By Rebecca Congleton
For the past seven and a half years, my husband, Joe, and I have jokingly admitted that we had to be a little bit crazy to move our family of four into a 1974 Shasta travel trailer, pull out of the driveway of our beautiful 1890s Indiana home and embark on a mission trip with no end in sight.
The truth is that it wasn’t at all in my nature or personality to embrace a life so unconventional, untethered and unpredictable. When we could no longer ignore what we felt God was leading us to do, we paid $800 cash for a 17-foot camper, crammed as many necessary belongings as we possibly could into every cabinet and cubby hole and set off down the road.
Joe and I had been writing and playing music in Indiana and Illinois for a couple years. Some of the time as a full band, and some of the time as an acoustic duo, but always as “The Surrendering,” a name chosen to communicate that our intentions were to surrender to God’s plan in every way. That commitment had never been as real as it was with every mile we put between our camper and the only home we’d ever known on Sept. 3, 2013.
[adrotate banner=”28″]
We didn’t have a plan. We didn’t have a tour, a manager or an agent. We had our guitars, our willingness and our belief that God would go ahead of us. Without knowing exactly what the journey would look like, we began calling ministries, offering to come and be a blessing, share our music and our story and build each other up. One of the first places was an addiction recovery program in Salyersville, Ky.
Joe had been an alcoholic in his early 20s prior to our marriage. We had briefly connected with a Celebrate Recovery group in our hometown, leading worship for them on a monthly rotation, so we were reasonably familiar with faith-based recovery. However, we had never been to a residential recovery house. From the moment we walked in the door (a day late because our transmission had overheated somewhere in southern Indiana), we knew addiction ministry would be integral to our calling.
It’s difficult to put into words the immediate connection we felt, leading worship that night, for a group of 20 or so men and women, desperate to see their lives healed and transformed. It was like we had been searching for something we didn’t even know existed. They hung on every word of Joe’s testimony, sang loudly, even songs they had never heard before. They wept when I opened up about my own history of domestic violence and sexual assault in my first marriage. We fell asleep that night, nestled tightly in our tiny camper, more fulfilled and at peace than we had ever been.
Once we grasped the scope of our newly-discovered mission, we began reaching out to every addiction center connected to that organization, Mission Teens Bible Training Centers. Every director at every center said, “Yes, come.”
They didn’t have anything to offer us, other than hot meals of donated food, like lots and lots of canned hominy at the Tennessee center and scorched Olive Garden soups at the Alabama center. We were thankful for warm beds when the temperature dropped below freezing and for the beautiful family of believers we met all over the eastern half of the country.
[adrotate banner=”19″]
That’s how we spent two years of our lives, with our daughter and son, who were nine and 12 when we left home. We traveled from center to center, filled in on Sundays at small churches and began reaching out to Celebrate Recovery groups for weeknight ministry. We never charged a fee or expected a donation, yet God provided for our every need and some of our wants as well.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing. Our camper roof leaked. Our septic tank leaked. Our shower didn’t work. One of our kiddos still occasionally wet the bed, which as you can imagine is an entirely different kind of problem without a washer and dryer. Parts were continuously breaking. It seemed to take twice as long to get anywhere.
We couldn’t afford campgrounds, so we usually slept in church parking lots. We were awakened by police officers once at 2 a.m. It took some convincing, but they finally believed we had permission to be on the church property. Sometimes we’d be invited to stay with families in their homes, so we’d park our ‘74 camper in the driveway, pack a bag and enjoy some comfortable beds. Usually by the next day, their HOA would send an email telling them, in a nice way, the eye sore (camper) had to go.
On the other hand, our kids practically lived on the beach from December to March. We saw places and met people we would have never known otherwise. They learned about sacrifice and giving of themselves, to care for others, lessons they will carry with them their entire lives.
After those first two years in the camper, with our son literally outgrowing his bunk, we felt led to sell the trailer and find a small place to rent. We had filled in at a little Calvary Chapel in Augusta and had always said we could envision ourselves living here if God ever opened the door. Augusta was central to a lot of the places where we did the most music ministry, so it made sense.
We were blessed to find extremely affordable housing, thanks to a generous believer who worked within our tiny budget. Our little two-bedroom duplex felt like a mansion after living in a camper for two years.
[adrotate banner=”22″]
Our family continued to travel for the next few years, cycling between a month on the road and a month at home. We led worship and shared our testimonies for recovery groups and small churches. We also began joining with a ministry that shares the Gospel in cities all over the United States and other countries called Time to Revive.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, we knew it was a temporary end to the life we had come to love as “musicianaries,” but it wasn’t the end of a life of faith and unconventional ministry.
We had been part of a house church in Augusta after our Calvary Chapel closed in 2019. Joe had been doing most of the teaching and preaching, and after six months, the dozen or so families who began meeting in our friends’ home, seemed to be committed to continuing to grow in Christ, together. Joe felt compelled to “officially” step into the role of pastor for our fellowship, and we surrendered to the next chapter of our story.
Helen Street Home Fellowship is simply a group of believers who meet together on Sundays and for Zoom Bible study during the week. We worship together, pray together, break bread together and study God’s word together. The freedom of not having a building to maintain, salaries to pay, or large scale production on Sunday morning has allowed us to experience Biblical fellowship and deep friendship, without some of the hindrances of the modern church model. It’s not for everyone, but it’s the perfect fit for a couple of nomads like us, who spent two years living on the road.
We’ve settled into this community now. I have fallen in love with a new creative outlet as a photographer and artist. Joe has become a wonderful Bible teacher, and our kids are now 20 and 17. Our son is in the Army, and our daughter has lots of big dreams. We may travel again from time to time but plan to mostly be stationary from here on out.
I sometimes wonder how our lives would have been different had we never taken that step of faith, but when I look back at the people we were, when we pulled out of our driveway, nearly eight years ago, I’m convinced we are not the same. We are stronger, bolder and more deeply rooted in our faith than we would have ever been if we had stayed where we were safe and sound, instead of surrendering to God’s beautiful plan.
[adrotate banner=”41″]
