the next chapter

So the big question has been...what's next for the Hughes family?

This has been a burden on our hearts for the past year. We have been praying, seeking counsel, and thinking through a lot of options.

Basically 2 opportunities had presented themselves:
#1 stay at our current church (which we absolutely love!) and serve there or
#2 move to Pittsburgh and help with a church plant that our church sent out last summer.
After a lot of praying regarding both these ministries, we felt like we had no clear direction. We just love our church and the thought of leaving is heart-breaking. However, we also love the new ministry in Pittsburgh and those who are involved there. We had visited in July and were excited to consider moving there, but as soon as we came home, we were thrilled to be back among our church family.

A few weeks ago, we visited Pittsburgh again, and this time, we felt, God truly "connected the dots" for us! So many desires that we had regarding future ministry, truly fell into place for the first time. We felt, after that weekend, that God was truly leading us to move there! There are so many details I could share, but would probably turn this into a long rambling post...! If you have specific questions, you can post them in the comments and I will try to answer.

There is currently a team of 3 families that moved from our current church to start this one.
We are excited to soon be a part of Redeemer Community Church - website here.

This is who we will be serving with in Pitt!
Dan Valentine - Adam & Adrianne Thomas (who also have Owen & Claire - playmates for Graham!)

the Joyce family - Jeff, Thresa, Noah & Marshall
(they are also our current landlords!)

Right now we are still working on securing a place to live and Andrew is diligently job-searching. (Being a new church, there are no paid positions yet! All the pastors are currently working other jobs). Nothing is solidified yet, and so we would greatly appreciate your prayers for God to clearly open some doors. We hope to be there by July 1st, but depending on how housing/job pan out, could be sooner or later... Starting to get a little anxious as things we thought were going to work have fallen through. But we trust that God's sovereign hand has a perfect plan for us.

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We are excited to get there and can't wait to see how God is going to use the Gospel in this city! We welcome anyone who wants to come visit!

I think I took a pretty good pic, huh? :~)

You’re the God of this city, You’re the King of these people, You’re the Lord of this nation, You are…
You’re the Light in this darkness, You’re the Hope to the hopeless, You’re the peace to the restless, You are…
there is no one like our God, there is no one like our God…
greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city, greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done here. (Blutree)