Support Andrew & Kristen Orr

From the beginning of our dating relationship, missions was always a calling for us. Many doors closed as we sought overseas missions regarding Economic Development and other avenues during our marriage. We knew that we were called to Washington DC and so 10 years ago, we began our adventure there. However about 7 years ago, the Lord began to change our hearts. It all began during a season of our lives where we were intentionally saving money to purchase a place in the DC area and finally settle down. As we prayed, saved, and planned we noticed a shift in our hearts. As our hearts changed, we felt called to pray about where we were called to go and while we received no clear answers the words were fruitful and good. It wasn't until a snowy January morning during a weekend trip to visit Andrew's parents that the exact location was revealed. For Andrew, it began with an intense sickness that kept him and our oldest home from church. They were watching a PBS show about top ice cream shops found in the US. Well, anyone who knows Andrew knows that ice cream making is more than a hobby to him. :) During the show a scene flashes across the screen and at that moment, he knew that it was where God was calling us. The next words on the screen...Los Angeles, CA. During this exact time, Kristen was sitting across the driveway in church listening to her father-in-law preach a sermon. I don't recall every sermon, but I recall vividly the words about being called to certain places and when you are in the center of God's will that is where He can best use your gifts and talents and at that moment I heard a whisper, Los Angeles, CA. Well, needless to say after many months of praying about where to move this was exciting to have a place and I ran over after church and said "I think I know where we should go" and Andrew said, "me too...". This was the moment of truth, would it be the same place, well as I already shared it was and our next thoughts were "NO!" But Lord, it is so expensive, it is so far away, it is so....you name it we thought of it so many ways to run away from the call of God. As I reflect back, we went through a Jonah stage, finding many excuses to run from God's distinct call on our lives. During our time of wrestling with this call, things altered as we moved to Pennsylvania for my health and the health of Sarah, but never did we stop wrestling and praying about this distinct call to LA. Andrew's brother was at Fuller Seminary located in Pasadena, CA and during his time there, Andrew flew out to see the area and spend quality time with his brother. Now at this point, neither of us had seen the area in person, only relying on a word...as Andrew flew into LAX prepared to hate it, the peace of God rushed over him and he knew without any doubts that he was home. This is significant as we began our relationship praying for a place to call home because neither of us had those places as a kid. I recall the phone call saying to me, "this is it, Kristen, this is it". His intense job applying began and after only one interview, it fizzled out. Kristen flew out 2 years ago for a homeschool conference, specifically to check out the area and make connections. I recall standing at the Getty looking out over the city and crying as my heart broke for the people who needed the gospel. So we continued with job searching with more California connections. Our last final push was in November 2017, we had planned a week to go skiing in Colorado before Andrew's brother's wedding. The morning before we had planned to leave, two of our kids were diagnosed with mono, which meant no skiing, so at the last minute Andrew looked at me and said "well let's just take a side trip to LA and show the kids, because then we can put to rest this talk about California". Well, we arrived in California, ate In-n-Out Burger, visited Fuller's campus, drove by the studios in Burbank, went to Santa Monica, dipped our feet (some more than that) into the Pacific Ocean, and prayed and sought God's wisdom. It was a whirlwind and then we got a flat tire on the way to the wedding/rehearsal and showed up 20 minutes late, but all that to say, our kids looked at Andrew & I and said, Mom, Dad, this is home. This is where we should go. We knew we could no longer run from this call, it was time to go.  Andrew and I had spent years planning, praying, reading, and preparing for this call. We knew it would not be easy and it would take everything we had, so after an intense round of the flu lasting for over 2 weeks, my parents flying from Texas to help, the transmission blowing after about 5-10 minutes into our trip, and a few other hardships and one victory of selling our minivan literally an hour before we left, we finally started our trip across the country. 

