Dear Friends,
It has been about six months since our last update, and a lot has happened. We are grateful for your friendship, prayers, and support over the years, and we want to share where things stand as we enter another season of change. Our last update covered the end of our three and a half years serving at New Life Vicenza. We won’t retell that story here, but we do want to say again how hard it was to leave. We grew to love the people at New Life deeply, and the life we built in Croatia was something we came to treasure.
A Call to Grand Cayman
When we left Italy, our plan was to sell our house in Mount Juliet and move to Panama City Beach so Vicki could be closer to her mother in Enterprise, Alabama, while I continued writing. We were not immediately looking for a pastoral call. But back in June, I learned that the position at Boatswain Bay Presbyterian Church on Grand Cayman had opened. I asked Vicki for permission to inquire, and she agreed. A few weeks after returning to the States, on October 3, we were on a plane to visit the church. We spent two weeks there, loved the people and the place, and have since gladly accepted the call to serve as Pastor and Teaching Elder.
Some may wonder why Grand Cayman and not somewhere closer to Vicki’s mom. The answer requires holding two things together. Vicki’s mother has been a primary concern throughout our time overseas, and it has been hard on Vicki to be so far away. At the same time, we could not stay in Italy because we were never able to obtain Italian residency. We traveled three to five hours each week back and forth from Croatia, and without residency we could not gain access to the military bases. Long term, that was not sustainable. Neither reason alone would have brought us home, but held together they help to explain why the Cayman Islands. We can obtain a work permit, which gives us stability, and the flights to the States are easier and more affordable, so Vicki can travel back and forth to be with her mom. The church has been wonderfully sensitive to this. They do this for their own loved ones. It almost goes without saying, as you all would know, that they liked Vicki better than me, which was also the case in Vicenza.
The church is providing us with a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house and a car on the island. I completed my presbytery transfer to South Florida Presbytery on February 10, and we are now finishing the work permit documents. The plan is for me to arrive sometime in April and for Vicki to follow in June or July. You all can come visit and stay with us.
The House
When we left for Italy in 2022, rather than sell our house in Mount Juliet we deferred selling it. Our youngest son James lived there while we were in Europe. Now there is no more deferring the sale of our home of twenty years. To give you a picture, our entire apartment in Croatia would have fit inside our master bedroom alone. Add two decades of accumulated living to all that space, and you get an idea of what we came home to.
Between trips to Grand Cayman, Enterprise, and Tampa, we did not settle in until the end of November. Vicki dropped James and me at the house that evening and went to pick up Skippy—her new cavapoo puppy and long-awaited travel-size companion. While she was gone, James and I discovered we had no hot water. I went to the basement and found that the hot water heater had failed and the entire basement was covered with a half inch to an inch of water. Vicki’s photography studio, her speech pathology materials, boxes of records—everything on the floor was sitting in water. So instead of spending December getting the house ready for sale, we spent it on remediation and restoration. As I write this in March, we are almost finished and hope finally to get the house on the market in the next few weeks. The good news, I suppose, is that the basement will have been completely redone.
It has not been what we planned, but it has been good for our faith. When your plans keep getting upended, helplessness has a way of driving you to Christ.
Family News
We have happy news. Mollee and Michael Jr. are expecting a baby boy at the end of May, and Molly and Velo are expecting a baby boy in early June. That will bring our grandchild count to five, joining Leona (8), Carolyn (6), and Amelia (4). This is another reason for Vicki to stay back through early summer before joining me on the island.
The Writing Ministry
My primary focus on the island will be pastoring the church, but the writing continues. I have made real progress on Book 1 of The Dayton Graham Project, entitled Discovering Dad: The Father I Wish I Had Known, based on 297 handwritten letters my father wrote during his Korean War service and on family interviews. I am halfway through chapter seven of ten chapters, about 300 pages of first draft, and I hope to finish the first draft in the next month.
On The Jack Miller Project, there is always more to do than I have time for. Recently, while sorting through materials during the basement clean-up, I came across a lengthy engagement on baptism at World Harvest Mission in the 1990s—whether a mission committed to church planting could have Presbyterians and Baptists working together, and if so how. Some of the best Reformed minds were involved. I found it most fascinating and am considering a writing project on it. However, I wonder if others would find it as interesting as I did.
Some of you may remember that while in Italy I shared a vision for a Jack Miller Study Center. I have not forgotten that idea. To the contrary, Grand Cayman as a destination could provide a better environment for the study center in the future. With a three-bedroom house, we would even have room to host those who might want to come and spend time studying my Jack Miller library. I would ask you to continue to pray about that with me.
Staying Connected and Supporting the Work
This will be my last update sent through MailChimp. I have migrated my writing to Substack, where I have recently published essays and articles and can send updates by email directly. If you would like to keep hearing from us, please subscribe at thejackmillerproject.substack.com. A free subscription will keep you connected to everything I publish.
The Jack Miller Project currently costs about $5,000 a year for hosting, maintaining the website, and all the other items associated with the project. I have been paying those expenses out of pocket—or more accurately, Vicki has. She funded my doctoral studies, the biography, and has been helping support the Jack Miller work for the last six years. When I told her I was going to find a way to allow others to help, she thought that was a great idea. She sometimes wonders if I love Jack Miller more than her, since I tend to fuss about spending on other things. Looking ahead, I still hope to develop an online version of the research library, an online timeline of Jack’s life and ministry, and an iOS and Android app for my A New Life course, all of which are far more possible now with AI tools that also cost money.
Many of you who knew me through my work on The Jack Miller Project supported our work in Italy through Ministry to Military and Internationals. Thankfully, we do not need to raise support for our work at Boatswain Bay. But I no longer have a place for people interested in The Jack Miller Project to give, so I need to figure that out. You can help now by signing up for a paid subscription on Substack. I am also interested in either forming a nonprofit for The Jack Miller Project or finding a fiscal sponsor in the States who would receive tax-deductible donations on our behalf. When I was at Hickory Grove in Mount Juliet, we provided this service for so many startup ministries, but I have not really been on the other end of needing such help. I will be looking into that and welcome any input.
Thank you for walking with us through these years. Your prayers and encouragement mean more than we can say. We look forward to what the Lord has for us in Grand Cayman, and we hope some of you will come visit.
Love in Christ,
Mike and Vicki Graham