Houston, We Have A Mission...

Not gonna lie, I have been in a major funk all week. So instead of dwelling on all the things, I thought it might be time to fill y’all (as in all of you who follow me on Instagram and/or read my occasional blog) in on our upcoming move…

The main reason that I have been hesitant to share much, is because we are still waiting to close on our home, and as anyone who has ever bought or sold a home before, you know things can fall apart rather quickly and unexpectedly. That has not been the case with our selling process at all, but I hate to be overly confident either, ya know?! So, in sharing the following NEWS with you today, please know that it could all come to a sudden (unlikely) halt. But let’s carry on!

So, without further adieu, The Tyson Van Winkle Family is selling our home and moving to Houston, TX! Shocking?! YES! Exciting?! YES! But let us start by answering the biggest question on all of your minds: Why????

There have been so many things leading us to make this decision so we will do our best to outline them all here, but please know that this is a story mostly about our faith, and answering a call that be believe God has placed on our hearts.

THE PERFECT STORM OF BAD NEWS

I guess we could say that this whole process started when a lot of “bad news” was thrown our way this time last year. I actually wrote a bit of a cryptic blog post about it, you can check it out here. In short, in one weeks time, our “new” SUV needed extensive & expensive repairs to the hydraulic system, Tyson’s company released a new pay structure that was going to result in about a 20% pay decrease starting in the new year, and that same week his work computer stopped working which put him out of work for nearly a week. This might seem like a mini vacation to some, but when you are the sole provider for your family and you work on commission, a week of not working is a BIG deal!

Subsequently, in the days just before this perfect storm of bad news, we were being led in our faith to believe for supernatural prosperity and financial blessing! MANY nights were spent pondering the subject, digging into the Word of God together about it and ultimately believing God was speaking something to us and asking us to step out in faith to believe in His supernatural provision over our finances. And when I say supernatural, I mean something that we can not do without God. Something BIG! For so long, we have felt like we have been on a hamster wheel with our finances. 2 steps forward and then one giant step back again. We have made HUGE strides in our budgeting, Tyson literally accounts for every penny we spend. We have become diligent tithers, giving our first tenth before we spend a dime elsewhere. We believe these principles have been paramount in setting us up for what God is calling us farther into.

Just as it is with most things you are increasing your faith for, you can generally expect push back. Call it a test of our resolve, call it the enemy of distraction, call it what you may. But it brought us to the big question: What do we do from here? How does this work into our faith and believing for Supernatural prosperity? (Hopefully it goes without saying, but I probably should make it as clear as crystal -- we are not looking for prosperity for selfish gains. It is not to hoard money, spend carelessly or create an image that glorifies self. We looking to glorify Him in every part of our lives, including our finances!) So again, how does this work? Well, as the bible says, “Faith without works is dead.” This is when we started asking God what our next “step” should be? “God, how can we step out in faith on this subject?”

The answer was one of many facets, not easy to accept, and took months of revelation, confirmations, and proclamations. Ultimately we felt God telling us to “MOVE”. That was in fact the word that God gave us time and time and time again! Why Houston? That is a little harder of a question to answer. But God placed the idea of Houston in our laps nearly one year ago and it just kept coming up. Thus, we are stepping out in FAITH, that we are being called to HOUSTON!

FASTING, PRAYING & PROPHESY

We made our final decision to move, after we received our prophetic word during prayer week at our church at the beginning of February. For 4 weeks leading up to the prayer conference, we engaged in fasting and praying (fasting from certain foods, fasting from social media and entertainment, fasting from caffeine…) During this time we were asking God for confirmation on what we believed was a call to move to Houston. One night early in our fasting, Tyson and I decided to actually write down our prayer requests and what we wanted God to reveal to us. I told Tyson that in order to make this step of faith, I just needed to hear the word “Move.” He agreed. We wrote it down that night and the next morning, I, Lexie, heard the word! And it was even more of a confirmation than I was expecting. Every Monday I have a little morning routine of watching some of my favorite pastors sermons from the day before. This particular Monday none of my go-to preachers had any new sermons to watch. Instead, Youtube had a “recommended to watch next” and I thought, why not?! I started watching the sermon, from a pastor I have heard a time or two before, while cleaning up in the kitchen. About 10 minutes in I heard the word, “God is telling you to MOVE and MOVE NOW!” I was kinda half listening, but it stopped me in my tracks. I had to pause, rewind and hear it again. “MOVE AND MOVE NOW!” I got so excited I rewound it again, this time recording the snippet on my iphone and texted it to Tyson at work right away.

