A Note from Tim & Trinity to DHBC

I noticed many faces missing from church yesterday that I want to share something with. I read a version of the following at the end of the worship service yesterday morning. I've changed it a bit to suit reading on here rather than hearing us say it in person, but this is basically it:

July 8, 2007

In the last year or so Trinity and I have made multiple trips back and forth to Missouri for various reasons. In addition to the regular holiday trip or two, Trinity's grandma had a serious heart attack, I performed my first wedding for my cousin, my sister graduated from college, and you all remember that my grandma died just a little more than a month ago after a couple of years of slow deterioration. Trinity is also going back for a quick trip this week to be there for the birth of her sister's third baby. As you can see, a lot has been going on in the lives of our families. Thankfully we have been able to get back to Missouri for so much of that – we are so grateful to you our church for being so flexible and understanding as we have traveled, and for helping pick up the slack from my absences on some Sundays. But all of this traveling back and forth, and the long distance relationships with our families have been hard on all of us, and after much thought we have reached the difficult decision that it is time for us to move so that we can be there for our families in ways that we cannot be here, at so far a physical distance from them. So, this morning we wanted to let you all know that our last Sunday here with you will be July 29th. My dad is going to come down to help us finish packing Monday, July 30, and we will make the drive up to Missouri on Tuesday, July 31. We will move into our new apartment in Kansas City, MO on August 1st.

We have known for quite a few months now actually that this day was coming soon, we just weren't sure about the details yet, or really about the best way to let you all know about it. As a result of not knowing how to tell people, we have not tried to keep this decision a secret, but we obviously had not made an official announcement yet either, because we didn't want to do it too early. As with so many other milestones of my time of working for this church, neither Trinity or I have ever done this before, so some people have found out at different times and in different ways in the last few months, and others might just be finding out at this very moment. This kind of decision is a hard and messy one, and I hope that everyone understands how difficult it can be to navigate through the timing of letting you all know. I am sure we have not done it perfectly, and perhaps some have wished they had found out in a different way, but I hope that any shock of finding this out will not get in the way of saying goodbye in the coming weeks.

Now, some might think I should ignore this elephant in the room, but you all know I don't do that very well, so let's just get right to it. I know some people are bound to think that we are leaving because of the controversy and accusations some folks made about me. I am not going to tell you that that painful experience has not deeply affected Trinity and me in serious ways, but please believe me when I tell you that that is not why we are leaving. We are not running away because of what happened. We had actually already decided before any of that happened that sometime this summer would be when we moved. It was on our drives back and forth to Missouri last Thanksgiving and Christmas that Trinity and I began talking about moving back there, and I told Jonathan and Gerry about our decision to do so before any of that controversy unfolded. Whatever pain any of us still have as a hold over from that experience, I want this to be clear because I don't want anyone involved in that to get the blame for our leaving. We had already made our decision, and I am deeply saddened that our last six months here unfolded in the way that they did, but none of that changed the fact that this day was coming soon for us anyway. Regardless of what happened, no one deserves to be the scapegoat for the sadness that our moving brings with it.

When friends have grown as close as we have in the last four years, moving is a very hard and sad thing no matter the circumstances, and we must keep that in perspective as we move through the coming weeks together.

We have not reached this decision easily, and there is so much that we wish to say to you friends. This church has meant so much to us these last four years, and we cannot imagine our lives without you. While we are going to gain much by moving closer to our families, you will be greatly missed, and I hope you know that for me our relationship with you all has been one of a kind. I have dreamed of being a minister since I was a small boy, and it is here that you all allowed and encouraged me to dive in and see what that dream was really about. For that I am deeply grateful and I know that I will draw from the lessons learned here for the rest of my life as a minister. God and Trinity and I are still working out the details of what that ministry is going to look like in the coming years, but my relationships and experiences here at this church have been pivotal in that process.

So many of you have also been just plain wonderful friends to Trinity and me, and we hope that we can continue to be friends for years to come. Thank you so much for these years of friendship and support and encouragement through all the good, the bad, and the in-between that we have been through together. We love you very much, and I hope that we can all commit to being creative in the way that we proceed from here. For better or for worse, probably in reality there is a little of both mixed in there, we have approached our roles here in non-traditional ways, and so we are also in non-traditional territory as we say goodbye and as we depart this place. Your guess is as good as mine as to where our relationships will go from here, but we are committed to being as creative with that future as we have been up to this point.

We are not exactly sure what we are going to do when we get to Kansas City – we only know that right now we are following our hearts and the confusing but compelling still small voice of God, which is leading us back to Missouri. When I was at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship meetings a little over a week ago, a missionary couple told us about their sense of call to a new place in another part of the world – they didn't know exactly what God had for them to do there, but they knew they had to go. As they told their story I felt like they were telling our story. Along with my cousin and some old friends from college we are going to move into a poor urban neighborhood in historic northeast Kansas City and see what God has for us to do there as his hands and his feet. We will likely not get paid for that, but we have faith that we will find other ways to pay our bills. We both plan to find jobs within the community in which we will be living. Trinity plans to enter a Master of Social Work program after we have lived there for a year. I hope that we can keep you all up to date about things as we get settled and enter this new chapter in our lives. Who knows, maybe I'll even start another blog!

Sincerely,
Tim & Trinity Honse