Tony & Kathy Stoltzfus

Tony & Kathy Stoltzfus are the leaders of the Leadership Meta-Formation. Together, they train leaders in heart transformation. The key to this transformation is deepening their students’ personal conversation with Jesus. His way of change begins with a heart-level encounter where he fills the fundamental desires that drive behavior--things like acceptance, belonging, freedom and significance. Desire fulfilled in relationship with God is the missing key to changed behavior. When he injects life into the core of ones being, that life then works its way upward into their identity, thoughts and actions--and everything changes. Tony & Kathy’s courses are about going deep, beyond strategies and skills to engage core desires. They help their students experience profound change as they encounter Jesus speaking to their deepest desires; they teach skills for coaching the heart and transforming others as well as creating organizational cultures of deep engagement and transformation. 

I found Tony's courses in 2015, shortly after losing my second son, Hunter. In my grief, I sought healing and encouragement for myself, but also knowing that I wanted to do that for others in return. Over the course of a year, I attended classes(courses) , did correspondence by phone, and got fully immersed in Tony & Kathy's training. It has been one of my single most life-changing experiences to date. Not only did it significantly speed up my grieving season, it set my life on a whole new trajectory. Tony & Kathy embraced me in a time when I felt like I had lost so much (both personally and relationally), they called me up higher, they took the time to see things in me that had never been validated before, it was a profoundly transformational experience.  The Taste of Heaven experiences allowed me to understand God's heart for us on a whole new level. Start to finish, this classes are deeply impactful and healing. Though this is a very minor glimpse into my personal story, I know the results are the same for those who have also been through their training and have had the privilege of knowing them. 

This incredible couple has poured out their life, time, energy and love on behalf of so many have recently lost their home, office & meeting center in the Carr Fires. The vast majority of their livelihood was connected to their home. The house was not just their own, it served as a place of sanctuary, safety, connection and healing for so many that were hurting. We want to bless them in some measure as they navigate this new season of life. Though the monetary value could never compare to the spiritual value they have invested, I know there are many of us who have asked how we can help, this is one way. Prayers are certainly another. 

This was a post from Tony today, July 31st explaining where his heart is in this process. I think it speaks volumes of his character and how he processes with the Lord: 

Here's another more personal update. There is more to grieve, and hard things yet to do, but now that we know our fate (the house and everything in it is gone) I can start looking to the future and hoping for something new. We are considering the possibility of moving to town instead of rebuilding in the country--I am 57, and as I get older a big property in the woods seems like more and more work.

I find as I get older I actually have fewer regrets about things that are undone. Heaven has become much more real to me in the last few years, and when I think about a place we could visit overseas or some experience we've never had, I often catch myself thinking, 'Nah, I'll just do that in heaven.'

There are good things that are in the past now that will never be again. The redwood tree we planted in our front yard will probably die. The leaded glass panels I painstakingly made for around my office doors (with 1400 individual pieces of glass) are melted and shattered, and I am not going to remake them. The dining table I built for Kathy 33 years ago as an engagement present is gone for good, and we will never have it back.

But those things will only really hurt long-term to the degree my heart was wrapped around them, and it really wasn't. We have a good past, and we've had a good life. My family is safe. I am surrounded by people who love me and are there for me, and I am not alone. I can look back on what has been with pleasure and satisfaction instead of loss and regret, because it has been good--and because the idea has worked its way into my heart that anything that was lost here on earth is just a shadow of a reality I will possess forever in heaven.

I'm sure there will be more days to come where pain washes over me in waves and I feel that aimless, listless thing I've experienced the last few days. Grief and loss are real, and they are big, and I'm under no illusion that I am over all this, or even that the worst is over. But I know a year from now I won't regret it. Suffering is part of life in the same way joy and goodness are, and pain passes into the purposes of God and becomes part of the fullness of heaven just as they do.

I do not know if our possessions or our money or the beauty we lived in the midst of will be restored to us in this life. (I don't think it is particularly great theology to insist that they will). I'm not especially worried about it anyway. But I do know that life is more than possessions--that the joy and peace and security inside me is bigger than what has been lost on the outside. I've learned in my life how to abound, and live in a beautiful home on the mountain top, and I've learned to be abased, and live with my family in a 900-square-foot unheated hunting cabin with mold on the ceiling and rodents under the floor.

But when I look back on my story, it is not about having or not having things, but in having Him. The gift suffering gives is to free you from needing God to give you things, or promotions, or even purpose, or from needing a God who is always good to you in a way you can understand. When the externals are taken away, you find your true center of gravity. What suffering teaches is that he in me is enough.

So don't pray for us that we will get everything back. Pray for us that in the loss of things we will receive the true desire of our hearts, directly from the only one who can give it.