Ralph writing Courtney writing (only at end) In the wilderness. I have no better words to describe how I have been feeling for the last few months. I believe we’re on the path that God wants us to be, but we’re not sure of where it’s going. Everything seems to be unclear. It makes me feel uncomfortable. My life doesn’t look anything like what I thought it would look like. At least not up until this point. I left my pension, health insurance, good income for something completely unknown and all over the place. The Lord is teaching me a whole heck of a lot. “A grateful heart is a happy heart. An entitled heart is never happy,” is what my friend Ben said to me recently while visiting with he and his family in Tennessee. I’m being groomed into being more grateful. I entertain the idea of getting a job frequently. I can go out and get one in ten different places, but it’s not where I believe I’m being led. There are different confirmations for this, but here’s one: During my oldest son’s birthday party, one of our friend’s sons came up to me and asked, “are you always home?” When I told him yes, he responded with, “I wish my dad made enough money to be home all the time, too.” I’m guessing more kids like this boy would appreciate their parents being home, too. I’m not really making “enough money to be home all the time,” but it’s working so far. I’m grateful for the time I have at home.  I have inner turmoil. When things don’t go my way, I get annoyed. God is teaching me about contentment. How to let go of the control that I want most of the time. The one thing I really can’t control is the stock market. I will probably fail at the stock market if I don’t learn to let go of controlling everything. I can only be ok with the probability of things working out. Stock trading will not work out for me if I don’t let go of control. At the end of January, I took Liam for an overnight trip to go through the Passport2Purity program. I had purchased a survival knife for him as a gift to remember the time we had spent together. This was a tangible gift that twenty years down the road or when I am dead and gone, he can remember that time by. (We slept in the Xterra and Liam tried airsoft for his first time at Raptor Airsoft Field in Deland) One day in February, I was helping Liam fashion paracord so that he could wear his new knife. I was measuring the paracord while it was around his neck in order to tie it at a proper length. Liam pulled the knife out of the sheath in an odd way that caused him to cut his thumb open. While Courtney and I were trying to tend to Liam’s thumb, an alert I had set for a live trade I had running started to go off. I checked my phone while still holding Liam’s thumb closed. It was nearing the point where I should be closing the trade in order to minimize my loss. At that point in time I felt too stressed to deal with his thumb and the trade so I closed it for a loss of $200. This way I could focus on Liam. About an hour later, the stock had turned back up. By the end of that trading day, I would’ve been up $600. It was a bad day. I was mad for not sticking to my trading plan that I had been taught by Tradeway to do. At the same time, I was extremely frustrated with myself for having given Liam the knife. I felt like I was failing my family. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, “but if someone does not provide for his own relatives, and especially the members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” I hear that verse and it makes me think that I’m not doing right by my family.  Something happened that night Liam cut open his thumb and I lost my family money that hadn’t ever happened before. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back asleep. God pressed it upon me to pray for Courtney and our boys health. I then prayed for direction for our family. After I prayed, I was able to fall back asleep. I had already planned to be up at 6:00AM to attend men’s breakfast at my church. Before I fell back asleep, I was no longer feeling up to going. However, the option not to go wasn’t there anymore when I woke up before my alarm went off. When we moved to Florida and after I quit working at my other job, Courtney suggested that it would be good for me to go to the men’s breakfast at our church. My friend, Jeremy, who is also the campus pastor placed me at a table that he thought I would like. Sometimes when I go to men’s breakfast, I get little pieces that seem relevant to where I’m at, but a good amount of the time I don’t see the relevance. I don’t know if that's the point or not. You don’t always get something every single time you read the Bible either. If I’m being honest, I struggle with going. There is not a lot of time for men to connect. You get a thirty minute blurb from a speaker and then you’re lucky if you get fifteen minutes at the end of it to talk through anything that’s going on. I can’t help but go back to an evening bible study that I went to with my friend Ben while we were looking to move to Tennessee. This group met in the evening so people weren’t pressed for time. It seemed like there was a better connection with the men in the group. My table leader is a man named Scotty who has also had a career change that he believes the Lord has set before him. Like me, that career change isn’t seeming to work out the way he had hoped so now he’s seeking the Lord in what he is supposed to be doing. It’s been reassuring that I’m not the only person that’s not sure where they are going ultimately. As I already mentioned, mens breakfast was the day after Liam cut open his finger, I failed to earn my family $600, and I was up in the night praying. I woke up before my alarm went off. I knew I needed to go even though I didn’t want to. The man speaking that morning was talking about business principles. It wasn’t new information for me. I have read them in multiple entrepreneurs books, but his was with more of a Christian twist. He was tying those principles back to scripture and giving a biblical view of it versus a world view. While this business man was speaking, my friend, Jeremy, pulled me from the table. He told me that he felt like the Lord was telling him to arrange a talk with the speaker. Prior to that, I had no intentions of going up to talk to him nor was I feeling like I was really getting anything out of his talk. When everyone was leaving, Jeremy brought him over to me. He talked with me about more business principles and more information about a seminar he was going to be doing that he thought I could use. I knew immediately that I would not go because we had already spent money on business things that we were still working through. There was just one thing that the speaker said to me that stood out. He said, “I don’t trust any man that doesn’t walk with a limp. He was referring to Genesis 32:22-32 when Jacob wrestled with God and walked with a limp afterwards. Verses 24-31 says “And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day has broken.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ And he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then he said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.” Up until that man had said, "I don't trust a any man that doesn't walk with a limp" to me, I was not really understanding that people still will have to wrestle with God. They wrestle with him about things that they don’t understand. I think that’s what I was supposed to take away from that interaction. It was a reminder that people still have to wrestle with these thoughts and ideas. That stood out to me because of the fact that I wasn’t knowing where I was going. I like to plan and have direction. I’m wrestling with the different ideas. Things aren’t always easy. A lot of times things aren’t easy. It’s going to take turmoil to get through stuff. It’s thought provoking for me sometimes to think about the path we are on right now. Is it to teach the kids to be grateful for what they have and not be spoiled rotten Americans? I’m finding myself saying things like, “We can’t buy what you want" or "I’m sorry you don’t like bone-in chicken, but this is what God has provided.” I’m also seeing the error in my thinking for many years. I didn’t always realize it, but I would think, 'If I could buy this thing or had a little bit more money then I will be happy.' It’s proving to not be the case. I’ve only been driving myself more nuts. That’s why we are selling stuff on Ebay. It’s the releasing of the stuff we’ve accumulated. I now look through the lens of 'what value does this have to my life? Is it useful?' If it doesn’t meet those, then it goes out of the house. Right now I don’t know how this will pan out and it’s frustrating for me. I get easily annoyed when things don’t go my way. I know to a certain degree, but I don’t know where that end is.  The Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years. What should’ve only taken months, took forty years. There was a lot of complaining of the Israelites while they were in the wilderness. They weren’t learning the lessons that they were being taught.  It takes a lot of time to get words like this out of my man. He recently told me, “There’s not much more in my brain than you think.” Unlike myself, he doesn’t write to process, though I continue to encourage him to do so. It’s much more of a challenge for him to pause and reflect these days. Having three young boys constantly around can be mentally straining at times. God has been doing a mighty work in my man. It broke my heart the day he came home from that men’s breakfast and shared with me through tear filled eyes about his sleepless night and what God had revealed to him through the speaker. Unlike Ralph, I couldn’t keep my tears from spilling over as I quietly listened. It was hard seeing Ralph like that, but I knew it was a good thing. He was being refined in the fire. Once again his faith was being tested and stretched in ways he never imagined possible. Recently we were on a trip in Tennessee visiting our friends. We were in town on Sunday so we went to their church. This was the one we had fallen in love with before we had moved out of Buffalo and during the time we were hoping to make Tennessee our home state. Not so coincidentally, the person speaking that day was starting a new series about refinement. Six weeks prior to this, I had actually been the one who had written about what Ralph had been going through. Though I wanted him to write about it, he was not ready. While we were driving to Tennessee, I seized the moment and asked him to share his perspective. I asked him thought provoking questions, documented his responses, and was able to put together this writing. More than once, he said, “in the wilderness” so I knew that would make a great title for this writing.  I had most of this written before we went to the church service in Tennessee about refinement. In God’s sovereignty, Ralph and I were encouraged about our current season of life. The speaker quoted Deuteronomy 8:2. “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.” I am in awe every time God gives us a timely verse. I can’t get over how he can take words, like what Moses spoke to the Israelites thousands of years ago in regards to their literal time spent in the wilderness, and make it relevant to what Ralph is going through now. Reading God’s word will never grow old. As Deuteronomy 8:2 states, the Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years before they reached the land that God had promised them. This was not because it was so far away that it took that many years to get there. Like Ralph said, it should’ve only taken a handful of months. God kept them in the wilderness for good reason. The Israelites were major complainers who had very little gratitude for what they had been given. God dealt very severely with them over this (read Exodus). Though we currently live in the age of grace, we should not forget that God hasn’t changed. He cannot use an ungrateful person who is in a constant state of grumbling. When you ask God to use you in any way He sees fit and when you pray for Him to lead, refinement will come. There will be seasons where you will feel as though you are wandering through the wilderness just barely scraping by. If you can recognize it, embrace it, rely on Him through it, He WILL bring you out of it. Only God knows how long you need to be in the wilderness for and Ralph doesn’t feel like he’s out of his yet. I am proud of this man for his honesty and willingness to share this. It takes a lot of courage. May God use it in ways that only He can.

