops. Vegan fail. 

We rolled ourselves back to the hotel, repeated the robe & ugg ritual, and passed out. 

my public transportation popcorn moment. mmmmmm.

I declare this: THE BEST THING I'VE EVER EATEN. 

holy (eaten) cannoli. And gelato. And a mocha. Who am I?

And that was our first few days! 

Or at least, the VERY short version. 

I can't wait to tell you more. 

UPDATE: our flight was delayed and it's now Monday morning. 
reaaaaaaallllly missing my kids now but more time to work on Boston blogs:) 
Love ya'll. 

best. week. ever.

This is Nick and I's iphone background. It can be yours too. I mean, why not?

Three times my husband and I have planned just-us-getaways to Boston. 

Three times we've had to cancel our trip. 

This week. This Thursday. We're getting on that plane. 

Please, Lord, help us get on that plane!

We're getting on that plane!

Not for a church planting, strategizing, filled-with-meetings trip. 

Just the two of us. Lovin' on one another. Lovin' on our city.  

We're going to sleep in. 

We're going to get up early to go running around the city (just me, that part). 

We're going to eat at vegan brunch places. 

We're going to eat chowder. 

We're going on a nice date.

We'll definitely visit a pub or two. 

We're walking the freedom trail.

We might take a nap or two. 

We are going to jam so much goodness and rest into three days that our eyes might pop out. 

And I'll live to blog about it, even if eyeless. 

In the meantime, while I'm packing up and dropping my kids off and racing for the plane on Thursday, I'm still taking care of you guys. 

I'll have guest posters to keep you entertained and JUST.YOU.WAIT.

Come Monday, 

I'll have the story of the greatest Boston getaway ever lived. 

Love ya'll. 

Jess. 

boston kitchen dreaming.

We're almost there! We're almost there! We hope, hope, hope, hope!

We'd love if you'd pray, pray, pray, pray!

Not quite sure how much longer we have in our transitional season as we do fundraising, but one thought in particular keeps me excited and distracted from the frustrations of not living in utter stability right now.

the kitchen.

As we look for THE PLACE and get so pumped for all the friends/almost-family we'll make in Boston - the groups we'll host, the families we'll have over for dinner. I can't help but think/dream/hope about the kitchen. Don't get me wrong - I don't care a thing about size - in fact a little baby galley kitchen suits me just fine, I just like to think about how it will look and how we'll decorate it and the meals I'll get to make from there.

So, I'll let you in on my thoughts and you can way in.

My only non-negotiable is that I really prefer we paint it some sort of teal/tiffany blue/pistachio mix. I haven't found the perfect swatch yet, but here are some variations that make me smile:

Doesn't that just make you want a quiet, hopeful, teal-pistachio-mint color on your walls? To me it screams (quietly, obvi) "sit down and have a cup of coffee friend!"

Now, you sweet little practical people are worried that our landlords won't let us paint and specifically won't let us paint the kitchen quiet teal-pistachio-mint green.

I feel you. I'm worried too. Except I'm not, because there are WAY bigger things to worry about in planting a church and moving cross-country, and the Lord seems to be handling those things too. However, I have a plan B.

If we can't sweet talk our way into painting, I will begin collecting fire king jadite china and displaying it like the images found below.

but collecting fire king jadite is a little bit more of an investment than painting your kitchen, amen?

However, on to other pressing daydreaming-about-our-future-place issues.

PICTURE FRAME PLACEMENT!

Now the Connolly's may not be wealthy by the world's standards but I'll tell you what we're rich in. Do you think I'm going to say love? Yes, that too.

But we're REALLY rich in picture frames.

I'd say we have like sixty. And 98% of them are black.

So this go-round, I'd like to capitalize and really decorate with them. REALLY.

I'm thinking some amalgamation of these set-ups.

Ok. This was helpful. For me at least.

Hopefully there aren't too many more fantasy decorating posts.

Because, oh gosh! I can't wait to take pictures and show ya'll our home in Boston!

Soon.