What? The Coppingers have decided to move? Well, it could be stated that God decided for them…

We’ve been in York, Nebraska for 21 years. I know this because Elias was 4-months old when we moved to York from Colorado Springs. Now he’s 21.

And, of course, our family has grown just a tiny bit during these years.

We don’t even have a current family photo because just a month after that one was taken, it became outdated when this guy was born and moved in with us:

Short Family History

Matt and I went to York College (now York University) starting in 1991. We married in 1994, had Asa in 1997, then moved to Colorado Springs in 1998. Justus and Elias were born in Colorado, then God moved us back to York in 2002. For us, it felt like going home.

We moved into this house, and it felt enormous. Because it was/is.

Malachi was born here in 2004. I started my blog in 2007. We homeschooled here, hosted here, grew here, and loved here. Our boys grew up and started to move on. God filled our home with more children. Two of our boys got married. God kept adding children to our family.

As our family grew, we found that as big as our house was, it no longer met our needs. Could we make it work? Absolutely. God always provides. But I longed for a functional dining room. A more practical kitchen. A space in our home that was large enough for all of our family plus all the people we loved hosting.

We just kept squishing people in. It worked and it was beautiful. No one complained about sitting on the floor and up the stairs.

We started talking about building a house – one that was functional, practical, big, and would give us more opportunities for hospitality in the ways we felt called. We spent hours praying over this, planning this, and just when we were getting ready to execute our plans, God put us on pause.

We didn’t know why. We just knew He was doing something big because He made it clear that He was getting ready to expand us. 

I was intrigued and excited by this!! And at the same time, I grieved this. We were going to build my dream home – one with a large functional kitchen and lots of room to host gatherings. One with a laundry room, a mud room, and a garage that fit our super-tall Ford Transit. So I kicked and screamed a little bit during my talks with God. I thought He had told us to go ahead with building a house. Did I misunderstand? Did I even know how to listen to Him at all?

He assured me that He loved me, that He was faithful, and that He had something even better for us.

Even better? How was it possible? How could any other house be as good as the one we designed for our needs, much less better than?

As we pressed in to learn more about what God had planned for us and why He halted the groundbreaking for our new house, He started to make a brand new plan very clear: Our family was to move 45 miles east to Lincoln. The biggest reason? That’s where our older kids are. Asa and Eva live there. Justus and Kelsey live there. Elias just graduated from college and had plans to go in that direction. Malachi just graduated from high school and was heading to Lincoln.

We want to do life together. We want our 25-year-old to know our 1-year-old. We have a total of 11 kids now – and they are in two separate generations. If we want our kids to be siblings, we need to live close by. And someday, when we have grandchildren, we want to be available to be a part of their lives. With this many littles at home, getting away from York to Lincoln is extremely difficult. Living in the same city provides so many opportunities for us to be together compared to living even an hour away.

So, friends. The Coppingers are moving to Lincoln.

If you didn’t see that coming, rest assured that we didn’t either. But God sure did. He’s had plans for quite some time now, and He’s paved the way so beautifully. Don’t think I won’t cry my way out of this place. This has been my home and where I’ve raised several of our children. This is the town that brought our new set of children to us. Our York people are so dear to us that I can’t bear the thought of driving away.

But remember? God said He was expanding us. We aren’t losing our York people. We’re expanding to become a part of a new community with our current relationships still intact and solid.

We don’t know all of His purposes in this move. We just know that this is what we are to do. So here we go. We’re packing and selling properties and giving things away. And where exactly are we going? What house could possibly fit us all that doesn’t cost a literal million dollars?

Oh, my friends. You won’t believe what God gave us.

To Be Continued…