I am giggling a little over here for deciding to share this period of time, but I have had very little mental capacity to do so up until now. (Insert emoji crazy face). Last April was full of so many great memories that I just had to still share. We had Easter, Devin's birthday, an overnight trip, and an exhausting, but memorable date. In addition to all of that, my sister, Danielle and niece, Sami came down to surprise the boys and ended up staying with us for three weeks! It had only been a few months since we had moved into our new house so there was still a ton of boxes and totes everywhere. It had also only been a handful of weeks since Ralph came home to pursue different business ventures. It was just a TAD bit hectic! Our visit with my sister and niece was packed full of hikes, baking, cooking, morning runs, mini projects for the new house, school work, the beach, Bible Study, card games, movie watching, and more. In the middle of all of that fun, we celebrated Easter together. The year before they came down for Easter, too and loved it so they wanted to make it a yearly tradition. Ralph, Danielle, and I had fun hiding their baskets and the ones from Grammemaw who sent them down with Danielle. Devin’s seventh birthday also occurred while my sister and niece were visiting. We hosted a birthday party with some of our friends and extended the celebration with one of his buddies, Israel, who had just turned nine. These friends have become like family. We are so grateful that they want to be a part of these special days with us. Liam and I slipped away on an overnight trip with some of the Hancock's for a few of our kids to do a triathlon in Boca Raton, FL. It was a lovely bonding time for us all and a nice little getaway. We all love road trips! I am full of pride and even find myself tearing up when I watch Liam do these. Also, on one of our Wild and Free hikes, Connor walked through poison ivy. Though he wasn’t affected by it, he managed to pass it onto me as I was carrying him. It just may be one of the greatest forms of torture that's ever existed. It persisted for close to a month. I finally resorted to a steroid cream grateful to be living in modern times where pharmaceuticals exist. This wasn't my first rodeo with this stuff, so I was prepared. Now people in our Wild and Free group ask me to point out poison ivy on our hikes so they don’t ever have to look like Ms. Courtney did. My niece, Sami was able to go into Magic Kingdom for the first time thanks to her friend, Reagan whom she met through our Wild and Free group. It was a “magical” day for both her and Danielle that I am so happy they were able to share. Ralph and I also did the Mammoth March ( https://www.mammothmarch.com/) and hiked 21.5 miles. Before we signed up, Ralph had said, "looks like the perfect date." We really enjoyed the time alone together and the opportunity to talk for hours straight with no interruption. We did NOT train for this unless you want to count a couple of mile hikes with our kids. About halfway through, we were starting to feel it. By about 15 miles, we were basically just looking at the ground putting one foot in front of the other. If we stopped, it hurt more so we just kept moving except for a couple quick bathroom and food breaks. In the last two miles there was a severe thunderstorm, so we started to run. We wanted to finish this thing and not get picked up. We went through the finish line with barely a soul around through the pouring rain, thunder, and lightning. We managed to get a fellow hiker to take a photo of us holding our medals. Somehow she had switched it to video and there's grid lines, but we still got that photo dag nab it. It took us just under eight and a half hours to complete it which was apparently average. I wasn’t sure by the end what was worse. Hiking 21.5 miles with no training or child labor without drugs. Ralph said, "I will never do one again!" I would. I've had two drug free births so I'm used to intense pain. ;) Ralph's one foot hurt for a good couple of months. I had giant blisters on my heels that I didn't even know were there until my sister saw them while laying on the floor underneath me as I was resting on the couch. To top it off when we got home, Ralph said, "Court, we're only a couple hundred away from hitting 50,000 steps!" So we both walked around the house until we reached 50,000 steps because it's likely that amount will never happen again. We made a trip to Cocoa Beach where I took photos of Sami and gave her some modeling tips. Sami is a beautiful ray of sunshine. I hope that I was able to depict that well in her photos. (I wouldn't recommend leopard print clothing for modeling on the beach, but I am glad Sami captured this one while I was showing her posing ideas.) It was hard to say goodbye, especially for our sweet Devin. Florida has become like a second home for my sister and niece. Sami even volunteers at our church in the kid’s area. I am grateful that they enjoy traveling down here to see us and take advantage of the overwhelming amount of things you can do in Central Florida. It is visits like these that reinforce WHY we homeschool. The freedom all of us had, the things we ALL learned, and the bonds that were strengthened in those three weeks made an impact on all of us. It will have a ripple effect for years to come. This blog post can also be listened to on our podcast here .

I had an interesting conversation recently one Sunday morning with someone I was leading worship with. I told him something I say to people all the time. I shared that motherhood is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. His response was, “yes, but it’s the most fulfilling.” My response surprised him. I said, “No. Not yet anyway.” I didn’t have kids in order to bring fulfillment into my life. I already had that. I had children because I wanted Ralph and I to stop living for ourselves. I wanted to participate with God in bringing life into this world in order to teach them about Jesus, raise them up to follow Him, and make an impact. I wanted to have a better understanding of who God is and knew that having children would do that. Singing for Jesus brings forth my greatest feelings of satisfaction. That and acting is what I have loved doing since I was a little girl. It’s what I did before I had children every chance I could. As soon as I turned 18, I joined the choir at church. Two years later I joined the women’s praise team. Not too long after that, I was on the Sunday morning praise team. I was in a kids musical program in elementary school and participated in skits in my twenties. I was serving in this way three to four times a week and I loved just about every minute of it . (First four images are at The Chapel at Crosspoint in Getzville, NY. The last two photos are from the team I am so grateful to be on now at Discovery Church in Orlando, FL) When I was younger, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would’ve told you a singer and actress, but not a mother. When I was going into my senior year of high school, even though I still loved to sing and act, it didn’t seem realistic to me. I prayerfully reflected on what else I loved doing, which was photographing. That was what started me on my photography path. Ralph and I were engaged when I went into photography school at nineteen years old. Though we had talked about having children someday, we were not interested in having any for the foreseeable future. I wanted to be a national wedding photographer and didn’t want children to get in the way of that. Ralph just didn’t want to have kids around because of the work involved. After I graduated, in addition to all of the singing that I was doing at church, I was photographing. Multiple times a week I was doing portrait sessions and weddings. I absolutely loved meeting new people, traveling to different locations, designing wedding albums, and creating lifelong heirlooms for people ( www.courtneycampbell.net ). Whether singing, acting, photographing, or designing, I knew that I loved to produce. Producing with purpose is what brought satisfaction to me, but I knew that God wanted to do more with me. Two years into our marriage, I began to feel the tug from God to start a family with Ralph, but he was far from feeling that tug (That is a whole different story.). Five years into our marriage, at 26 years old, God answered my prayer in giving us our first son. While we were pregnant, Ralph and I agreed that we wanted to homeschool. When our first son was born, the life I knew was over, but I hadn’t accepted that yet. I thought I could still do most everything else that I loved. Over time, as two more boys were added, I had to step down from just about all of it. Raising even one child requires a lot of time, commitment, and energy on every level. Homeschooling three is a whole 'nother level of commitment. The definition of “fulfilling” in the Oxford Dictionary online says that it’s “making someone satisfied or happy because of fully developing their character or abilities.” Key phrase “FULLY developing their character.” My motherhood “character” is still being developed. Having children refines and molds me to look more like my maker. It forces me to learn how to love, give grace, and forgive over and over and over and over . It challenges me to have a higher level of maturity in Christ because I have three souls under the age of 10 watching me practically non-stop. Motherhood, paired with having them home and not in a school building, is very challenging for me many days. I am being stretched to my limit almost on a daily basis. I live in a constant tension between the convictions that come from being a mom and breaking free of it to produce something. If I don’t get to spend this desired time producing, I find myself becoming resentful and that’s not what my family needs either. Whether I like it or not sometimes, my life is not my own anymore. I have chosen to die to many of my own desires, even ones that bring glory to God because what my children need NOW is more important than what I THINK I need. And if I can learn to die to myself, I look more like the one that died for me. More than any other journey I’ve been on, the journey of motherhood is what has challenged me the most to model Jesus. This constant refining process has caused me at times to want to flee from the constant demands of motherhood and put them in a school building. It would be a relief, but it’s not what God has called me to do. (Photo Credit: Liam Campbell at Santa's Farm, Eustis, FL) So though it may not sound lovely or sweet to say that motherhood is not fulfilling for me, it’s just me over here being honest. My identity is not in motherhood, photography, leading worship, running an online business, writing, being a wife, or anything else that I do in my lifetime. My identity is in Christ and I was placed on this earth to point PEOPLE to him THROUGH the things I do and have been gifted in. My main people right now are my children. Period. The Oxford dictionary won’t say this, but living for your maker is what ultimately brings forth fulfillment. It just might not be through always doing everything that you love to do or feel like doing. Being a mother and choosing to homeschool, despite the constant tension I have to produce, is living for my maker . Therefore, fulfillment will come.

