Cherished Family and Friends,
We hope this letter finds you well.
You have received this letter because you have made a profound impact on our family. We are embarking on a new journey as a family and we would
love for you to share in the journey with us. On December 20th we moved down to Louisville, Kentucky
to attend Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. We began contemplating this transition back in August
and the Lord has been faithful in lining things up for us to go. We will tell you more about that in a
minute but first we would like to explain the journey to accepting the calling
to seminary.
In
the past year, our family has been through many changes, mostly for the
good. The largest of these changes
being our beautiful son, Sam, to whom we are still acclimating and apparently will
be for the rest of our lives ;).
Life as parents of a small child has definitely made each day an
adventure and challenge. We are so
humbled and amazed by the way Sam is growing into a little independent man each
day. Sam is now 18 months old and
is running around the house, climbing everything in sight, speaking words, and overflowing
with an eternal well of energy. We
are very thankful that for all his energy; he also is great about eating well
and going to sleep at night .
In relation to work and for those
of you who don’t know, prior to our move to Louisville, Greg worked at Selah
House, which is a Christian in-patient eating disorder treatment facility,
where he was the Maintenance Technician and took care of the adult and teen
properties for Selah. To see the
beautiful properties he took care of you can go to selahhouse.com/photos. It was so wonderful for him to be able to work
outside in God’s green earth and appreciate the many blessings of working with
my hands to maintain a property. Greg was also able to lead many chapels during my time at Selah, which also
contributed to the answering of this call to Seminary, and was blessed to share
the gospel with many of my work associates.
This year Selah opened an
adolescent house and after much prayer and discussion, Mel decided to leave her
teaching job to become the educator at the teen house. This change has been both
wonderful and challenging. It was
great because Mel became able to come home and spend time with family without bringing home all the planning and grading that seemingly never ended
when she was a teacher. At the
same time, this change presented many financial challenges as well as
scheduling challenges in the last few months. In August, Mel was transitioned from a full-time 8-5
position to a part time 5-9pm position.
This scheduling change was both a blessing and a curse. It was positive because we were able to
stop sending Sam to daycare, which gave both of us lots of extra time with Sam,
and difficult because the two of us only got to see each other on the weekends and
an hour a day during the weekdays.
Losing her fulltime status also presented financial and insurance benefit
challenges.
As we prayed about what to do in
relation to the scheduling and financial challenges, we felt the Lord burdening
us with a calling to leave Anderson and attend seminary at SBTS. We loved our time in Anderson. We both had jobs we loved, a church
that loved and shepherded us well, and a home that provided a great place to
raise our son. Needless to say we were
sad to leave our home and friends but excited at what this new journey meant
for our family.
 |
| Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Preview Day - October 17, 2012 |
The two of us had the opportunity to
attend SBTS Preview Day in October, where we were able to spend a day and a
half on campus. It really was a
wonderful time where God blessed and confirmed our calling to SBTS in both our
souls. Through our time at Preview
days the Lord showed me how the many events of my life all tied together to
bring me to being able to accept this calling. We are truly humbled by the grace and sovereignty of God. Still, this has been an incredible leap
of faith for us.
Greg was accepted to SBTS in August, received a $400 scholarship for the spring semester, we were offered and
accepted seminary housing, and at that time we told Selah House that we would
be leaving no later than December 20th, with or without jobs in Louisville.
 |
| The living room of our new apartment on-campus at SBTS in Louisville the night of moving day. |
On December 7th, we moved
everything out of our house in Anderson into our seminary-housing apartment and
a storage unit. The Spring 2014 semester begins January 20 and Greg has already registered for classes. Mel also registered for a course through the Seminary Wives Institute and is excited to see how she will learn and grow through that.
We are also happy to announce that we are expecting again and Mel is due in mid-June. We have found a good doctor here in Louisville for prenatal care and delivery at Baptist Hospital East. The remaining
unknowns are jobs and insurance. Greg recently accepted a part-time position as youth minister at FSBC in Floyd’s Knobs
and has a couple of other job possibilities. Mel has applied and interviewed at different places,
including some job opportunities on-campus, but has no job offers yet. Greg has also done everything he can in order to procure any and all insurances
we are currently eligible for, though that will change once both of us have
jobs. Please pray that God would
provide for our financial and insurance needs while we attend seminary.
We would love for each of you to
continue to walk with us in this journey of faith. We greatly desire your prayers and words of encouragement or
scripture as the Lord lays them on your hearts. Mel has set up a blog online for you to follow in order to stay in touch with where we are and what is going on in our ministry journey from month to month here at SBTS. Go to http://walkingtheiveytrail.blogspot.com/ to see photos, read stories, and find prayer/praise requests for our family.
As we take this journey of faith,
we also will face many financial challenges. We believe the Lord has laid on our hearts that this time of
seminary is not intended for gaining more student loans to pay once Greg graduates. At Southern, those who
feel led by the Lord are able to give contributions to my school bill, rent,
and book costs. We want to stress that we mainly seek your prayers and
encouragement. We do not want you
to feel the need to contribute financially if you are not led to do so by the
Lord. Please spend time in prayer
and seek the Lord’s guidance in this.
We would love to partner with each of you in some way and be surrounded by a
body of supporting believers.
For those interested in supporting
us financially, we would ask that you give directly to the seminary. We do not need to know that you gave
unless you want us to. SBTS
estimates that our seminary costs will be about $2300 per semester (http://www.sbts.edu/current-students/financial-aid/estimated-costs/)
and our rent is $795 a month on campus.
We would be glad to discuss our needs further if you would like. Once again feel free to facebook,
email, or mail us in this matter.
Here is the information from the seminary on how to give if the Lord so
leads your heart:
"Checks should be made payable to “SBTS” and mailed to:
The Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary
Financial Aid
2825 Lexington Rd.
Louisville, KY 40280
Please make sure that the checks include
the student's name and student ID number (Greg
Ivey, Student ID number 214459) in the memo line.
It is helpful if checks are
accompanied with a letter stating how the funds may be used. For
instance, would you be allowed to use the funds for books and housing as well
as tuition?”
 |
| Our seminary mailing address - if it's not written like this, it won't reach us. |
Thank you so much for the great
contribution each one of you has already made to our family. You each have had a hand
in blessing, ministering, and shaping us into people who are able to accept
this calling and walk this walk and for that we are so thankful to you. We hope you will pray for us during this
time and transition and we hope you will partner with us in prayer and
participate in keeping up with us through the online blog.
In Christ,
Greg, Mel, and Sam Ivey
 |
| Family photo at our new church on December 22, 2012 - also the day Greg was voted in as youth minister of First Southern Baptist Church in Floyds Knobs |
No comments:
Post a Comment