Calling: The Sometimes Painful Transition to New Community

Published: April 13, 2021

I graduated from Greenville College in May 2012 with a strong support system of professors and family, an incredible friend group, and Niquita, who married me in July of the same year.

While in college, Niquita and I spent considerable time with her family, including Brian and Carla Reinhard, Jace and Maria, and Jim and Marilyn Reinhard. After graduation we worked in Decatur, Illinois, for a year and lived in close community with my parents and brother Michael. Many of our friends lived in the St. Louis area.

Niquita and I moved to Durham, North Carolina, in July 2013 for her to pursue her masters of divinity at Duke. We were thrilled! When we moved, though, we uprooted from that massive support system and embarked on our own adventure.

We had some family a few hours away and our close friends from college, Michael and Kelly Baker-Trapp, were living in Virginia. It was great to see all those people when it was possible to visit. However, in our daily lives, we were struggling. The school in which I was working was incredibly difficult. I hadn't formed any relationships within the community and I was lacking in being consistent in my classroom.

There were many, many days where I wanted to quit and look into other schools or other careers. At the same time, Niquita hadn't fully plugged into life at Duke either. We were pretty miserable.

Over the course of about six months, thoughand with a ton of prayer and phone calls back to family, friends, and professorswe began to establish ourselves in these communities. I have now begun my fourth year at that same middle school. Niquita finished her master of divinity degree at Duke and is now working as a Parent Engagement Coordinator at my school. We are living in community with Kelly and Michael and Jess Chambers in Durham and are thoroughly enjoying life here.

We'll find our way back to the Midwest soon, but it has been incredible to look back over the past few years and see God and God's people working in our lives.

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