Why Cleveland? Part I

Many people have asked us, why Cleveland? Do you have family there? Did you grow up there? What side of town? I will try to answer these questions.

Do you have family there? Yes, most of both my wife's and my family live in northeastern Ohio. They all live about an hour to two hours from where we will be. We have been away from family now for about 10 years. Our visits to family always turn into at least a 2K mile drive (with 4 kids and one on the way we don't fly!). So having that much family only a couple of hours away will be amazing.

Did you grow up there? We mostly grew up there. We both grew up in Military famillies. Faith's Dad was in the Army and my Dad was in the Airforce. We both moved to Ohio in our early elementary school years and lived there until we got married and moved away to go to bible school in 1998. When we left Ohio I said two things: 1. I will never Senior Pastor a church and 2. I will never move back. I case you haven't figured this out yet, never say things like that because God has a keen sense of humor. Neither me nor Faith really visited Cleveland more than a couple of times while we lived there. Although the Texas weather and culture is incredible (for the record there isn't any beach in Texas that can compare to the beaches you can find along Lake Erie) we are drawn back to Ohio. Our hearts are now completely there and i don't believe there is anything that could keep us away. It really feels like a final destination and that is a feeling that we haven't experienced in a while. No matter where we were, we would make friends and enjoy where we were, but we knew that we couldn't settle to much because we weren't staying forever. Now that we are going, I can't ever imagine leaving or living anywhere else.

For the other two questions, See Part II