Now more engaged in the sermon, I sat down to watch the rest. In just a minute time I noticed someone in the audience wearing a Texas shirt, and I was like, “Hold up! Where is this sermon being preached?” I knew who the Preacher was and his church is in South Carolina, but he wasn’t preaching at his own church. Immediately my eyes recognized the giant globe behind the preacher on the center of the stage. I gasped, “Oh my gosh, is he preaching at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas?!” Cue all the LOL’s imaginable, because God really does have a sense of humor. If you aren’t aware, Lakewood Church is Joel Osteen's megachurch in Houston. Joel Osteen, the “Prosperity Gospel” preacher. It’s funny on so many levels. Honestly, aside from paying this megachurch a visit, we have zero interest in attending Lakewood Church when we move. But it is astounding how God speaks to us! We heard the word, “MOVE!” and low and behold the pastor was standing on the pulpit of the largest church in Houston, Texas, the place we felt we were being called to. To make this word an even BIGGER confirmation, the pastor ended his sermon with a call to action for the people in the house, “God is telling you to buy houses in Houston! God is calling you to buy NEIGHBORHOODS in Houston! Imagine how the people of God could transform this city if we bought neighborhoods and brought the Word of God into all corners of this city!”

It should be no surprise to any of you that I have always loved the idea of renovating homes. But what you don’t know is that at the beginning of last summer (over a year ago), God gave me a very specific vision of Tyson and I buying and selling houses (kinda like flipping). More specifically, the vision showed me a new home and a 6th baby! I told Tyson this vision but it was something that was easy to brush off at the time, especially since I was not pregnant or even planning on getting pregnant. Also easy to dismiss a vision like this because homes around Portland are so very expensive and Tyson and I definitely did not buy our home during a down market. That makes it hard to believe that we could ever gain enough momentum to see this vision come to fruition in Oregon. None the less it is a vision I come back to anytime we talk about the future and what we would ideally love to do for a living.

On the flip side, Houston’s housing market took a pretty drastic hit after hurricane Harvey, leaving many beautiful homes and even neighborhoods abandoned and in disrepair. I am sure that the pastor was calling the congregation of Lakewood Church together, to be a part of building back up the city of Houston, starting at the heart, in the neighborhoods! Now this is a VISION! And one we can get 100% behind! Tyson and I have relentlessly stalked the Houston housing market for the last 12 months and are so excited by the potential that we see! The price tags are pretty unbeatable too! I felt a deeper call to this particular vision in my personal bible study of Isiah 60-61.

“They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.” (Isiah 61:4)

Now to the prophetic word that was spoken over us during prayer week at the Bridge. Half of our family was in attendance that night, but now they might hear the word spoken over us in a different light. Similarly, my half of our family was not there and doesn’t know any of this, so let me recap the highlights.

The Bridge invited 5 people, with gifts of prophecy to come to our Church and pray and prophesi over people. Tyson and I had signed up a month in advance, so we knew that we were being prayed for, but the prophets did not know us or anything about us.

PROPHESY 1

The very first prophet that prayed over us, began by saying something that brought me to tears. Others might have wondered why on earth it made me cry, so I will explain that now. He said something like, “You have been around this Christian thing for awhile but came to a point where you asked God, “There has to be something more!”” I am paraphrasing, I think the prophet elaborated on this a bit more, but the reason it struck so deep for me is because these were the EXACT words that Tyson spoke to me in the very early stages of us healing our broken marriage. And to be honest, I really did not understand! It actually aggravated me. I thought, What do you mean?! How is this family, these beautiful babies and all the blessings that we have been given, NOT enough? What more are you expecting from your Christianity… I wish I could give you a really clear picture of the dynamics at the time, but there was so much brokenness and hurt and disbelief that it felt like an even bigger stab wound to then be told that your whole idea, credo, belief system of who God is, just. isn’t. enough. Or at least that is how I was interpreting it. But that was not how Tyson meant it. He was trying to explain what broke him, how complacency in Christianity and the Lack of POWER in Christianity made the whole idea of faith seem pointless to him. Thus, “There HAS TO BE SOMETHING MORE!!!” It took me MONTHS to join him in this yearning. We both had a lot of healing to do before we could come together and be united on this subject. And when it came, MAN. IT CAME LIKE A FLOOD!