This is part of our Faith Journey Series. If you want the full context, click on this link to read the earlier posts: https://www.simplycampbell.com/blog/categories/faith-journey-series Ralph writing Courtney writing We left off our last writing sharing our struggles with juggling work, learning, and building our online business. Three months after we enrolled in Flipped Lifestyle and four months after Tradeway, there was no end in sight for completing the construction project I was working on. I was growing weary of it. As described in our last post , on the night of December 5, 2022, we were discussing having me leave my construction job to pursue the stuff we invested in when I shared with Courtney what I concluded: we would not be able to qualify for a mortgage without my w-2 job. We needed to buy a house first, but God had clearly shut the door on buying a house for the past six months. On the morning of December 5, about twelve hours before I had any idea that Ralph would tell me that we needed to buy a house first, this is the prayer I had written in my journal: "I'm sorry for getting short-sighted with housing in Florida. You brought us here. You will carry this out until completion." The Holy Spirit was preparing me and I didn't even know it. After Ralph said that we needed to buy a house first, we immediately jumped on the computer to look at houses. Would God open a door? There was only one way to find out. We were ready. This time around we knew where we wanted to live. We believed we needed to remain in the town God put us in . We had many reasons for why that was: Coming from our home in Akron, NY with 10 acres, surrounded by trees and across from a field, we still longed to be in the country. This area still had country roads. We see dirt bikes, golf carts, four wheelers, and go karts. It was country for still being in Central Florida. Close by was a family that we met through a mutual friend at church. This friend connected Melissa and I at a women's event at our church. It was at this event that I learned that Melissa ran a homeschool group called, " Wild + Free . " This group is where our boys and I have found really great friendships. To have a family close by whose lives are centered around Jesus, parent similarly, homeschool, lead worship, love to travel, the outdoors, and physical fitness is not only a gift, but a work of God. After moving 1200 miles away from our incredible community, we didn’t want to pull ourselves or the boys away from these budding friendships. Before we had made our big move down , we had found Discovery Church . We immediately connected with the pastor and felt at home there. Within a few months, I joined their worship and media team and Ralph their guest services team. This was the church we wanted to raise our boys in so we didn't want to live too far from it. There is a group of moms right by our house that get together often. We have gone over for holiday parties and have even borrowed decorations from one of the wonderful moms, Lauren for a party. The boys also loved to play with two boys down the street from us. We met a man named Bill Merckel that walks his dog by our house that I figured out he knew the Lord in our first interaction. We enjoy talking with him about the housing market as he is a real estate investor . Early on, Bill had advised us to wait to buy a house. We're glad we heeded his wisdom. Within four months we had found lasting friendships, were serving in a great church, and the drive to work for Ralph was manageable. It was really clear that God was being intentional with where he placed us in Central Florida. We had two obstacles though. When there was a house for sale, it would sell fast or it was out of our price range. If we wanted Ralph home, we needed to keep our expenses as low as possible. That night when Ralph said that we had to find a house first before he could come home, there were only two houses that met our criteria. We emailed our agent, Ted Viator at 10:00 P.M. and asked if we could look at them the next day. The next morning we received word that we were good to view both houses that day. We were officially house hunting again. In addition to the houses flying off the market, the interest rates had doubled since we last looked. They were now around 7%. Bill Merckel had told us that his first house purchase had a 13% interest rate so I wasn't' super discouraged by that. We had to be even stricter with our budget. I called our mortgage broker, Troy Tiedemann to do some number crunching. Troy gave me a number that Courtney and I agreed we didn’t want to go past. The first house was workable. The second house was better, but only 997 sq ft. We had already put in two other offers for houses the same size. A smaller house went in line with our simplistic ideals. Less clutter and less to maintain. The more stuff you have, the more it controls you. We wanted to live simply. As much as we loved our previous home in NY, we felt like it took away from family time. We felt directed by God to reduce the workload with our next house purchase. As much as we didn’t like living in the rental for almost a year, we could see why God hadn’t opened up the door on a house. Before, we had been looking for something like we had had in Akron, NY: another fixer upper with property and privacy. However, as we settled in Florida, we became at peace with the idea of smaller. With all of the outdoor activities we were doing, we didn’t need or want a lot to maintain around the house. We believed we should simplify as much as possible so that we could be more present with our boys. The second house we had looked at checked a lot of our boxes. However, the asking price was $35,000 over the number that we had set for ourselves. With the other seven houses we had put offers in, we had offered well over asking price due to buyer competition. This house had been sitting for over a month for unknown reasons. We decided to come in with a lower offer and see where it went. On December 7, while waiting for a response from the seller, I wrote this prayer in my journal: "You already know the outcome, God. If it is to be for us, you will make it clear. I trust you." The next day I was praying for intercession with the seller and only wrote, "It seems to be a good fit." On the morning of December 9, I prayed again for intercession on "the house that we haven't heard about yet. You will move mountains if it is to be the house for us." At night we were praying together as well. We have learned that great peace comes through prayer. We were not worried. We carried on with our days like usual having the utmost faith in what God was doing on our behalf. After a house we had wanted didn't pan out, we would just say, "shut door" and move on. We waited for three days before the seller responded to our offer with a counter offer. We countered with the maximum number that we had set for ourselves. To our surprise, they accepted. We didn’t get too excited yet knowing that we still had to go through the inspection process, but we were off to a great start. After the inspection, we did a little more negotiating and landed at the exact price that we talked with our broker about. I didn't believe that this house was actually going to be ours until after the addendum was signed around the 18th. On December 20, I simply wrote in my journal to God about it: "Thank you...for swinging wide the door to this house we are buying." We were getting this move in ready house for $35,000 under asking price which was almost unheard of in this area. Troy, our mortgage broker informed us that things were moving quickly and that it looked like we were going to close at the end of the month, which was only eleven days away instead of in the middle of January. We had a trip planned to go to Buffalo for Christmas, but he told us that we could close on the house in Buffalo with a mobile notary. That is exactly what happened. After experiencing our first blizzard and visiting with friends and family, the mobile notary arrived at our friends house in New York to sign papers for the purchase of our first home in Florida. It had only been 25 days from the day we looked at it. What a whirlwind. Only God could orchestrate for us to have a house that was in the area that we wanted, with a housing shortage, and for the price that we needed to be in. I had written on our drive back to Florida from Buffalo this: We went from not even thinking about buying a house for months, to 'lets look at these two' late one night, to putting an offer in, and closing 25 days later on it. That is how God works. I am blown away. We decided it would be easier to pay for another months rent to give us time to steadily move stuff in and clean. After already getting rid of quite a bit from our move out of New York, we still were going to have to further downsize. On January 30, 2023, we were officially out of the rental and in our new house. There was a lot of organizing to do. At work, I had been temporarily moved to another project so I wasn't getting home until late. I had barely any time to do Tradeway stuff. I was mentally and physically exhausted. All of the chaos was still pointing to the fact that I needed to quit. I felt stuck. I didn't know when was a good time to quit, but God did. Below are photos and short video clips from our trip to Buffalo for Christmas starting with our drive up. We knew the blizzard was coming so we were able to leave a day earlier and drove through the night. We chanted, "beat the blizzard!" as we rushed in and out of rest stops and gas stations. We drove in white out conditions and arrived at 10:30am. We are so grateful for how the Lord pushed us to keep moving forward. The one minute video below is from our drive to our friends house on Christmas. We got stuck once from moving too far over to avoid some linemen from Georgia that came up to help. I have a photo of them pushing us out above. Ha! My heart breaks for the lives that were lost in the blizzard. Buffalonians are tough. They know how to drive through snow. When it was all said and done, this blizzard was deemed worse than the famous one from 1977. It took many by surprise.

