Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts

Telling Josiah's Story at theWELL

Posted by Milo Wilson On Tuesday, December 21, 2010 2 comments

11-28-10 Story Part 5: Milo & Erin Wilson from theWELLbuffalo on Vimeo.

Milo and Erin tell their powerful journey through the loss of their son Josiah. Learn what it means to be "A heart that holds on" through even the most difficult times. Listen in as they discuss the pain of great loss, as well as describe what it feels like to be wrapped into the loving arms of a loving God. Learn more about their story at www.thewilsonheart.com


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Much needed update!

Posted by Erin Wilson On Wednesday, October 27, 2010 1 comments

So I finally got a moment to sit down and think about my blog. I have so much to tell and share but it seems impossible to go back and share all that's been going on in detail. I also uploaded the pictures that were on my camera today and it amazed me all we've been up to. So I thought that quickest way was to give a pictorial montage of some of the highlights.


Sept. 24-25 We spent a weekend in our favorite place. Charleston, SC. Friday we spent some time downtown playing in the fountains!
Saturday we participated in the Little Hearts Walk and raised money for the American Heart Association. We saw a bunch of our heart friends from families to nurses, doctors, our social worker. It was wonderful to see everyone before we moved. Walking next to Milo in this picture is Dr. Graham the attending on the day Josiah died. It was wonderful to see him and have another opportunity to express our gratitude to him. I have to admit there were more than a few tears shed that day.


Saturday afternoon we spent some time at the beach enjoying the waves. Milo taught the girls how to boogie board. They loved it as you can tell from these pictures!




Early October our good friends hosted a going away party for us. It was a great SC meets NY themed party with lots of good food and great friends!
Unplanned, but Milo and Shannon really were dressed for the party!

The following weekend started our craziest week yet! We traveled to Aiken, Friday and Saturday, to host Milo's sister, Rahel and John Mark's bridal shower at his grandparents home. The girls spent hours flying kites with Papa. What a moment to treasure.

We had a great time with great food thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Swain.

Hazyl so enjoyed playing with her best bud Java!

Sunday, Milo lead worshiped and preached for the last time at Ridgeview. They then had a lunch reception for us. Then we picked up the moving truck and started packing. I wish I had more pictures but was a little overwhelmed with everything going on. We probably had 35 people at the house loading the truck! I literally sat in a corner of our guest bedroom hiding for about 20 minutes trying to hold back tears. Here we are having dinner on the kitchen floor.

The kids loved running around yelling in the empty house.
We had to have an impromptu yard sale at 10pm because not everything fit on the moving truck. So we sold our lawn mower and left behind a couple of pieces of furniture. We were able to leave Monday morning and head for Buffalo. It took us about 16 hours and we arrived at 2:30 am. Tuesday morning we looked at a couple of housing options and by 4pm we were moving into our new home! There was another huge crowd of people from theWELL to help us unload! I wish I had pictures but the camera was packed away!

We spent Wednesday unpacking and then had all my brothers over for dinner and birthday cake to celebrate my 30th birthday!

We've got to get ourselves some Buffalo gear!

Thursday at 4am we headed for the airport and made our way for Tampa to celebrate Colleen and Michael! We had the rehearsal on Thursday evening and also enjoyed some time on the beach and in the sun.

Friday was the wedding. It was such an honor to have Milo perform the ceremony. Colleen was one of Josiah's nurses and it was truly wonderful to be a part of her special day. They had a memorial table in which they honored Josiah. What a touching honor.

Here we are with Mr. and Mrs. Cheveliar! It was a beautiful wedding!

And a beautiful sunset on the beach!

We got back to our hotel at 11:45 pm and then headed for the airport at 3am so that we could get back for a banquet at a local church that is supporting us at theWELL. Sunday, the girls and I went to theWELL and enjoyed a great service, while Milo represented theWELL at another church. Monday, we finally got to some unpacking and today we took some breaths!

The girls and I took a walk to our neighborhood park and enjoyed a beautiful day!
I should have done Daylia's hair! Maybe tomorrow I'll have time to get to that!

-A Heart that Holds On


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We couldn't have created this

Posted by Erin Wilson On Saturday, October 2, 2010 4 comments

I've been wanting to share a post about how all this moving to Buffalo stuff came about but it's hard to know where to begin. I guess I will begin with… This is a God thing. I've told many people lately that we couldn't have created this ourselves. So I'll share some of the things God has given us to know this is not of us. As these things came about through the decision making processes they've served as confirmation. There are a couple of stories I'd like to share but I'm pretty sure I'll only make it through one tonight.


Story #1
The family that we will be serving with in Buffalo are the Castronova's, Darrick, Jodi and their 3 children Sam, Savannah, and Isaac. We didn't know them at all. Milo sent out a couple of e-mails to different people about church planting. Just getting some ideas about what was going on in church planting in various areas around the country. Darrick replied to Milo and they quickly began to build a relationship. After a couple of months Milo finally asked Darrick if he was looking to hire anyone to which Darrick's response was, "No." No for a couple of reasons but mostly because their was no money involved. For some reason that didn't scare us away and they kept talking. Milo and I were very interested in the church they were going to be planting and for some reason just felt like we needed to keep pursuing this. We would find out shortly why.

