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Updike Family
Blessings! We are James and Kira Updike. We live in the mountains of Tennessee! We have 3 beautiful children- Savannah and our son-in-love, Jeremy, along with our two (2) grandbabies Beau and Aylah, Hailey, and Collin. We answered Yahweh’s call to begin homesteading about 10 years ago. There is definitely a connection between homesteading and becoming Followers of The Way.
While we have been Christ followers for the majority of our lives, it has just been in the last five (5) years that He began to open our eyes and ears and soften our hearts to His truth.
We believe Yeshua Hamashiach (Jesus, the Messiah) came for two (2) purposes:
Salvation- We must first have faith in Yeshua and accept the fact that without HIS life, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession- we are not worthy to have righteousness in the eyes of Yahweh (God), our Elohim!
Example- Yeshua showed us what it meant to follow the Commands of Yahweh. He showed us how we are to walk daily and we must observe the commands of Yahweh daily. It is not an overnight transition- but it is through daily sanctification.
We can remember the day it hit home for us and our family… Each of us woke up and were told separately to read John 14:15. “If you love Me, you will guard My commands.”
This scripture hit us like a ton of bricks… We realized in that moment, Yeshua was telling us that His commands are the commands of Yahweh. We knew in that moment that if we are truly set apart, then we must be obedient to ALL of Yahweh’s commands as set forth in the entirety of His Word.
As Followers of The Way- we received a renewed understanding of the term “faith.” It has a noun/verb relationship. It is something we believe in, but it is something we must also do- the Shema: Hear, Obey, and Do. Scripture tells us that Faith without Works is dead. We are encouraged to Let our Light Shine on a daily basis and we are commanded to go forth and share the Good News. That Good news is that Yahweh loves those who love HIM and keep His commands. We are shown this directly by Yeshua in Matthew 22:34-40. He tells us to love Yahweh and to love our neighbors as ourselves. On these 2 commands hang all of the Law (Torah)and the Prophets. If this was a priority for Yeshua, it should be a priority for each of us.
After coming to this understanding, we knew in our hearts, our minds, our souls- that we were being called to teach others HIS truth, to teach others how to truly study the Word of YHWH, to disciple others how to walk in the Truth and become Followers of the Way. What is “The Way”. Yeshua tells us in John 14:6-7 “יהושע said to him, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father too. From now on you know Him, and have seen.”
After many months of prayer and seeking wisdom and guidance from Yah, we joined together with our dearest friends, Chris and Sherri Higley and decided to start Rooted in His Word Ministry.
We give all praise, all honor, and all glory to our Elohim- Yahweh- for His mercy, His love, His correction, His grace.
Meet the Ministry Leaders:
Meet the Ministry Leaders:
We are Chris and Sherri Higley. We live in southeast Tennessee with 4 of
our 5 beautiful daughters; McKinzie, Isabella, Ariannah and Addison. Our
oldest daughter Allie lives in Virginia with her husband Matt. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their first child later this year..
In 2017 we felt a leading that we were supposed to move from our comfortable
lifestyle and property in Michigan. After Yahweh (God) worked by placing numerous
big and small puzzle pieces into place, we sold our house, Chris left his position in
healthcare and we moved to Tennessee. Prior to leaving Michigan, though, we
started spending more time reading the Word for ourselves and decided to walk
away from the sunday church that we were a part of planting and began going to a
small house gathering. In reading through Ephesians our family began to realize that
the Old Testament isn’t “just for the Jews”. In Galatians we read that if we are “one
in Messiah Yeshua” (Jesus) than we were of the “seed of Abraham and heir to the
promise”. So we then did something we hadn’t done in the past and started reading
from the beginning of the Book. Throughout the Old Testament we began seeing
words like “forever” and “generation to generation” and so many questions started
piling up with few answers.
After settling into a rental home in SE Tennessee, in 2018, we quickly found another
small house church in Crossville (an hour north of us), which was now our preference
as we no longer wanted the big church scene. It was here that we were introduced
to a lovely family whom was also attending the gathering, the Updikes, whom we
quickly became close with. It wasn’t long after though, that we became convicted to
begin eating clean foods and transition to observing saturday Sabbath which would
entail Chris working on sundays to get saturdays off and us having to leave the
Crossville house church. While we did leave that gathering, we praise Yah that it
wouldn’t be long before the Higleys and the Updikes would once again reunite with
similar convictions.
This new walk, while different and unfamiliar, gave us comfort and we began to feel
a closeness to our Father in heaven. Don’t get us wrong, there are trials and we’ve
been unlearning as much as we’ve been learning. There was also the feeling of “are
we the only Christians doing such a thing?”. We quickly began to see the magnitudes
of people that Yahweh is bringing back to His Way, not just in America but to the
four corners of the earth. We are so very grateful for His patience, guidance,
correction, forgiveness and everlasting love. We are blessed to be a part of this
wonderful gathering of like-minded, whole bible believers and our family is excited
to see how Yahweh will lead us in these coming days.
Praise Yah for His everlasting chesed (loving-kindness)!
Higley Family
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