This is part of our Faith Journey Series. If you want the full context, click on this link to read the earlier posts: https://www.simplycampbell.com/blog/categories/faith-journey-series Ralph writing Courtney writing After attending the Flipped Lifestyle event and joining their community in September of 2022, I was ready for Ralph to quit the next day, but as he mentioned in the last post , he was not. He wanted to give both new ventures a good go first. Remember, I am the gas and Ralph is the brakes. At my construction job, I felt obligated to stay for two reasons. I was very grateful to our friends for the opportunity they had given me to learn another job and bring us down to Florida ( The Journey ). Even though they knew what our long term goals were, I still felt somewhat guilty about quitting. The other reason I felt like I had to wait to quit was because of the particular ongoing project that I had been given. I had compassion for the client who had been dealing with multiple management changes. That project had a lot of hiccups which was constantly delaying its completion. I wanted to be the one to finish it for her. I don’t like leaving things unfinished. In addition to the stock trading course, we were now both trying to do the Flipped Lifestyle course. It was a lot as I expected. I just kept hanging on and hoping that the project that Ralph was working on at work would be completed. The project was still not going well and the completion date continued to be pushed out further than I thought it would. My hope was to finish in the beginning of the new year and to potentially leave the construction work to focus on the stock market and online business once the project was completed. It was clear to me that the project would not be ending soon and that I would probably end up covering other projects as well. The thought of trying to do all of this was overwhelming and at times very frustrating . I knew Courtney was growing impatient as I was trying to figure out when the right time to leave was. In November of 2022, after a couple of months of trying to juggle it all, I reached a point where I couldn’t do it anymore. I was being pulled in so many directions. My mental capacity was exploding. I told Ralph that I had to stop working on the online business venture until he was able to quit. He understood and I was relieved, but frustrated. I wanted nothing more than to devote time to it, but my priority needed to remain with my children. I was not willing to compromise on that. I hated that we had invested in these two programs, but were not able to devote much (or in my case no) time to them. What was the point? We had countless conversations about Ralph quitting, but nothing was changing. I started to just keep quiet about it, but one night, on November 14, 2022 after tucking the boys in bed, I got it all out of my system and wrote for hours. I titled it, “Someone Put Me in a Looney Bin,” which I didn't mean literally. It was just my way of saying that my circumstances were crazy. Here is part of what I wrote: “Nothing is more frustrating than when you can’t do what you feel you have been called to do… Now we move down to FL so that he can try another career, while I still sit on the sidelines, and he doesn’t feel satisfied or settled in that job either. So we invest in two programs that could replace it…Ralph is 3 months into this stock class and he has barely been able to learn enough to start investing. We tried starting the online business classes and I started to have major anxiety cuz I couldn’t juggle all of it. He needs to be home in order for me to learn a new program and build another business. I told Ralph almost a month ago that I was not going to work on it again until he quit working. We cannot do both and I knew that we wouldn’t be able to. He knows that he needs to quit in order for us to pursue this effectively. So at this point we have essentially wasted our money. Taking trips would’ve been better money spent. I was on board with investing in the online course because we both agreed that it was a good next step towards accomplishing our goal of getting Ralph home. Before we moved to FL, Ralph read this book that talked about having a financial runway in order to quit your 9-5 and pursue something new. He said he wanted to have that before he quit. We have that and he still won’t quit. Someone please tell me what I am missing. I am literally going to lose my mind. I am having suicidal thoughts at times because this is so illogical and I feel as though I can’t live like this. Now Ralph feels like he has to complete this project that nobody cares about, including the owner of the building, but him. It’s the most frustrating project for everybody and yet there he stays. They are projecting it not being complete until March (2023). Four more months of this insanity and that’s not even guaranteed. What is it going to take? What is it holding him back? He says it’s not fear. Once again, I feel so disobedient in not doing what God is calling me to do. I feel like we are just wasting our lives. Why are we still here in this dump, paying $2300/month for broken screens on single pane windows? My kids are stepping on tacks sticking up in the carpet, the siding is falling off of the house, and our stuff is being stored in the hallway and our bedroom. And it’s not that I’m ungrateful. I know God strategically placed us here to lead us to the point we are at. I just can’t sit idle when I know what God has said to do. We have very little time when Ralph is gone for ten hours a day and five days a week. When he comes home, he’s rightfully spending time with the boys and I until it’s bedtime. Then he is going into the bedroom to watch a webinar on stock trading until eleven at night. Meanwhile, I am trying to muster up the energy and motivation to work on photography jobs that people are paying me for or trying to create content that has the potential to bring in an income. But trying to do this at 8:30, 9, 10, 11pm at night is laughable. I am tired. I have been giving of myself in every way possible for the past fourteen hours and now I have to work? I have said multiple times to him that we can save money if he was actually home, not running around constantly, and being pulled in a million directions. Simplify life and there will be more time to research, find free items online, and go through our finances. Ralph wants to make money at doing stocks first. There has to be a fear of failure. I keep reiterating to him that I have a skill that brings in money if I would just be given the chance. We wouldn’t just be draining the savings account. I could help. God would provide. I have no doubt about it. I told him that for fifteen years we have tried his way. I have respected him when he criticized my photography business in the early years of our marriage and when I had to cut my workload down in order to devote more time to motherhood while he worked 16 hour shifts. I moved down to Florida when he thought he needed to have that financial stability instead of just taking the money from the sale of the house and starting to pursue our own things. Someone, please, put me in a looney bin. I know that when I am in such an emotional state that I think ending my life would be easier than living this way, doesn’t come from God. It is why I run to my music that’s rooted in truth to ground me. It’s why I sit down and write to get my thoughts out, good, bad, or ugly. It’s why I am in the word every day, twice a day or more. The enemy wants nothing more than for me to be a hot mess, nulling me completely ineffective for the kingdom. I know God is at work. I know that down to my core. But, I also know my husband. I know that he suffers with this deeply rooted lack of self worth. I know that he is comfortable in dysfunction because it’s what he lived for so many of his childhood years. Inside of this 40 year old man is still a little boy hiding behind the chair and crying before having to go to school. He needs to know that he is so smart. That he has been given numerate and mechanical skills for a purpose greater than he can comprehend. That there is no way on earth he would allow us to ever go hungry. He deserves to live, too. I tell him these things constantly and it’s like he doesn’t believe me. Someone needs to fight for this man even if he feels like he isn’t worth fighting for. I’m trying to fight for him. I know that he needs to feel like he is doing something of worth. He would be. He would be investing extra time in our boys lives and having more time to learn how to invest in the stock market. God, please help him see how much you love him and what a wonderful plan you have for him. I know that you brought us together for a greater purpose than we can accomplish ourselves. You gave us these three boys to not only transform us, but to continue to move us in the direction you want us to go. These boys need their father. Their father wants to be home. Their mother wants him home. I know that you are trying to do something here. Please, help us both to be obedient to it. I am trying, Lord. I am trying to discern your voice, your calling, your activity for us. Your timing is perfect. Give me patience, God. Give me your peace. I beg of you.” When Courtney shared what she wrote with me it brought me to tears. I knew she was right and that we couldn't keep going this way. I was afraid of not having money coming in. I wanted the stock trading to start bringing in money before I would quit my job. However that was unrealistic in our current circumstances since we had so little time to devote to it. I have lacked self worth for years, I have never felt the things I do have value or that I am really of any value to anyone around me. Reading Courtney's writing resurfaced things that I had pushed down for years. For example, I want my family to be happy and I want to be happy, but I don't think I have really ever known how to be happy. Since my childhood, I learned to exist in my circumstances and to deal with whatever came day to day whether it was good or bad. It never even crosses my mind to try and get out of dysfunctional circumstances like it does in Courtney's mind. It had been three months since enrolling in Flipped Lifestyle and four months since trade school, More and more things were being uncovered at the construction project and there was no end in sight for completing it. I was growing weary of it. On December 5, we were discussing having me leave my job again when I had a revelation. We would not be able to qualify for a mortgage without my w-2 job. We needed to buy a house first. But God had been clearly shutting the door on buying a house. As mentioned in our post, " House Searching" we had looked at over 50 houses and put in seven offers before we felt the clear prompting from the Holy Spirit to stop the search. We hadn't'looked at a single house for sale in six months. The interest rates were quickly approaching 7%. That was about a 4% increase since we started looking eleven months prior. Would we be able to find something that we could afford? And if we did, would the Lord be for it? There was only one way to find out. (All photos were taken by Liam, our ten year old.)