We knew very little about their family before we met them but we did know that they had adopted their youngest son Isaac from Haiti, which connected with Milo and I. Why you ask. Well I'll have to back this story up… Milo and I have always talked about adoption and the possibility for that in our family. While Josiah was in the hospital we talked about it a lot more. We also became acquainted (not personally, just through blog world) with a couple of families that had adopted children from Haiti. Milo and I discussed this a few times and it was just one of those things that we tucked in the back of our minds for later. Fast forward to the day Josiah died. Milo and I were making that awful drive back to Charleston to say good-bye to our son when Milo listened a voicemail on his phone. It was from an adoption agency asking us if we would financially support children in Haiti while adoption was closed due to the devastating earthquake. We could not believe this phone call and it's timing after the conversations we had about adopting from Haiti. Why this call? Why this moment? Again, all we could do at that point was tuck it away in the back of our minds for later. So you can see why we felt a connection to Darrick and Jodi when we found out they had adopted a child from Haiti. We then listened to an interview they had done on a Christian radio station about their adoption story. Part of their story is this...

Prior to adopting Isaac they were all set to adopt another little boy. They had gone to Haiti and met him. They were all set to bring him home when out of now where Jodi got a phone call telling her that their baby had died. They were devastated by this news. In this interview Jodi shares this little boys birthday… May 20th, the same day as Josiah's birthday. Milo and I couldn't believe this connection.

On the fourth of July, we were in Buffalo visiting my family and so we decided that we wanted to go to Darrick's gathering and meet them. After their gathering with their core group we met them for lunch. After some pleasantries Milo and I began telling them who we were and naturally started with whats been going on in the last year with our son Josiah. As I'm telling our story Jodi begins crying (more than I'm used to people crying) and I'm not sure why. She finally interrupts me and says, "Erin, the name God gave me for our baby that we were in the process of adopting was Josiah." I couldn't believe this. His birthday was the same as Josiah's and they were going to name him Josiah when the adoption finalized. We continued to talk and eventually the conversation turned away from "our Josiah's" to the church. We then found one more connection. The first time Jodi and Darrick met with a small group of people with the intention of building a core team that would eventually launch theWELL was January 24, 2010 the very day that Josiah died.

We left that day just in awe of these connections. We couldn't simply say these things were just coincidences. We just knew they were from God, but what did all this mean? How would this all play out in the future? I had been praying earlier that day that God would make it clear to me if we needed to keep pursuing the possibility of serving with theWELL even though at this point it was not even a job. God answered that prayer. It was clear that we needed to keep pursuing, not knowing how it would turn out.

There is much more to share about how we came to this decision but I don't have the time right now to get it all down. So I will just say this. We did not know what to make of all these connections with Darrick and Jodi's story and Josiah, but as things began to fall into place and the doors began to open for Milo to work at theWELL it became clear what God had given us, especially me. He had given us this connection with Darrick and Jodi to provide me comfort. God knew my fears of leaving behind Josiah's story if we ever moved from here. I believe God speaks to us in ways we need to hear and I needed to know that Josiah's life would not be forgotten and that it would still be used to impact others. I truly believe God orchestrated all of this to provide me comfort and conformation in this huge decision. To think that the day our world came crashing down was the same day God was birthing something new for our family. That is the kind of love He shows his children. We could not have created this. Only an all knowing, all powerful, loving God could have put this all together and I can't deny it.


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Let the blogging resume!

Posted by Erin Wilson On Wednesday, August 25, 2010 1 comments

It's been really hard to blog as of recent because what God has been doing in our lives lately has had to stay between Milo and I. But the cat is out of the bag now so I feel like I can speak freely again. This past Sunday, Milo shared with our church that God is calling us to be a part of a church plant in Buffalo, NY. So Milo will be stepping down as the worship and youth pastor at Ridgeview church on October 24th and we will be moving to Buffalo. This has been a very difficult decision because we love Ridgeview and it's people but we can't deny what God has been doing in our lives. I'm excited to get to share that now!


We are incredibly busy with plans for our big trip to Croatia next week, getting our house ready to be put on the market and beginning the process of packing up a house that was pretty empty when we moved into it just as Milo and I. Now 6 years and 3 kids later it is packed full! So I make no promises about blogging but I have lots to tell and hopefully can make the time to sit down and write. We'll see!

PS. Look, I was able to add a new label to my blog with this post. I haven't written a post since Josiah died that was not labeled grieving. That's a huge step… ironic that the label is moving. I feel that label is literal as well as figurative, we are moving, not moving on but moving forward in this new life God has blessed us with.

-A Heart that Holds On


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