I mean, WOW! The next year can be summed up as God revealing his power to us in one thing after the other and ultimately culminating when I had a SUPERNATURAL pain-free labor with Olivia. It was everything I ever wanted and then MORE! Yes God! We want MORE of THAT and we want it as our normal!

Since then, the supernatural has started to invade our household and our lives. But back to the prophetic word.

So, the very first words out of this prophet’s mouth completely explained where our faith journey began and then this prophet took us to exactly where our faith journey currently resides as he prophesied prosperity over us. Tyson and I could do nothing but smile in agreeance while we heard Grandma Shirley shouting “Amen’s” from the second row! (The Eggerts have been instrumental in increasing our faith in believing for prosperity in our finances- So Grandma was able to meet our excitement!).

God was calling us to be generous givers… I Kept feeling like we needed to be giving more and in analyzing our financial needs, my solution always came back around to us giving more. Everything in the Kingdom of God is a little backwards, and the more you experience Kingdom Dynamics here and now, the more you start to understand that the Kingdom way to do things may seem completely backwards in the natural. As for finances, Kingdom Dynamics reveal that the more you give, the more you can receive. (It isn’t always so cut and dry and no 2 people’s faith is the same, but this is a good starting principle in changing the way we think about money). Once Tyson and I were in agreeance we began to put this principle into action!

PROPHESY 2

The next prophet, really hit the nail on the head, as she spoke of us going on an adventure. That night, while Tyson and I drove to the church to receive prayer Tyson said, “I think someone is going to say something about a road trip.” Well instead of a road trip she prophesied an adventure over us and mentioned a story about Johnathan and his armor bearer from 1 Samuel 11. It is an amazing story and one I never heard until she spoke it over us. I suggest you read it! While she was prophesying I started to pray and contend in my spirit and asked God to give her the word MOVE as further confirmation. Immediately after this inward prayer, she started prophesying, “You are moving out!” She said it time and time again. That was it for me, I was good and ready after that. But the prophecies only got better!!!

PROPHESY 3

The last prophet who spoke knew Tyson and my heart entirely. He spoke of us playing it safe. At first I wasn’t sure where he was going with this word, but in retrospect he was saying the very thing that Tyson and I say to each other when we talk about why we are feeling lead to move. So instead of trying to paraphrase what this prophet said, I will explain it through our own voices. We are very comfortable in our faith, our church, our families, etc. We have a HUGE support system and we are so grateful. But sometimes when you feel like everything is already set up for you, you don’t have to do as much, “stepping out in faith” because it is just very (what’s that word again, oh yeah) SAFE! And hopefully you hear our hearts. This is not a critique on ANYONE, we are so so blessed by our family and friends and church and community. But we don’t ever want to get too comfortable or complacent in our faith again! We just want to go from Glory to Glory!

This same prophet went on to tell us that although we are somewhere safe, that together as a couple, we are DANGEROUS! I liked this word a lot! He said that we are the “normal” or what “normal Christians” should look like, while everyone else is “abnormal” (even though others look at us and think we are abnormal). I liked that too, because let’s face it, Tyson and I going about life with these 5 little kids tagging along, doesn’t look normal by any means. We definitely do not feel normal either. In fact we feel like we “go against the grain” in almost every aspect of the way we live. And, we don’t want to be conformed to this world’s standard of normal. The prophet said this “abnormality” about us is what is DANGEROUS! YES and AMEN!

Going from where Tyson and I were in our marriage 3 years ago, to where we are today can be described as nothing short of a miracle! We are more united and on a mission than ever. And I think this is exactly where God wants us to be in order to use us in mighty ways. It is dangerous when you have a united couple that is willing to stand on the word of God, make a move of faith, and not shy away to the many adversaries that are sure to come our way. We are more prepared than ever to fight for the promises of God, and may all the Glory be His!

LISTING OUR HOUSE TO SELL

After the prophetic conference we started moving like there was a fire lit under our butts to get our house ready to sell. We quickly finished our garage room remodel and had every intention of listing our house on April 19th (Good Friday before Easter Sunday). And then everything halted very suddenly. Tyson had his busiest Spring and Summer in his career in the mortgage industry. The timing was clearly not right and I started to feel crazy and like I had completely missed the Word that God seemed to have spoken to us. Tyson continued to remind me that we were still waiting on and listening to God’s voice in order to discern His will and timing. My personal unrest was put to ease when I read a prophetic post on Instagram declaring that “God is a God of suddenly’s”. And that, “God may have given you a Word that you have yet to see come to fruition, but that when it happens, it will happen SUDDENLY!”