This is part of our Faith Journey Series. If you want the full context, click on this link to read the earlier posts: https://www.simplycampbell.com/blog/categories/faith-journey-series It was September 10, 2022. We went into the Flipped Lifestyle event thinking we would pick up a few pointers on how to manage our Simply Campbell blog and gain some insight into how it could possibly be monetized. We quickly resonated with Shane Sams, the co-founder of Flipped Lifestyle and speaker of the event. He had also spoken at the main Life Surge event. We had loved his story then. Shane had a down to earth, southern charm and a deep love for Jesus. He was passionate about helping people leave their 9-5 jobs and succeed in starting their own online businesses. He and his wife, Joselyn had once been in the rat race themselves. Their incredible story can be found in this link: https://flippedlifestyle.com/our-story/ The Life Surge event stressed the importance of having multiple streams of income. We were beginning to agree that having an online business would be a good addition to stock trading. It was in line with our goals and it still would utilize our God given talents of writing, speaking, photography, and videography. Shane was all about practical application. He wasn't just about giving an inspirational message, though he was exceptional at that, too. He had us do a bunch of activities that forced us to really think through what we were gifted in, experienced in, and drawn to. We had to research topics, do math, and interact with others. Shane challenged Ralph and I to think bigger. Written on the post-its: Ralph: My why is my family. To be with them more! Courtney: My why- Short term - To get my husband home with our three boys Long term -Christ-filled influence in the world. The activity that affected me the most was having to write a letter to myself. It had to be as though I had already accomplished what I envisioned for myself a year from now. The kicker was that they would be mailed to us in a year (at this point in time, three months from now). That's really good accountability that I took seriously because I believe that words have great power. Not so coincidentally, we were assigned the Chief Operating Officer of Life Surge’s son, Tyler Marcell to help us answer questions. We showed him our blog, shared our story, and expressed our concerns for managing it all. We needed more time to pray and discuss whether we would invest in this, too. Tyler was inspired by our story and said that we needed to meet Shane Sams. We decided to hang out at the end of the day hoping for an opportunity to meet him. While waiting, Tyler’s dad, the chief operations officer of LifeSurge who "happened" to be at this event, walked by us, stopped, and introduced himself. His name was Shawn Marcell. He was down to earth, relatable, engaging, and was genuine in his care for our well being. During our great conversation with Shawn, I shared with him about my letter to Priscilla Shirer and her response. He was stunned. He jokingly said, “I can’t get her to respond to me and I’m her boss.” When he was walking away, he turned around and said to me, “that must have been a heck of a letter to get a response from Priscilla Shirer.” I remember thinking after that about how God was putting so many interesting people in our paths. I have continued to reflect on our interactions with Priscilla Shirer, the chief operations officer of Life Surge, Shawn Marcell, his son, Tyler, and Shane Sams. I can't help but believe that God has done it for a purpose that I can't even see or make sense of yet. On the way home from our first day at the Flipped Lifestyle event, we talked about moving forward with their program and prayed again that evening. It seemed evident that this was a good next move and that it went right in line with what we were trying to accomplish. (We stopped for ice cream at our favorite little place, Twistee Treat and talked about Flipped Lifestyle while watching traffic.) The following day, we took the plunge and invested. We were also able to get a photo with Shawn Marcell, his son, Tyler, and Shane Sams. Even though we still hadn’t had a conversation with Shane yet, he had somehow heard about us. When he passed by us, he made a funny comment about how he still needed to meet this famous couple. We stayed behind at the event for an extra meeting with those that had signed up. We waited patiently as people talked with Shane. We were the last ones. I had one question for him. It was burning inside of me. I knew that Ralph had to quit his job and live off of our savings in order to do these programs, but I wanted to hear what Shane would say. As soon as we told Shane our story, he called over a team member named Nicole Michelen who was in the same boat as us only months before. They had sold their house, had six kids, homeschooled, one was ready to take the plunge and the other wasn’t, but eventually they did. Knowing our situation, Shane didn’t think it was necessary for Ralph to stay at his job in construction for much longer. Ralph being the “safe” individual that he is was not ready to up and quit without any money coming in. I completely understood him, but my faith is big. We left that event so excited. God had answered our prayers again in unexpected ways. We had clear direction as to what our next steps were to be. We had another great tool that could help us replace Ralph’s income and bring him home. I was also super encouraged as I reflected on our interactions with Priscilla, the Chief operations officer of Life Surge, and Shane Sams. I do not idolize people, but I do believe that God raises some people up to higher platforms for His purposes. To have had conversations with some of the people that He has used in big ways, to me, meant that God was trying to do big things with us and I wanted nothing more than to be a part of it. (Left to right: Shane Sams, Courtney, Ralph, Tyler Marcell, and Shawn Marcell) The next post will be called, "Juggling and Waiting" for obvious reasons. ;)

This is part of our Faith Journey Series. If you want the full context, click on this link to read the earlier posts: https://www.simplycampbell.com/blog/categories/faith-journey-series We left off when Ralph attended the Tradeway stock trading weekend and took a big step of faith to invest in it having the long term goal of it replacing his income. There were still two other Life Surge weekend events to attend. One was for real estate investing and the other online business. We decided to skip the real estate one knowing that there would be another program offered. We knew that we didn’t want to go in the direction of real estate investing yet. Honestly, we were beginning to wonder if we should even go to the online business weekend that was coming up. Ralph was working full time and in trading school while I was managing our blog, my photography business, and homeschooling. Should we add something else to our plates? About a month after Life Surge, I decided to check my email hoping to see something from one of the people we had given our letter to at LifeSurge. My heart jumped in surprise when I saw a message from Priscilla Shirer. I eagerly opened the email and this is what it said: “Ralph and Courtney, I wanted to thank you so much for taking the time to write me a letter and give it to me at Life Surge several weeks ago. I apologize for the delay in responding. Your website, blog and shop are beautiful. And, more than that, the intentional way in which you are seeking to point people to Jesus boldly is so needed right now. I applaud you and celebrate the path you have chosen for your ministry/business. In the letter, you mentioned that you want to be "time wealthy". Goodness, that is so important - especially in your current season of raising those three amazing boys! I am going to be praying that God will give you both supernatural strategies and connections to help make that happen so that you can pursue His purposes and prioritize each other, your sons and His calling on your lives. In terms of advice, I would recommend that you connect with Shane Sams’ business. Do you remember him from the conference? In my opinion, he has the most practical and helpful insights for people who are seeking to build their online business. I know that he and his wife are a wealth of information in that regard. I hope that they can be a great source for you. God bless you both and those sweet boys. I celebrate that fact that you are pursuing the life that you want and the purpose for which you were created. Sincerely, Priscilla Shirer" I was elated and honored. Of all the people in the world to interact with and out of all of the things Priscilla could have been doing, she chose to connect with us. Yes, I wrote her first, but I truly didn't expect a response. I had only hoped. I can't even imagine how many emails, letters, and messages she has to read and yet, she chose us. Priscilla's words to us were so encouraging and heartfelt. I value words and often replay what people say to me. The belief that Ralph should be home was confirmed even more through Priscilla's email to us. She understood and was in agreement that this was a good direction to go in! I thought, "well shoot if Prisiclla Shirer is suggesting that we go to this online business event, then we would be pretty foolish to ignore her advice when I had asked her for it in the first place. That woman had a lot better things to do with her time than read my letter, check out our new blog, and write out such a well thought out email." Not so coincidentally, my sister, Danielle and niece, Sami were in town during the weekend of the event hosted by Shane Sams, the man that Priscilla Shirer was referring to in her email. We didn't have to worry about finding child care for those couple of days. We knew had to go. This was clearly God appointed. Our spirits had been renewed. We are grateful for how God used Priscilla. There were eleven days before the online business event and we were looking forward to seeing what else God wanted to show us. We were ready. :) P.S. If you don't know who Priscilla Shirer is, I encourage you to look her up. She has an incredible gift of communicating God's Word. She also stumbled (successfully) into film making. Her FIRST movie, War Room grossed $74 million worldwide, including $67.8 million domestically to become the 7th highest-grossing Christian film in the United States. She has a thriving ministry called Going Beyond and great bible studies. I did Armor of God and learned so much from it. That's how I first knew who she was. Her website is https://www.goingbeyond.com .

