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The Walz Family Story (It ain't over
yet!)
by Theron Walz
Our journey of reckless trust began in
1996 on the heels of a large business venture gone awry. We lost
everything we owned except our furniture, on old motor home and an even
older pickup truck. We were nearly broke, living in the motor-home and
desperate for a fresh start in life.
Having been in the Real Estate industry for over 20 years, my dad figured
he could put everything back together again in a few short months. Little
did we all know that "put back together" was shortly going to take on a
whole new meaning! All our efforts to put things back together just didn't
seem to work; time after time things would just start to come together
again only to have the old proverbial door slam shut.
Everyone has times when things just don't seem to go their way, times when
it seems like life has been unfair and hope has all but vanished. We all
dread these "valley" experiences, hoping our time spent there is short and
we can hurry back to the mountaintop. However, in our journey through "the
valley of the shadow of death", we have learned that not all is unpleasant
in the valley. It is in the valley that the river flows, trees grow and
soil turns fertile.
Our longtime church families in both Oregon and Colorado
heroically stuck
with us as we walked through some of the toughest times anyone can go
through. It was in this time of great lack that we found the abundance
hidden in the valley; God is truly near to those who are bankrupted of
pride and self-interest.
In our desire to pursue a deeper relationship with this God who cares not
what social or economic strata one has or has not achieved, we found
wonderful refreshing and healing from the "junk" we had been through. God
brought so many wonderful people into our lives during this time! The
resulting times of worship with them, along with receiving emotional
healing and refreshing from God, changed our lives radically.
That's when we met a group of people called "The New Freedom Circuit
Riders", traveling out of Seattle Washington with a big tent. The rest, as
they say, is history. We were "put back together" in a completely
different way! When you find something you can be passionate about, it
doesn't matter that not only do you have to raise your own support to do
it; you have to sacrifice many physical comforts as well. What an
adventure! We worked for that particular ministry for 4 years until they
moved into other areas of ministry. Through a group of anonymous donors
our newly formed organization, The Heartbeat of Jesus Ministries, was
provided with a new tent and all the equipment needed to begin on our own
in 1999.
Since the times
when we were the people sending other missionaries out to do the work of
ministry, our family has always known that to receive is to give away. In
direct precedent of The Great Commission: "Go out into all the world and
preach this gospel to all nations" we find that, as we keep getting filled
up by the Holy Spirit and living a lifestyle of intimacy with God, giving
away the wealth of knowing Jesus is a natural result.
For us, the tent is
only a vehicle we use to carry out this mission. It's not about bright
lights, great oratory, amazing music, goofy hairdos or even standing at a
microphone declaring the hermeneutical goods of Christianity. It's about
people being restored to relationship with the Creator; everyday human
beings who need something more than just detached religion. It's about the
real things in life, the magnificent Love of God and real relationships, both
horizontal and vertical.
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