The Come Rest Awhile Center was constructed in CY 2000-2001. The following is our story how God led us to build it.

Come With Me by Yourselves to a
Quiet Place and Get Some Rest

Mark's Gospel in Chapter 6 tells of Jesus sending out the 12 disciples to go preach repentance, anoint the sick and drive out evil spirits. In verse 30-31, the disciples gather with Jesus and tell Him all they had done and taught. As more people gathered with them and they did not have time to eat (or be refreshed), Jesus said to them, "Come away to a deserted place with me all by yourselves and rest awhile." (RSV)

These scripture passages weighed on our mind for a long time.

We have observed over the years of our Christian ministry that many priests and lay people get so overwhelmed with doing God's work that they have little time to be refreshed either physically, or more importantly, spiritually. The end result is often spiritual and mental exhaustion that can lead to health, family and relationship problems. Jesus in Verse 31 provides wisdom to His followers that there is a time for teaching and preaching and a time for resting and you need both if you are going to be one of God's missionaries working in the battlefield to bring Christianity to the world.

God's Call

During the period from 1993 - 2000, we led a Bible study on Monday nights in our home. Over that time, we studied many chapters in the Bible as well as also many Christian books to help us understand what it means to be a Christian and what God calls us to be and to do. During those years of leading a Bible study, we grew in our walk with God and increasingly heard the call to a new ministry.

In late 1999, our Bible Study group chose to study a book called "Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God" by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King. This twelve-week study focused us on the Seven Realities of Experiencing God that are:

1. God is always at work around you.
2. God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.
3. God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.
4. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
5. God's invitation for you to work with Him always leads to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
6. You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
7. You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.

This study brought home the reality that God had been calling us but we had not been ready to accept that call. We had for a long time understood Reality 1,2 and 3 and we had been hearing God speak to us in Reality 4 but we had not gotten past this point.

Reality #5, God's invitation, leads you to a "crisis of belief." That was where we were stuck.

• Was God really calling us?
• Were we to leave our church family and friends to go somewhere else?
• How would we pay for building and operating a retreat house/center and what would it cost?
• Where would we locate this place for God?
• And the questions went on!
  

Starting to Move on God's Call

In 1999, we began exploring the idea of building a retreat facility to answer God's call as well as begin thinking about retirement for us. We decided the facility and home should be a custom log home that would not only blend into the mountain environment but also would bring a sense of comfort and rest to those that came. Toward the later part of 1999, we played at designing and we continued to confront our "crisis of belief".

As we continued in our study of "Experiencing God", we remembered a parable Jesus told in Luke 14:28-30. Jesus told the crowd of people traveling with Him, "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' " As December 1999 closed we finished the estimate to build the retreat facility which took us to another "crisis of belief." The cost to buy the land, design and build the house, outfit it and begin operations was in the neighborhood of slightly over $500,000 and growing.

The last part of Reality 5 is "having faith and being prepared for action" which is not always an easy step to take.

Step 6 - Make Adjustments in Your Life to Join God

God has been good to us and has given us a comfortable life and provided all the resources we needed. We have responded by giving back to Him a tithe of those resources. It was now time to give more.

In early January 2000 in our first act of faith toward building God's retreat facility, we took the land we had purchased for retirement and we gave it to God to do what He wanted with it. We purchased a building permit and a permit to test the land for drilling a well and for installing septic facilities.

We started the new millennium not knowing exactly how we would accomplish building God's facility. Not trusting God for all our needs, we engaged the services of a bank to find out if we could borrow large sums of money to cover part of the cost.

Two weeks later, we received a statement announcing the cash settlement for the sale of the company for whom I work and of which each employee had partial ownership. The settlement provided enough money that coupled with the sale of our home and giving the land, we were beginning to see how we could in fact build God's facility. God now had our undivided attention!

Several weeks later, more money unexpectantly arrived in the form of a large bonus check that immediately went toward the project needs. At the end of three months the bank, which claimed we were a preferred customer, had done nothing. Still facing our crisis of belief, we worried about the last resources we needed to complete this project. The answer again came from God as he again provided the needed resources by leading us to another bank enthusiastic about loaning us the money we needed to get started.

Continuing Step 6 and on to Step 7

God had provided all the resources to build a His retreat center and we accepted His call in April 2000.

Accepting that call meant that we had to make major changes in our life. We announced to our church family that we were leaving and put our home up for sale. We began qiving away many of our personal possessions and put the remainder in storage to prepare for doing God's work. We moved into a RV trailer on God's land beginning August 15 2000 and started the major portion of the construction later that month.

With God's help and our sweat equity, God's retreat facility was opened in late July 2001.

Jesus said to all His followers, Come apart and rest and be refreshed. And we responded to His call to provide His place of rest. Praise God for the opportunity to serve Him!

Don and Diane Wells
Jasper GA