So after all of that wrestling, praying and even the struggles in just leaving we thought that we had conquered the challenges and what lay ahead would be simpler. We arrived in LA on a February evening with a year's worth of income saved up. On our trip in, we had a flat tire on the trailer that Andrew changed in the middle of the desert and thus arrived hours later than expected. We had looked at places to rent before arriving, but all coming back with very sketchy e-mails. Ok, we will get a hotel, move the trailer the next day and begin our search. Well, we never got that far. We finally found a hotel that would accept dogs (that wasn’t $300 a night) and within 5 hours our Excursion was broken into, thoroughly searched, robbed, and thankfully by an act of God not successfully taken (the police officer had no idea how they didn’t successfully take it). His words were "I have been working here for over 20 years and never seen a vehicle this torn apart and not successfully taken". I am so thankful the story did not end there, but I can tell you emotionally for me specifically it was hard to get passed there. But the Lord sent gracious people, such as the police officer who paid for our family’s breakfast, two friends who dropped everything came with empty minivans to put people/car seats into, pick up every little piece that was dumped and touched by the perpetrators, load their minivans and then waited while the Insurance company played games. And then one of those friends opened up her home to us for a week and allowed us to borrow her car for a couple days as we tried to begin to process and take the new steps that were ahead of us. Then another friend found housing for us at the camp she works at for a few weeks. Those are just some of the incredible people God put in our path. That doesn’t include the homeschool friends we have met, the amazing churches we attend, and the others God has sent our way with words of wisdom, encouragement, and advice.

John 10:10 has been the verse that has resonated with our journey here in LA thus far. "The enemy has come to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come to give life and life to the full."

The second part of that verse is kill. Literally, on my birthday a vehicle traveling faster than the 35 mph speed limit almost ran into our vehicle and would have killed me instantly had Andrew not responded quickly enough. The scary part was, following this, as we were relieved that we were safe, the driver who almost hit us switched directions to follow us, chase us down and begin yelling at Andrew at how he was an unsafe driver. It was by God's wisdom and grace that Andrew was given the words to diffuse the situation by asking him how fast he was going. At that moment, it was like a needle had popped a balloon and the entire atmosphere shifted. I am so thankful for the courage my husband had to speak the truth and how the truth set us all free at that moment. 

As we began to see this verse play out, we began to wonder what would be the destruction piece. Though no job had worked out by constant applying, resume writing (even a professional), networking we felt confident that soon things would alter. As we saw our bank account dwindling we knew that with Andrew's acceptance to graduate school, loans would come through and we would be able to continue to pay for things and stay afloat. Was it our first option, no, but at least a backup plan. The day we found out that we were not to get funding for his schooling was two days after the federal deadline for the correct FAFSA. The school had told us the wrong FAFSA year to fill out for summer classes, and now we were to have no funding for graduate school and we barely had enough money to last a week or two of just food and gas let alone pay our bills. Destruction was coming in the form of financial and boy has the past two months been tough. Between phone calls trying to get things resolved including misallocated student loan payments that we have been battling for over a year and a half, and figuring out ways to pay our bills including the storage unit of our items we shipped and other major bills that were due. Can I tell you how amazing our God is, He provided enough money to pay every single bill, keep a roof over our heads, food on our table, gas in our vehicle, and even let people know on the other coast that we needed help without us even asking?! And I can say that two months ago, we had just found all this out and we had no idea how we would make it, and we have thus far!

We are now on the second month of this situation and even this very week we have been faced with multiple setbacks and yet small glimmers of hope are there as well including a beautiful and vivid rainbow over the mountains. Our family has trusted God through a lot thus far, but we can no longer do this alone.  So here we are, Andrew & Kristen being vulnerable. And in the midst of this, so many of you have reached out to us asking how we are, where we are, etc.  So we wanted to share at least parts of our story from that past 8 months.

We are in the current position of searching out free tent camping sites, while Andrew finds internet access to apply to positions while also completing graduate school assignments.

Prayer support:  Job for Andrew, housing for us all, safe and healthy delivery of baby Orr number six, graduate school to go well for Andrew, protection for our family, continued good health.  Noone has been seriously sick or hurt our entire journey, Praise the Lord. 

Financial Support: Money to feed our family, Gas money to travel to graduate school classes or anywhere, Money to rent a place to live, Money to pay our bills, Money to help with the birth, Replacing necessary items from the break-in.

As we read our own story, it could be said: "why stay in this area? Nothing has gone well". The job, finances, and housing has not gone well, that is true, and those are majors. But the things that people warned us about before we arrived, that we would not make friends, we would never find a good church, our kids would not connect because the culture is so different...can we just say we have been blown away. Everything we have been able to connect and do has been blessed beyond belief in finding two amazing churches, the kids making friends quickly, graduate school being a fantastic fit for Andrew and many other aspects. 

Our heart is to share our story so that others who are struggling with trusting the Lord can know that God does have an awesome plan and it is in His timing, but we can not walk it alone, we need the body of believers to encourage and strengthen us. Thank you for partnering with us.