After just one year of teaching, we made the decision that I (Luke) was not to go back.

I had not actively pursued a single teaching position, didn’t turn my resume in anywhere, but always said in the back of my mind, if it was Cleveland NJROTC, I would give it a shot. This was with the intention of being able to serve throughout the day as a teacher pouring into the lives of my students and helping prepare them to be great American citizens as an American History teacher, but then once I would get out of school before 3:00 would have the chance to go into the community to share the gospel and make disciples, all the meanwhile providing for my family through my God-given gift of teaching. This was in theory a great idea, but would turn out to just be an easy way out of being fully committed to what God has called me to do. SO…when I got the email stating that there was an opening I jumped through the hoops to make it happen.

Through this process I learned that there are five major stressors in life by becoming too familiar with their stresses:

1. Finances
2. Housing
3. Occupation
4. Relationships
5. Grief

We were just married and figuring that out (not that we’re perfect, but better), I had gotten a new job as a teacher (Occupation and finances), and we were house hunting. This was rough…until the fifth one came into play with the sudden passing of a family member. This would send me into a bout of depression that was diagnosed by my counselor as Adjustment Disorder.

After a couple months of counseling I learned some strategies to help in the classroom and made it through the end of the year with my head above water, but it was clear that teaching in that capacity just is not where God has called me.

This was reaffirmed throughout my last trip to India in August, when I got to see people come to new life in Christ, as the gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed for the first time in their villages. Within four days we were able to see people start following Jesus, immediately discipled by teaching them how to study the New Testament, and then trained on how to share their story and Jesus’ story. Before we went to their villages there was little presence of the gospel, but because of the work that started not even two months ago, there will be echoes into eternity with people from the village and even surround villages gathering around the throne in heaven declaring worthy is the lamb that was slain! I can’t wait!

The trip in August reminded me how much work needs to be done both at home in St. Louis and across the globe so that all people groups would hear. There are a number of great churches and organizations working in and around St. Louis with these same goals. Its an honor to serve a church within the missions capacity planning outreach events here, near, and far for the body of Christ to act indeed as hands and feet of Christ, showing compassion, and sharing Jesus’ story.

There are over 3000 people groups in the world where there is no gospel ministry, so  I have joined e3 Partners Engaging Nations team as a Catalyst where my role will be like the initial missionary to an unengaged people group. Please check out my staff page to learn more about this: www.purecharity.com/luke-holder-e3. (Definitions of people group and unengaged people groups can be found here.)

After a year of testing my call and heart for the nations, I now find myself in a position doing full-time ministry, focusing on seeing people who have yet to hear the gospel come to faith in Jesus and start being discipled. It is scary to step out into the unknown being partner funded, but I know that what God begins, He sustains.

I could not be more excited for this new adventure and want to thank everyone who has supported us already!

We are Luke and Emma Holder writing our real life stories to keep people up to date and document our lives. We aren’t important people, but we live exciting lives.

We got married on June 12th of 2015 and there is no looking back. The first year of marriage was an exciting ride, but year two is turning out even more interesting. Luke is starting full-time ministry. Emma owns a couple businesses and teaches second grade. We are going through the process of fostering to adopt a sweet, little girl. Marriage, fostering to adopt, full-time ministry, and owning businesses make our lives quite busy, so we have started this blog to help us remember this season of life.

We want to be real about the successes and struggles that we are having in these different areas to share our experiences and encourage others like us. We also want to document this so that our kids can one day read and learn about the different seasons of life that we have been through.

FOSTERING TO ADOPT: The entire process of fostering was quite sudden and nothing short of unexpected. Thus far, it has been amazing and we pray that more people would step out in faith to have a similar experience.  It is not something that we were planning on doing and therefore gives us more motivation to share our stories. As we continue this process there will undoubtedly be more stories to share. This is one of the main reasons that we wanted to start our blog to inform on the system and encourage others based on our experiences.

ON MISSION: As Christ followers we want to strive to be the hands and feet of Christ…this isn’t always easy, especially because we are wretched sinners. Thankfully our Savior, Jesus Christ, has paid for our sins. We have been bought with a price, as it is described in 1st Corinthians 6, and because of that, Romans 8 helps us learn that there is no condemnation for our sins because Jesus already took that condemnation on. It isn’t just what we believe and say, but the way that we walk in light of this that can make an impact on the world.

REAL MARRIAGE: We believe that there are many misconceptions about what marriage is and isn’t…some of the best advice that we received close to our wedding was to be attentive about the people’s marriages who were giving us marriage advice. We just want to be real about the fun that we have together and the silly arguments that we find ourselves in; such as a 30 minute argument about it not being appropriate to serve tacos and taco salad at the same sitting.  We are two imperfect people trying to love each other best as possible. We believe that marriage is a covenant between a husband, his wife, and God to be upheld ’till death do us part.

BUSINESS: Between the two of us, we are involved in four small businesses that we love: On Skinker Lane Monograms and more, Mirabella, LulaRoe on the Lane, and Sugar Creek Beard Supply Co…we strive to give our best at everything that we do and these are no exception to that. While they can make our lives busier that we want at times, we enjoy them and the people we are involved with.

OTHER THOUGHTS: Not everything that happens in our lives will be filtered through the lenses of the above categories, but will be nonetheless meaningful to us, so we will still share whenever that happens.

HOLD ON HOLDERS: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men often go awry.” very few (if any) of our stories are noteworthy because they happened the way we planned, but in life when God laughs at our plans because He has something different in store for us, we can just stick together, trusting Him through the process.