Help the Shipley Family Return Home to the Pacific Northwest

For several years, our family has called Colorado home. It has been a season filled with growth, incredible friendships, beautiful mountain views, and lessons we will carry for the rest of our lives.

But throughout this season, one truth has remained constant: family matters deeply to us.

For years, we have missed holidays, birthdays, Sunday dinners, and everyday moments with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and loved ones. While we are incredibly grateful for our time in Colorado, we have always known that being close to family was something we hoped to return to one day.

That day appears to be here.

Recently, Chris was offered a stable work opportunity in the Pacific Northwest.

What began as one opportunity has quickly become several.

In addition to stable employment, multiple opportunities have opened for both of us that would allow us to continue building our businesses, serving our community, and creating long-term stability for our family. After much prayer and consideration, we believe this is the right next step.

Returning to The Pacific Northwest means our five children will once again have the gift of growing up near grandparents and extended family. It means holiday gatherings instead of video calls. It means cousins growing up together. It means being part of the daily lives of the people we love most.

Most importantly, it means planting roots.

We aren’t making this move simply because we’re leaving somewhere—we’re making it because we’re moving toward something. We’re moving toward family, opportunity, community, stability, and a future we feel excited to build.

As with any major transition, there are significant costs involved. We will be relocating our family, homeschool materials, tools, business equipment, and everything needed to establish ourselves again in the Pacific Northwest. We are also working hard to finish our commitments here in Colorado and would love to leave with sweet goodbyes.

If you know our family, you know we are not afraid of hard work. We are stepping into opportunities that are already waiting for us, and we are eager to get established and begin this next chapter well.

Many of you have prayed for us, encouraged us, hired us, supported our businesses, shared meals with us, and walked alongside us through every season. We are incredibly grateful for every person who has been part of our journey.

If you feel led to partner with us financially, every gift will help cover moving expenses, transportation, trailer purchases, vehicle preparation, housing transition costs, and getting our family established as we make the journey home.

Most of all, we would love your prayers. Pray for favor, provision, housing, safe travels, wisdom, and a smooth transition as we begin this new chapter.

Thank you for being part of our story and helping us take this next step toward home.

With gratitude,

6/17/26 Big Step Forward — and the Countdown Is On

This week, we officially signed the lease on our little cottage by the sea.

After months of praying, planning, searching, waiting, and wondering, we finally have a home waiting for us on the other side of this journey. We are excited, grateful, hopeful—and if we’re honest—feeling all the emotions that come with such a major life transition.

At the same time, saying goodbye to our Colorado home is emotional. Our “castle in the woods” has been so much more than a house. It has been a refuge. A place of healing. A place where the Lord met us in some of our deepest places with compassion, mercy, and grace. Twice during our years in Colorado, this home has sheltered our family through seasons of growth, restoration, heartbreak, and hope.

And now the countdown is officially on.

We have just nine days to finish packing, donating, selling, sorting, cleaning, and preparing this house to be turned back over to the homeowners.

Yet even in the midst of the pressure, we are seeing God’s provision in remarkable ways.

One of the biggest gifts came through a dear friend. Chris has been helping with repairs on their home, and in exchange, they are blessing us with a professional move-out cleaning. This is an enormous answer to prayer. Conserving Katy’s strength and energy has been one of our greatest concerns throughout this process, and knowing that the deep cleaning will be taken care of removes a huge burden from our shoulders.

While Chris was working on their home, we also had the opportunity to reconnect with many of our old neighbors. What started as a work project quickly became something much more meaningful. We were reminded just how deeply connected we became to that neighborhood and the people in it. They welcomed us, loved us, prayed for us, and made our years in Colorado feel like home. Leaving them is one of the hardest parts of this move.

Another huge win came last week when Katy was gifted some complementary wellness treatments at Renoja. She was able to receive red light therapy and compression therapy, and the results were incredibly encouraging. Since the miscarriage and the extended season of bedrest that followed, rebuilding strength has been a slow process. These treatments seemed to help push her out of that difficult place and gave her the energy and endurance needed to tackle the mountain of packing and organizing that lies ahead. For our family, this felt like a significant breakthrough.

Meanwhile, our house continues to transform day by day.

We are selling almost all of our furniture. Donation piles continue to grow. Trash piles continue to grow. We are intentionally downsizing and only bringing what truly serves our family’s next season. Every box packed represents another step forward, and we are being careful not to move anything heavier than we need to.

The kiddos have been soaking up every remaining moment in this home. They spend their days building fairy gardens, playing construction workers, creating elaborate imaginary worlds, riding bikes, and making memories with neighborhood friends. Watching them savor these final weeks has been both beautiful and bittersweet.

Katy was also gifted something she will treasure forever: a women’s retreat with some of her closest Colorado friends. Throughout the weekend, the Lord continued to confirm this move in countless ways. One particularly meaningful moment came when the women gathered around a map and prayerfully circled places where they felt God was calling them to take back territory and step into new assignments.

For Katy, that moment was deeply moving.

What began as a practical relocation has become something much more profound—a journey of obedience, healing, and trust. That weekend brought renewed peace and confidence that this move is truly the right next step for our family.

As we wrap things up, we’re trying to schedule goodbye moments with the many people who have become precious to us. As we make lists and fill calendars, we’re realizing just how many friendships have shaped our lives here.

There will be things we deeply miss: afternoon walks, park days, worship nights, prayer gatherings, house church, spontaneous visits, shared meals, and dreams we imagined unfolding together.

We are grieving those goodbyes.

And yet, we are moving forward.

We have set our faces like flint, confident that the Lord is directing our steps.

For Katy especially, this move carries another layer of significance. Going home means returning to a family that looks different than the one she left. Chad’s death was devastating, and each step toward the Pacific Northwest makes the reality of his absence feel more tangible. There is grief in that. There is healing in that too.

As with any transition, there are things we leave behind and things we reach toward.

We leave behind places full of possibility, friendships full of love, and dreams that may never unfold exactly as we imagined.

And we move toward family, healing, restoration, rebuilding, new opportunities, and a future that God is still writing.

Another practical need we’re navigating is housing during the final stretch of our transition. Once the house is fully packed, cleaned, and turned over to the homeowners, there will be a small gap before we begin our journey west.

We may need a temporary place to stay in Colorado from June 27 through July 3. If anyone knows of a guest house, ministry housing, short-term rental, cabin, basement apartment, or other affordable arrangement during those dates, we would be incredibly grateful for the connection.

A hotel stay for a family of seven for that length of time—or a typical Airbnb—is simply beyond what our budget can support right now. We’re trusting that, just as God has provided every step of the way so far, He already knows where we’ll lay our heads during those final days.

If you know of a possibility, please reach out. We’d love to explore any leads.

One area we’d especially appreciate prayer for is the financial side of the transition. As our timeline shortens, securing construction and handyman projects has become more challenging. We are still hoping to book enough final work to help cover the fuel, lodging, and travel expenses needed to get our family of seven safely back home.

We’re also actively searching for a large enclosed cargo trailer to help make the move. If you know of one available on Colorado’s Front Range, we’d love to hear from you.

God has provided for us again and again throughout this journey, and we believe He will continue to do so.

Whether through prayer, encouragement, sharing our story, work opportunities, trailer leads, temporary housing connections, or financial support, every gift has helped carry us one step closer to home.

Thank you for walking this road with us.

The next chapter is drawing near, and we cannot wait to see what God has prepared on the other side.

With gratitude,

The Shipley Family