The Couple Who Sold Everything for a Address They'd Never Seen

In 2019, Marcus and Diana Chen were settled. He managed a thriving dental practice in suburban Atlanta. She ran the children's ministry at their church of fifteen years. Their youngest had just left for college. The mortgage was nearly paid off. Life was comfortable, predictable, and safe.

Then came the quiet stirring — a persistent, undeniable sense that God was calling them to plant a church in rural Appalachia, in a town of four thousand people they had visited exactly once. Marcus was fifty-three. Diana was fifty-one. Their friends called it a midlife crisis. Their financial advisor called it imprudent. Their adult children asked if they were serious.

They were. Marcus sold the practice. They listed the house. Diana resigned from the ministry she had built from nothing. On a gray Tuesday morning in October, they loaded a U-Haul and drove six hours northeast into the mountains of eastern Kentucky, toward a community they barely knew, trusting a God whose full plan they could not see.

That is the rhythm of Genesis 12. The Almighty does not hand Abram a detailed itinerary. He says go, and He says I will bless you. Abram was seventy-five — well past the age when most people stop taking risks — and yet he went. Faith has never required a complete map. It requires a trusted voice and the willingness to move your feet.