This was recorded in April of 2021, but it was a writing first. I had written it in 2020 a few months after the Covid nonsense and during the insane presidential election between Biden and Trump. I also wrote it because of my own disappointing experience a few years prior to writing it. Despite the busy season of the life I was in with a 7, 4, and 1 year old at home (My unkempt hair and lack of makeup is a dead giveaway.), I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me to record this. I remember it taking me a while and it was hard to record in between the household noises, but I was determined. This message needed to get out. I posted it on my other blog ( https://www.courtneycampbell.net/post ) . To this day, it is still my highest viewed blog post. The message of Jesus never gets old! Whether you choose to watch the video or just read the words (they are the same), my prayer is that you hear my heart in this. People are disappointing. I’m disappointing! Let’s just get that out there. Now, can some be encouraging? Inspiring? Thoughtful? Absolutely! But let’s just be real here. People are disappointing. If you are thinking of someone right now and saying, “so and so has NEVER disappointed me” well then I say graciously that you probably haven’t spent enough time with them just yet. Just wait. They will. I’m not trying to sound negative. I’m just being real. No human is perfect. No human being can meet all of your expectations. Most of our frustrations, anger, times of depression are ultimately rooted in the fact that we expected something from a certain person, group or entity and it, or they, let you down. We can even put ourselves on a pedestal and then let ourselves down and then we can get in a funk over it, but I’m not getting into that right now. There is this worship of people and placing them on pedestals where they don’t belong. This idolizing of people, expecting them to save you, your state, or your country is all so unhealthy. There is not a single person on this planet that will meet every single one of your expectations. Now, how do we come to terms with that? My answer? Jesus. Now, before we continue, I want you to check yourself. What just stirred up inside of you when you read his name? Anger? Doubt? Laughter? Relief? Curiosity? Hope? Whatever emotion that immediately came out of you is a good indicator of what level of disappointment is in him. See, every human being, whether they want to admit it or not at some point in their life, thought about or believed in God because that’s how He made them (Genesis 1:26), but something happened that disappointed them, hurt them, devastated them to the point where they turned their back on Him (Romans 1:18-32). They stopped paying attention to him. They were so angry at him that they decided that he was a crappy God and that they could go about life in a much better way without Him. And so they go down this path with this false expectation that they are smarter than God. They can make better decisions than Him. And then that carries over into relationships. Because they reign in their own life, they put other people on pedestals that they don’t belong on. They expect better out of these people. They expect better from their spouses, their friends, their boyfriends, their girlfriends. They expect more from their boss. They expect more from an organization. They expect more from their parents. They expect more from their governor or their president. Can I just help you now by saying that none of them will satisfy? Oh, you might be happy with the relationship that you have, or that job, or that organization, or that governor or that president right now, but it’ll change. They might change. You change. And then in comes that disappointment, frustration, anger, depression. How can I be so bold to say such things? I’ve been there! And I still catch myself doing it sometimes! Through my disappointments, moments of anger and depression I have learned that Jesus never disappoints. Jesus doesn’t change. He doesn’t get his period. He doesn’t lose his job. He doesn’t divorce you. He doesn’t go bankrupt. He doesn’t misunderstand you. He never leaves you. He is available at every second of every day at every breath. He is behind you. He is in front of you. He is right next to you all at the same time. And can I add to my brothers and sisters in Christ, that his spirit is IN you (Romans 8). Let that sink in. When you allow Jesus to reign in your life and not a friend, relative, spouse, virus, organization, governor or president, he puts things into proper perspective for you. He reminds you that all of what’s happening is fleeting. God has a reason for and has allowed every circumstance to happen. You have two choices with what you want to do with that. You can look at what’s happening and get angry at Him for not doing what you expected or you can ask him why he allowed it. Be honest with him. And then ask what it is he wants to teach you through it. The reality is that we don’t live in a perfect world (Genesis 3, Romans 5:12). It’s a broken world full of broken people (Romans 3:23). It won’t be like this forever, but until Jesus returns to repair it (Revelation 21:1-5), this is our reality (John 14:1-4). Please don’t misunderstand me. God hates every pain he sees you endure. He hates death. He hates injustice. He hates evil. He hates selfish ambition. He hates pride. He didn’t make the world to be like this. He allowed sin to enter it because he loved his creation (meaning YOU) so much that he wasn’t going to force you into having a relationship with him and loving him back (Genesis 2:8-9, 16-17, 3:1-24). We are given a choice to either acknowledge he and his son, Jesus or reject him (Romans 10:9, John 3:16, John 14:6). That’s the greatest form of love (Revelation 3:20). To love someone so much that they allow you to choose your own path knowing that one will be full of purpose, guided by him and ultimately with him and the other will ultimately lead to death (Matthew 7:13-14, John 10:10). But before that happens, he will not stop pursuing you until your dying breath. How does he pursue? A lot of ways, but one way is through people. Those same, stinky, imperfect people that will disappoint you also have the ability to point you to Jesus. Like me, right here, right now, an imperfect willing vessel. The Bible is also a world changer. It’s not only a handbook inspired by the spirit of God (2 Timothy 3:16), but it also has the power to transform you if you allow it to. Start reading it and if you don’t know where to start, ask someone you know who knows Jesus and they will gladly direct you (I recommend the books of John and Romans!). Can I encourage you for a second? When you are feeling weary, run to Jesus (Matthew 11:28). When you are feeling angry, run to Jesus (James 1:19-20). When you are terrified of what is to come, run to Jesus (Joshua 1:9). And, let me remind you, as I remind myself, that people will disappoint, especially those whom you expect much out of. Try not to be surprised when they do. Be grateful and embrace those moments when they don’t. They are not God. Remove them from the pedestal that you put them on and replace them with Jesus. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." 2 Timothy 2:1-3

(This is part of our Faith Journey Series. If you want the full context, click on this link to read the earlier posts: https://www.simplycampbell.com/blog/categories/faith-journey-series ) On August 5, 2022, one week after Life Surge, I attended the stock trading weekend without Courtney. She stayed home with the kids this time. I was uncomfortable sitting in a large room with a bunch of people I didn’t know, but still feeling like I needed to be there. My introverted nature was washing away as I met the people at my table who were mostly like me. Most of them had little knowledge, were eager to learn, and happy to be around other people with the same desire. I gained a firehose of information that I couldn’t possibly comprehend all at the same time, but it helped give me an idea of what is possible. After having listened to the speakers and talking with coaches who have turned trading into a full time job, I was hopeful that this could be something that I could replace my income with. As to be expected, they offered further training for an additional cost. This program would have lesson material, one on one coaches, daily zoom calls, a community forum, and tons of other resources. By the end of the first day, I was torn. I am not one to spend a lot of money or make impulsive purchases. Unbeknownst to me, my campus pastor, Mike Schirle from Discovery Church was there and came up to me during our first break. He offered to take me out for lunch where we discussed more of what Courtney and I were wanting to do. At the end of the next day, I was still torn and shared that with him who then prayed with me for wisdom and next steps. I was thankful for his company, wisdom, and compassion towards Courtney and I. Especially since we had only known him for about five months. I decided that I needed the evening to think about this more, talk it over with Courtney, and pray together. Courtney was almost immediately on board with investing in the coaching program. She thought it sounded very fitting for me. She has always called me “the numbers guy.” It seemed evident to us that this was a reason for why God had been shutting the door on a house for the last six months. We would’ve missed this if we were wrapped up in house searching, purchasing, moving, or settling. The last day of the event was on Sunday. With it being a Christian company, they did a morning church service. A man named Blair Nightingale gave a short backstory to his life along with some preaching. While he was speaking, I was given the thought to go talk to him about our families story. Ours seemed relevant to his. I was a little nervous to go up to him because I don’t normally do things like that. I told him that I felt like God wanted me to share my story with him. He was very appreciative that I had taken the time to talk to him and I was glad I did. I also met Steven Andrus who was the brother to the man that spoke at LifeSurge about stock trading (there is a video clip on this post of him). I gave him an elevator version of our story and shared my reluctance with him about the coaching program. He said that I had the right mentality when it came to being skeptical about investing in it. He added that impulsiveness is not a good quality to have when investing in the stock market. Steven shared with me how he has made most of his money from trading in the stock market. He then used that money to get into real estate investing. That’s something that I have been interested in for six years. Steven said that the information that I would gain from these coaching classes would be extremely valuable. Better yet, I could learn it from the comfort of home. He shared that he had learned how to do trading by driving an hour one way after work for a couple of hours to his mentor’s house. Given the things that I had told Steven about myself, our family, and our goals, he said that stock trading could be a great asset for our family. He does his trading drinking his coffee in his pajamas on his bed and is done before lunch. The idea of waking up, having my morning coffee and working off of a laptop sounded quite inviting compared to how I had been making a living. That would also mean more time with my family and give me the ability to take better care of myself. I decided to take yet another big leap of faith and enter the program. I asked myself why I should pay for a program when there are so many free resources available on the inter web. I concluded that the zoom calls and coaching would fast track my pace of learning. I also liked that it was started by a pastor who has forty years of stock trading knowledge and that the program was built upon biblical wisdom. I was excited to learn. When I first started, the program was extremely interesting to me. The information was overwhelming, but I was determined to digest as much as I could and as fast as I could. My goal was for this to replace my current income as soon as possible, but it was a slow process. I stayed up late many nights to watch the videos and to work on the course material. I felt like I was on a hamster wheel juggling this program, family, and work. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this pace up. I knew it would be hard when I signed up and it was. Stay tuned.

