12/30/2021
The Finale
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” Socrates
We can recall driving in our car across the states over 18 years ago and talking about turning our journey of reconciliation into something that mattered, doing something with our pain, and loss and broken choices; making something that had legacy and something that had roots. This something we conceptualized was Mountain Haven Marriage and Reconciliation Ministry. The simple concept was to “impart hope to everyone.” Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It started with our personal brokenness, evolved into intense conversation, took form as a dream, and then took its final shape as the non-profit we started and relocated to Canon City, Colorado. Leaving our 18-year-old son back in Minnesota to navigate adulthood, college, and humanity; and hauling our 4-year-old and 7-month-old across the country to embrace off grid living in a mountainside cabin.
This is our origin story, and it has been one of the wildest, untamed, fantastical, and profoundly impactful journeys we have ever taken. We built the foundation of the ministry in Minnesota, the Nonprofit status, boards, visions, plans, productions, a lot evolved in that years before we moved to Colorado- tirelessly planning, dreaming, selling everything, and saying goodbye to the friends, family and familiar. Then, in Colorado in 2008 we started to built a space that would hold the couples, the families, the individuals and hold our own stories. We partnered with churches, individuals, families, friends, couples, and our family to bring this dream to life. We interacted in some way with over 15,000 people in our time in Colorado. We provided shelter, counseling, groups, safe haven, or opportunities for ministry for people from across 20 states and several other countries. We met bands, pastors, leaders, families, and animals during our journey. We did it all as a donation-based ministry and we did it all because of the help, partnership, support, prayer, and friendship of so many of you. You believed in this radical notion of living and giving in faith, and held space for our dream and made it happen.
In 2018 when we decided to move back to Minnesota to take a one-year sabbatical intended for rest, healing and reprieve while doing simplistic jobs and trying to reconnect with friends and family; it was a very complex decision. Fraught with emotionality, grief, and desperation there was a sense we needed to get off the mountain at that moment. Our own marriage had been struck with loneliness, chronic pain, compassion fatigue and spiritual exhaustion and disappointment. Kevin and I were wrecked in a way, and thought the captivating landscape of Duluth would heal our souls and provide rest for our family. Duluth and Lake Superior are beautiful geographically, but the onslaught of health scares has been incredible. After 8 surgeries and 100s of medical appointments over the last 3 years it became clear that we would not be returning to Colorado any time soon and that our life here in Minnesota was declared for us. So, kicking and screaming and protesting in whimpers, we sold the house on the mountain but continued to keep the nonprofit alive while delving into various ways to continue in an active ministry vein while trying to keep ourselves alive physically, mentally and financially.
After reading that the definition of a minister is “a person authorized to conduct religious worship” we concluded that our form of worship must change. We need to minister to our own souls, the souls of our children and move inward in our sense of ministry, rather than outward. Our circumstances made it clear we need space to heal, grieve, and move beyond the grips of survival we have been in for much too long. So it is with heavy hearts, relieved hearts, and facing the unknown that or board has chosen to dissolve Mountain Haven Marriage Ministry in an official capacity as of December 30, 2021.
Words cannot describe the emotion of this final decision of closure for us. It has been a long season of letting go, grieving, reconfiguring, and surrendering. Our story has always been fueled by hope- the power of expectation but I admit now that we were operating out of fear of letting go of that hope in the last few years rather than relinquishing our definition of hope. But now we know it is time to anticipate a new future, extricate ourselves from Mountain Haven and live in a liminal space of unknowing and being- while we navigate the tumultuous unknowns of Kevin’s unrelenting health mysteries with Crohn’s disease and other mystery symptoms.
We offer a huge thank you to our board members through the years- you have been faithful and true, our friends and faithful supporters- you have shown unwavering support and endless encouragement. Our thanks to our three children and our daughter in law who have suffered with us and loved us unconditionally through these massive changes geographically, ministerially, physically, and mentally. Our kids have been transformed by our decisions; and we see their metamorphosis- positive and negative as we have navigated the last lifetime of starting this ministry, the moves, the trials and now the new life we are current partakers in. Mountain Haven Marriage and Reconciliation Ministry has been our life for so long, and it is so difficult to say goodbye. But, truly all things die, and in that dying we are hopeful that rebirth is bound to happen.
Thank you again to everyone- friends, family, ministries, clients, participants, and anyone we have missed in creating a space for us to lean into the complexities of learning to impart hope to many, many people through the years.
Selah.
