Dear friends and family,
Happy New Year! This past year at Emmaus has been a beautiful one. It’s been really special to see the specific ways God has been working in and through the various programs of Emmaus–but even on a more individual and relational level, I think God has been doing wonderful things in our personal relationship to him and in our relationships among the staff of Emmaus. It has caused me (Jacob) to reflect upon our story with Emmaus, beginning with the day I felt God calling Samantha and I to join the mission. According to my journal entries, this was on May 18, 2017. Since that time, Samantha and I have had two kids, lived in 4 different locations, and owned/drove 8 different vehicles (yes, really, the vehicle journey has been a sad one…), but we’ve also grown a lot personally in teaching, prayer, as a family, and as a husband and wife.
Over the years, Emmaus Ministries has gone through multiple evolutions. When Samantha and I first joined, it consisted of one program, our School of Biblical Studies: a one year, residential school that required 45+ hours a week of our students. Now, Emmaus has grown in resources, programs, staff, and reach. A school that used to only have 5-10 students has turned into a multi-program Bible training ministry that cumulatively reaches a couple hundred people every year. We feel incredibly grateful to have seen these changes occur and to have played some small part in them along the way. It feels like it would take forever to recount all the testimonies of students having their hearts captured by God revealed through his Word–stories that still fill our eyes with tears of joyful gratitude.
The most exciting part of all this (though perhaps also surprising) is that God is now doing something new once again in our lives. Over the course of the past two years or so, Samantha and I have continually felt an invitation from the Lord to step into something new and out of our roles with Emmaus Ministries. More specifically, we have felt that this school year (ending in May of 2025) will be our final year working full-time with Emmaus. This discernment process has been long, confusing, and honestly very painful at times–but ultimately something that we feel is good and right and (most importantly) the Lord’s doing. We are so grateful for the community of Emmaus that has supported us, prayed with us, and cried with us along the way–in many ways, they’ve been not only our friends, but our surrogate family for the past decade.
This blog post is one of our first attempts at making this transition out of Emmaus public, so please forgive the lack of precise details, many of which we hope to share with you as we continue down this road. To be honest, we really need your support and prayers in this. While we truly feel that the Lord has called us into something new… we’re still not fully sure of all the details of what’s ahead. As of right now, I’m currently applying for seminary with the hope of starting in the Fall of 2025. Right now, we believe this is the next step God is leading our family toward–with the hopes of a future in continuing to be a resource for the church in the realms of Bible engagement and spiritual formation. We also plan to take a yet-to-be-determined sabbatical period over the summer after this current school year ends in May.
Moving Forward
Some of you have only recently joined our support team while some others have been a part of our team since the very beginning. In both cases, we once again want to emphasize the way you’ve not only blessed our lives, but contributed to a mission far greater than just our family. Literally hundreds of people have come to experience God through the Bible because you chose to be generous and love our family with your lives and your resources. On behalf of our family and all of our students, thank you and God bless you!
Connected to this, we would also like to humbly ask that you continue your generosity toward us as we finish out our time with Emmaus and transition into what’s next. The reality is that there’s a great many unknowns still ahead of us, and if we’re honest, some measure of fear in facing the changes. While some steps have become more clear, the clarity has so far not extended to what our future financial or housing situation will be 6 months from now, and we would love your continued help and support as we look to follow the next step in God’s plan for our family.
We hope to be able to share more details for you over the course of the following weeks and months to come leading up to our departure, and we of course love to follow up with any of you on an individual level to try and respond to any specific questions you may have. For now, we ask for your continued support and prayers as our family seeks to navigate this very new territory faithfully. Despite the unknown, we love God, we trust Him, and we’re excited for what’s next.
Love,
The McRae Family
The McRae Family 