This is part of a series, called “Faith Journey.” ( https://www.simplycampbell.com/blog/categories/faith-journey-series .) Instead of putting everything in one post, we have broken it up into small “chapters” for ease of reading. We left off our last writing, “In the Waiting” ( https://www.simplycampbell.com/post/in-the-waiting ) with us anticipating an event called, “Life Surge” that we believed was an answer to prayer. Ralph writing Courtney writing The Life Surge event was on July 30, 2022. We truly had no idea what to expect from it. Our prayer the night before was for insight. We were also asking God for direction for Ralph. Could this event help him find a way to generate an income that would allow him to be home like we had been praying for? Would our letter that we had written to Priscilla Shirer and Willie Robertson actually make it into their hands? Would it give us answers? We had to wake up early to get the boys to their babysitters that lived 45 minutes from us. While we were on the interstate, traffic started to build up about half a mile before the exit we had to get off at. That traffic stayed that way until we pulled into the parking lot of the event. We were surprised! We were close to thirty minutes late when after we parked, a car right by us got stuck in the sand so we stayed to help along with others. When we walked in, the place was packed with thousands of people. We had no idea this event was going to be so big. Because of the tickets we had purchased, we were led to the second row from the front. We’re usually back row people. I went to the event open minded not knowing what to expect. A guy named Roman Andrus came to the platform who had experience in investing in the stock market. This was the first time that I had thought about it in a positive light. The stock market was not well spoken of by most of the people I had talked to, articles I had read, videos I had seen, or podcasts that I had listened to, but at the same time I had never intentionally sought out information about it either. At Life Surge, the more I listened, the more it seemed like it would suit how I envisioned living. Here is a five minute clip of Roman Andrus. At the end of that session, they were offering a weekend event to do a deeper dive into stock trading. It wouldn’t cost much so I signed up. I thought this was something worth pursuing. I was excited to see what they had to say and to learn more about it. At the event, I could see Ralph was enjoying himself almost immediately. He was having me take notes, taking my hand, laughing, and smiling a lot. I was so thankful and excited for what God was doing! We were already getting more direction with our desire to get Ralph home. I was inspired by the genuineness of all of the speakers. Through their stories of faith, life experiences, and businesses, they showed that it’s possible for anyone to create something. It helped direct my aspiration of not wanting to work for someone. I had that desire while working in corrections, but felt stuck with how to accomplish it. (A few of the speakers-Benham brothers, Tim Tebow, Willie Robertson, and Priscilla Shirer.) There were also speakers who taught on real estate investing and online business. Again, they offered an additional workshop for them. Because we had signed up for the stock trading weekend event, they made these other two free. It was evident that the people behind this event were genuine in their desire to help Christians have multiple streams of income. When people are out from under financial burdens or stressful jobs, you have more time to be present in your day to day life. This means a greater impact in the world. They are a business, yes, but they truly cared. This seemed to be exactly what we had been praying for. At the end of the event, they did meet and greets with the guest speakers. There was such a genuineness to all of the speakers that you could feel both on and off the stage. This was my opportunity to engage with Priscilla Schirer and Willie Robertson. Priscilla was first. They asked us to keep everything on a table outside of the curtained room she was in, but I still had my note to her in my pocket. We had only seconds with each of them and I was nervous about how I should give my letter to Priscilla. The second I got in there, I pulled it out and said to her, “I spent three hours writing this, but I was told I couldn’t bring it in.” She took it in both of her hands, held it up in front of her face, looked me in the eye, and said fervently, “I will read this” and put it in her pocket. I was relieved and grateful. Apparently my surprise from Priscilla's response was caught on camera. HA! ( https://www.goingbeyond.com ) Nick Vujic was a sweetheart. This was not my first time hearing him speak. He didn't disappoint either time. This man is on fire for Jesus. He told me to give him a hug when we stepped in. We have friends that have sung for him and have said the same thing. ( https://nickvujicic.com ) The first thing Ralph thought when we stood by Tim Tebow was, “wow, he’s big.” His hand could have crushed mine. We had never heard him speak before. His love for Jesus and people is so evident!! We love how bold he is in his faith. ( https://timtebow.com ) Lastly was Willie Robertson. I told him that I wrote something, said in a lighthearted joking manner that he didn’t have to read it and could pass it along to his wife if he wanted to instead. He responded with, “I’ve got my flight!” And stuffed it in his pocket. We loved hearing more of the behind the scene details that led them to their TV show. ( https://duckcommander.com/pages/willie-robertson ) I decided to give our letter to two other people. They were the Benham brothers that were hanging out in an after party. Ralph and I both joked with them about not knowing who they were because we didn’t watch much TV. They said they didn’t either! They have a great God story, too about not changing who they are for Hollywood. ( https://benhambrothers.com ) I had done what I felt God prompted me to do. I was very curious how this would play out. Would anyone actually read it and respond? Leaving the event, I was excited about the ideas and ways that we could earn a living from home without having a boss. That has been our dream for six years. This event had laid out for us the steps we should be moving forward with. Now we had to attend the weekend events for more direction. The next post will be about Ralph being challenged in lots of ways at the Trade Way weekend event. If you'd like to follow along to find out how everything played out, there is an option to subscribe below where you will receive an email notification when the next writing is posted.