As summer came to an end, Tyson was convinced it was time to list our house. I was much more reserved this time around. For starters, I now was (am) pregnant with our 6th baby. But, I set my mind on the vision God gave me of a 6th baby and a new home and felt that the timing really would have to be perfect in order to see how God could possibly work it all together. When we set to list our house at the beginning of September, we knew that we were outside of the ideal selling time frame. But, with a baby on the way, and the Holiday season approaching, we felt confident that we needed to give it a go, and see what would happen. We decided to list our house for a higher price than what we “knew we could get” and were really praying that the hand and favor of God would be evident in the timing and sale price. We did this for many reasons, to start with, we LOVE our house, and by no means do we feel like we have to move. We know that we are quickly outgrowing our house, but are very content to stay until we have no other option. And because we were taking a giant step of faith in uprooting our family from everything and everyone we know and love, we wanted to feel reassured that God is leading us. Lastly we agreed to leave the house on the market for no more than 4 weeks. I was adamant about this because well; 5 kids and a pregnancy, homeschooling, the fact that we are always at home making messes, and the upcoming Holidays. A few days before our listing went live, I was at my monthly women’s bible study that my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law both attend. I asked them to pray for our upcoming house listing and sale and for God’s will and favor to be clear. When my mother-in-law prayed, she prayed, “and if Lexie and Tyson are not supposed to move, you will close every door.” It’s hilarious how many times I thought of her prayer in the following weeks.

We went nearly 4 full weeks of having our home on the market with ZERO showings. There were also zero calls or inquiries on the house. Needless to say, Tyson and I felt once again like we had really misread the signs. 2 days before taking our house off the market, I had my 20 week ultrasound and got to see our sweet little baby boy for the first time. While at the appointment we were notified of a couple that wanted to look at the house that day. As I walked out of the ultrasound I was instantly reminded of my vision of a 6th baby and a new house. I’ve experienced the closeness and goodness of God on many occasions, that it has become easily recognizable when he is at work in my life. I felt pretty certain that the showing would result in an offer and that God was using His perfectly timed humor to remind me that when I submit to His will, He will always prove himself faithful to me!

*There are at least 10 other cool things that came together perfectly but here is 1 more worth mentioning. Tyson had recently committed to fasting (water only) the first 3 days of every month. Sure enough the day we had our house showing was Day 3 of his October fast. He wanted to end his fast the night before the showing, good thing he didn't because his perseverance paid off!

Sure enough on exactly the 28th day of our listing, we received a full price offer on our home from a very excited young family who seem to love the house as much as we do. So far, everything has gone according to the things we have prayed and asked God for. We have even been given extra time beyond the closing date to stay in the house through Thanksgiving weekend.

LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN

Alas, with this lengthy explanation, Hopefully you can all join in our excitement as we embark on a very big, new adventure into the unknown. We don’t fully know what is in store for us when we move to Houston. What we do know is that we will be far outside our comfort zone. We will have to rely on our faith more than any other time in our lives. Tyson is planning to transfer to a Chase Bank branch in Houston until more doors are opened and opportunities come our way. We are excited about the possibility of traveling to nearby areas with our tribe, while continuing to share our journey of faith on social media. We plan to continue to seek the power of the Holy Spirit living in us and share our testimonies of his faithfulness often!

One last note. We love our life here in Oregon so very much. We love our families and friends more than we can muster. The thought of leaving you all plus our house in the perfect little town of Hubbard, that we are literally obsessed with, brings us to tears when we think about the reality. For this reason it is all the more important that we know you will continue to be a huge, supportive blessing to us (just from 2500 miles away). There will be doubts and questions and people that think we are crazy and that this is a terrible idea. We have doubts all the time. But there is no doubt in our mind about WHO has put this call in our hearts. And we know, because He has proven Himself to us before, that His plans are always so much better than our own!

If you read to the end of this, WOW! Color me impressed! Thank you for listening to my lengthy explanation of of our life!

XOXO, Lexie (and Tyson, Tylyn, Hadley, Jacson, Emmy, Via, and Baby Boy).