From North To South

This is a blog post on a blog I created when I decided to move up to Portland Oregon to help start the church Colossae.  I literally haven't posted on this blog for almost three years now, but I figured it would be fitting to take a deeper look into our decision to move back down to San Diego here.

Here is a little recap of the last 6 years first:

• April 10th, 2008 I made the venture to move to Tigard, Oregon to help start Colossae church by leading worship.
• April 2009, Kristen, my friend at the time but now my wife moved to Tigard to also be a part of Colossae church.  (We were friends from college, at this point we weren't dating)
• May 8th, 2010 Kristen and I got married.  We had our wedding in San Diego since that is where both our families are from.
• June 2010, I started the business Greg Helton Photography and began photographing weddings.  I was also bartending and waiting tables at CPK at the time
• September 2011 I quit CPK and started only doing my photography business
• August 2013, Kristen and I found out that we were pregnant (more Kristen than me)
• January 14th, 2014 we officially decided to move back to San Diego

Obviously this is a very brief synopsis of the last 6 years, but it truly all has impact on this next stage of life.

Kristen and I have been very blessed while living in the great Northwest!  There is something so special about the area and our church body.   The tall pine trees, the sun staying out until almost 10pm in the summer time, the fresh air, the gorgeous landscape.  We absolutely love the area and people from up here.  That has not changed, nor do I think it will ever change. 

When we found out that we are going to have a baby, I think this was the biggest catalyst of change that we have seen in our marriage.  The ways that we think, plan, prepare are far different and we now have larger goals that are bigger than ourselves.  As we talked about the future, what would be in store for our family and how we would move forward as a family of three, we began thinking through many different life scenarios and began questioning what steps we need to take to provide for our family and honor God.  If we boiled down our four biggest life goals at this point, it came down to these.

1. Serve and honor God with our lives to the best of our ability
2. Care for and raise our daughter in a way that honors God 
3. Have Kristen be able to stay at home and raise our child rather than having to find child care
4. For me to continue to be able to do my business, which I am so passionate about

So as we really sat and thought about these goals we realized that San Diego was our best opportunity to achieve these all together.  What I had moved to Portland to do, lead the body of Colossae in worship has been completed.  Though I am still heavily involved in the church, I feel that God has laid on my heart that I can serve and honor Him at this time equally well in either Portland or San Diego.  We had an amazing housing opportunity come up in San Diego that would actually save us money (which sounds ridiculous, because who have you ever talked to that moved to San Diego to save money on living expenses?)  When it came to business, though I absolutely love Oregon, only having a 3 month wedding season up here due to the weather has really stifled my ability to grow my business.

Like the majority of my life up to this point, we are making a move based on faith.  Faith that God will provide for our family.  Faith that there are opportunities to serve and honor Him well down there.  Faith that this decision wasn't made hastily but was made while pursuing God's leading.

We have quite the adventure ahead of us and truly have no idea what is in store.  God may bless my business or I may have to give it up completely.  Kristen may get to stay at home or she may end up having to work some.  God may keep us in San Diego forever, or this could be another season of life before the next stop.  All that we know for sure is God is faithful and God is loving!  God will not fail us and this is a promise to us in the bible.

So we push forward onto the biggest adventure of our marriage so far.  Your prayers are much appreciated and we can't wait to see how God uses us and blesses our family.

We move February 18th, 2014

Our baby girl is due March 27th, 2014

Here is to another adventure!