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let me calm your fears: What we are about to discuss here will not necessitate a move for you. So don’t go scrolling Zillow just yet. But something about our family’s experience in starting over from scratch clarified for me was what it takes to build this kind of deeply entrenched community—wherever you may be.
    When my husband and kids and I relocated two hundred miles to the north, the move represented the first family-wide upheaval in over a decade. For years, we’d been humming along, making our way through the young-children ages and stages and goings-on of life that everyone knows and loves. We had established rhythms with church, school, sports activities, and all the usual aspects of home and family maintenance. We had our places to shop and hang out. Life was a little isolated but predictable.
    And then, the move.
    With the exception of Zac’s family and a few friends from previous seasons of life spread across the metroplex, the six of us were starting over. With four anxious kids and my familymembers’ gloomy forecast beating back my usual optimism, the stakes seemed ridiculously high.
    On the big day, having unintentionally beat the movers by four hours, Zac pulled into our new driveway and exhaled. Was it relief he was feeling, or frustration? I didn’t know, and I’m not sure I cared. I was more concerned about the panic attack building inside me.
    I walked through the front door of this place that was supposed to be home. As empty as the rooms felt, the city felt emptier. We were lost here.
    Not only did I not know where to buy groceries or get a haircut, but I had four kids who each needed friends, doctors, tutors, mentors, people to call their own. I didn’t know where to turn for help. The ache of needing everything and knowing next to no one intensified. I felt sure that we could settle our home in a few days. But would our souls ever settle again?
    “Shoot, I forgot to get rug pads!” I snapped at Zac.
    “What?” he said, distracted by the loads needing to be brought in from the car.
    “The rug pads!” I was on the verge of tears. The movers would soon be arriving, ready to dump our stuff, and if I could just get those stupid rug pads down first, then we could start to build our life here. But I’d forgotten them. It was nothing, and it was everything. I was spinning.
    Zac saw panic flash in my eyes. “I’ll find some pads,” he whispered, as he slipped by.
    In the days preceding the move, I’d had the presence of mind to call the college pastor at the church we’d soon bejoining. Did he know of a kind, responsible young woman who could be our babysitter? Cooper, our youngest, was nine at the time, and while many nine-year-olds require little supervision, Cooper’s RPMs have always run high. Given how full my hands would be with the move, the transition of IF:Gathering to a new town, the general nuttiness of establishing a new six-person household, and my own emotional tailspins, I figured a sure, steady presence would be a gift to Cooper—and to me.
    Two hours after the trip up I-35, we’d unloaded the car and I was sitting on the dining room floor of our empty new house, crying embarrassing crocodile tears in front of the young and lovely Caroline Parker, who probably wondered what on earth she’d gotten herself into.
    “I need help,” I admitted, as if it weren’t obvious.
    Caroline sat there totally expressionless, earning my confidence with her quiet, nonjudging presence. “I’m not easily stressed out,” she said to me.
    I told her I thought we’d get along just fine.
    In the middle of my desperation, God had dropped into my life a college-aged babysitter who would go on to love my kids, fold dozens of loads of laundry for me, work at IF:Gathering, become part of our family, and to this day be one of my safest coworkers and friends in this city.
    Caroline Parker taught me in short order that my little village here was going to (1) come because of my neediness and