"I Do Not Think So!"

By Allison Hall

Ten years ago, I was only four years old. I never would have thought I would be sitting here writing this article a day before the tenth anniversary of our church. If you don’t mind, I’m going to take you on a ten-year journey through the eyes of a church planter’s kid. Let’s start from the beginning.

As you can imagine, I was perfectly happy living in North Carolina; I mean, why wouldn’t I be? I might be a little biased, but I’m pretty sure North Carolina is one of the best states in the world. I was living in a perfect house, going to a perfect church, had close friends, and could see my family whenever I wanted.

Then one day, my dad told us he believed the Lord wanted us to move to Pennsylvania to start a church. What? I thought, “I do not think so!” I mean, I didn’t even know where Pennsylvania was, and it didn’t make any sense to move to a strange place where we knew absolutely no one. But I didn’t have much of a choice, considering I was four.

So, we moved. Even though I was little, I could still tell it was hard for my parents. My dad had lived in North Carolina all his life; my mom had lived there most of her life. North Carolina was where they grew up, met, fell in love, married, and adopted me. They had been through so much in this little place, yet they were leaving it to go somewhere unfamiliar. It just shows how obedient my parents are to the Lord, and how much they love Him.

It was a struggle at first, even for me. At preschool, I was such a shy kid that on the first day of school, when my teacher raised her voice at one of the boys I started bawling. I was such a tenderhearted person it would bother me badly if someone else in school got into trouble. Well, my teachers and the other students discovered that very quickly. For the rest of the year, people really didn’t get into much trouble because they didn’t want to make the little shy girl cry again.

You can imagine their faces when they asked me what church I went to, and I told them the name of a hotel. As a little kid, having church in a hotel was the coolest thing in the world! When we would bring the keyboard and music equipment into the hotel each week, I would ride on the hotel luggage dolly. It was the highlight of my Sundays!

Not only did we meet in a hotel on Sundays during our early years, we also had company at our house every Thursday night for Bible study. Really, I thought it was the best thing in the world for our house to smell like chocolate chip cookies each week. Sometimes, we would meet in the living room, sometimes in the basement, and on special occasions we would meet in our backyard. Truthfully, when I found out we were going to start meeting in a normal church building, I was a little disappointed.

I remember the first time we went into the “new” church building. I was not impressed. The ceiling paint was so ugly, the furniture was all wrong, and on top of everything else, I found a dead mouse in a bucket in the back of the church. I tried to talk Dad out of it by simply telling him that people loved going to hotels and coming to our house. I don’t think I did a very good job because we still made the move.

After a while, the new church building started to grow on me. The fact that people were doing construction all over the place created some great spots to play hide and seek. Since I was homeschooling for second grade, I was there every day all day, so I had to come up with something to do. We had a huge whiteboard, and it was there all of my babies were getting the education of a lifetime. What now is a handicap bathroom used to be my office and grocery store. I cannot tell you how many times I watched the same videos over and over again. Believe it or not,

I never grew tired of it, because I felt as though I was contributing to what we were doing there for the Lord. It didn’t matter how many times I fell asleep on the nursery floor or had McDonalds for lunch—I loved it!

The day finally arrived; everything was finished, and we had our first service in an actual building. It was an answer to prayer. And although we didn’t know it at the time, the Lord had been working to answer another one of my prayers. Ever since I could speak, I had been praying for a little brother or sister. By this time, I was being homeschooled again, so the only friends I had were at church. I wanted a sibling so badly. One day, as I was taking a spelling test, my mom came in with phone in hand and tears in her eyes. A little boy had just been born and needed a family. Lucky for us, we qualified! Within a week, we welcomed Joshua into our family.

Well, the Lord must have really wanted me to be satisfied, because two years later the same birth mom had a baby girl and wanted us to adopt her as well. This was a complete surprise. We only had a short time to prepare, but I was ecstatic. Not only did I get a little brother, but I also received a little sister named Abigail. We have since all made it very clear to the Lord that we are good now; please no more kiddos!

Well, you are all caught up, except to tell you I am a freshman this year and being homeschooled again. It can be stressful at times with my siblings all day, but it actually is working out really well. I am starting to teach AWANA Puggles, a toddler class at church, and I have my first “real” job tutoring a student. Being homeschooled is opening up many opportunities for me, and I hope to enjoy many more. As for our church, well, it has made it this far. Attendance is growing, people are being saved, and we hope to go self-supporting soon. We are so close.

I am thankful for those who support our family and the work here. We could not do it without them. I hope you enjoyed reading about what God has been doing in York, Pennsylvania, from the perspective of a church planter’s kid.

About the Writer: Allison Hall is daughter of Allen and Jenny Hall, church planters to York, Pennsylvania. Learn more: www.fwbnam.com.