( Photo Credit: Liam, our ten year old artist.) In our post, "House Searching," we shared how after looking at over 50 houses in 9 different cities and seven declined offers, we believed that God wanted us to push the pause button on looking. Click on this link to read: https://www.simplycampbell.com/post/house-searching Ralph writing Courtney writing A few weeks after we had stopped looking, on July 22, 2022, I was reflecting on our situation. I decided to write it down: “Welcome to the world of the middle class…A world where during the course of the seven months you have been trying to buy a house, the interest rates have doubled. A world where a 350k house is either 1,000 sq ft or practically uninhabitable and will need another 100k to fix it…A world where .17 of an acre costs 30k…A world where you bring in 74k a year, have no state income tax, zero debt, don’t spend money on extracurricular activities like sports in order to save money, have a nicely padded savings account and you are left to conclude that after all of the above, you can’t afford to buy a house. You want to see the middle class disappear, keep this nonsense up. God is up to something. If I didn’t believe that, this situation would look extremely dismal. ” On the same day as that writing, only shortly after I had written it, I heard an advertisement on the radio about a Christian event called, “Life Surge” that was happening in eight days. It was designed to equip people with skills that would allow them financial freedom and time to make a bigger impact in the world. It seemed like this was an answer to our prayer of what next steps we should be taking to get Ralph home. Ralph agreed and said as long as we could find child care that he was on board. (This is a screenshot from the day I learned about the event that I sent to Ralph to see if he was interested. This event was definitely for us.) We had only been in Florida for a handful of months so our network wasn’t too big yet. The boys and I had been going to a group called Wild+Free for only two months, but there was a family in there that I believed were trustworthy. They happily agreed to watch the kids and were excited for what we were about to embark on. When I went online to purchase the tickets, I saw that they offered different levels of tickets. I saw that there was an option to be able to meet the speakers. Though I am not one to care about or pay attention to famous people, I was drawn to Priscilla Shirer and Willie Robertson. They were taking the platforms that God had placed them on and were glorifying Him through them. That is a rare and beautiful thing to see in this world. I wanted the opportunity to tell them that myself and share what God had been doing in our lives. I did something I rarely do. I purchased those higher priced tickets when I normally get the cheapest and did so without discussing it with Ralph. My palms were sweaty and my heart was racing knowing that God was up to something through this event, but not knowing what that was yet. When Ralph came home from work I said to him, “I bought the most expensive tickets.” Knowing that's not like me, he calmly asked why and I said, “because you’re going to meet Willie Robertson.” He laughed and repeated, “I’m going to meet Willie Robertson” as if to say, “OK and why?” I thought, “why do I have to meet Willie Robertson? I read his dad's books and got a kick out of Duck Dynasty, but hadn’t watched it in probably six years. I respected the holistic side to their family and what they represented. It is a rare thing to see a functioning Christian family on TV. I had to ask Courtney who every other famous person was that was going. That being said, I didn’t see a point in meeting them. I don’t care about celebrities. Like I said, I don’t really care about celebrities either, but I felt God clearly tell me that I needed to write something and give it to Priscilla Shirer, Willie Robertson, and whoever else he prompted me to give it to when we were there. Doing this writing to these guest speakers forced Ralph and I to sit down and talk about what our goals were. What were they exactly??? Wow, that was such a hard conversation to have! Thankfully, our friend Heather had come to visit from Buffalo and watched the boys while we had that much needed conversation. This is what I wrote and planned to give to Priscilla and Willie: “We are Ralph and Courtney Campbell. We have been married for 15 years and have three boys that are 9, 6, and 3 years old. Six months ago we took a big step of faith. Ralph resigned from his stable fifteen year job at Attica prison in NY and we moved to Orlando, FL. Currently, Ralph is working full-time as a job superintendent for a commercial construction company and Courtney is keeping their three boys alive. She also has had her own photography business for 17 years ( www.courtneycampbell.net ). For five years we have felt this pull from God to start, “Simply Campbell,” but our life simply didn’t allow for it until we moved. It is a blog where we are BOTH writing, being transparent, and intentionally pointing people to Jesus through all of it. We believe that we have been gifted with the ability to speak honestly, boldly, tactfully, and tenderly. People are so desperately searching for truth, love, and fulfillment. We want to be one of those who show them where they can find that; in Jesus! So why are we writing this to you? Ultimately, we really resonate with what you have done. We love seeing you taking what God has gifted you in and giving HIM all of the glory for the time that HE has allowed you to be on the platforms that HE has given you. We want to be in your kind of company because of that and not because of the status this broken world has labeled you as. We are not looking for some big contribution or a name-drop from you. However, if you feel drawn to us and would like to personally help, guide, encourage, or point us to someone who could mentor us, we would be so grateful. We want whatever God wants. If HE wants to give us a bigger platform through “Simply Campbell,” we are open to it. If HE doesn’t, then so be it. We will keep it going regardless. We don’t care about being financially wealthy. We care about being time wealthy; Time to invest in our three boys souls for the short time we have them in our home. Time to do Kingdom work. Money is simply one of the tools that make this possible. We are debt free and doing our best to be financially independent, too. We believe that “Simply Campbell” could be one of the avenues that would allow us to accomplish these goals. We just can’t know if He wants to do more with this unless we put ourselves out there more. So, here we are. :) We understand that you can’t know someone from one single writing or short interaction. If you are even a little curious, we ask that you go to our website www.simplycampbell.com . If you like what you see, please, tell us what more you believe God could do with it. We value your insight! Thank you for taking the time to read this. Thank you for setting a Godly example. May you continue to be blessed with health and time to keep living your life for Jesus.” (Photo Credit: Liam, our ten year old artist. He stopped shooting, excitedly ran over to a plant with pink leaves, and brought some over to put in the tree branch that was in the foreground.) This event was definitely Courtney’s leading. I didn’t have time to think. I trusted her judgement and went with the idea because I couldn’t think about much more than what I had to on a daily basis. Every day I was still at the new job learning so my brain was pretty much shot by the end of the day. I had said to Courtney on more than one occasion that I didn’t feel settled between the house we were in and the job I was working. She can’t just ignore me when I say things like that. She’ll try to find a solution for it and encourage me to pray. I had just stepped out in faith by leaving New York State Corrections and moving us down to Florida only six months prior. Now Courtney wanted to check this out and see if it would give us more direction. Guilty. I pay close attention to Ralph and do a lot of reflecting. I do not waste any time if I believe God is trying to do something. This event intrigued me in a way that said, “God is in this.” I want to be a part of what God is in. And God was definitely in it. Our next writing will be about that life changing event called, "Life-Surge."

As described in “The Journey” post ( https://www.simplycampbell.com/post/the-journey-part-two ), God led us to a small town in Florida. It was an area we had never even been to until the night we moved down. We weren’t sure if this was the town we were going to stay in though. We were open to most of central Florida because we knew that Ralph’s job would be in that area and would change with every new construction project . Ralph writing Courtney writing We looked at houses almost immediately after moving down. We did not want to be in the rental house for long. It did not feel like home. Our experience looking at houses was vastly different than in NY when we bought our first house seven years ago. We were surprised by the lack of professionalism in the sellers agents. On more than one occasion, we would look at a house and like it enough to want to put an offer in so our agent would call to get more information. It would turn out that the house was under contract already and the sellers agent never bothered to tell ours before we all took the time to drive out to look at it. Needless to say, looking at houses was getting very frustrating. After I would get out of work we would sometimes drive an hour to look at a house, have to eat late and sacrifice family time. Then at night we would look at more houses and start the process all over again. We did this on and off for five months. Houses were selling within hours of them going on the market so we had to make very quick decisions, often putting us in uncomfortable positions with trying to decide on what we should offer. People were offering well over asking price and other obscene things like paying for the sellers closing costs in order to have their offer accepted. In June of 2022, after about six months of looking at over 50 houses in 9 different areas, and our seventh offer was declined, we decided to put looking at houses on hold. The number seven stood out to us. We believed that God was communicating with us through that number by saying, “you’re done for now. Rest.” As written about in “The First Month” post ( https://www.simplycampbell.com/post/the-first-month-iii ) it was not an ideal living situation. The house was not our style, it wasn’t well cared for due to past renters, and we had boxes and totes stacked up in the bedroom, hallway, and deteriorating garage. Also, Courtney’s brother had moved down, too and was living with us. The rent was twice as much as we had been paying for our mortgage in NY and Tyler couldn’t afford to live on his own yet with not knowing what his income would be like so he rented a room in the house. Florida is not the cheapest place to live. The boys loved having Uncle Tyler around, but Uncle Tyler didn’t always love having the boys around. We are not a quiet household. We used to call his room his hidey hole because that’s where he would stay if he was home. I missed my brother’s hugs. I knew it was driving Courtney nuts to live in disorder, but it was clear we needed to push pause on looking. Both of us have learned over the years to be adaptable. This was just another thing we needed to adjust to. No place is paradise is what I always say. This was the first time we had very little control over where we were going to live. As we mentioned in “The Journey” post, it was our only option. The doors had been clearly shut on everything else. We made the most of it as best as we could. I hung up decorations and got to know many of the neighbors. The best part about living at that house was the pool. We ALL loved it!! I was beginning to think that God was trying to shift us into a totally new way of living. Through all of this we continued to pray as a family. Where we should live and what were our next steps? Ralph often would say, “I don’t feel settled.” But we kept saying, “but we’re in Florida.” We were so grateful to be in it. We were building relationships at church and in our community, but a place to call home had to wait .