The Nagles

Pictured above is the trail up to Angels Landing in Zion National Park. This challenging and dangerous trail feels like our journey through life at times.

Ok, simple answer to the question – How did we get here? – is simply God. But that would seriously be short-changing what God has done leading up to now.

Our journey to this moment began in 2010 when we were happily married in January. We were a pretty typical looking couple facing the average troubles that a fresh marriage would see. Finances were a challenge with Greg being unemployed for the first 6 months of our marriage bliss. We made it work with some creative meals and penny pinching everywhere we could. Eventually, we found ourselves digging out and seeing some light at the end of the financial tunnel.

We both had a huge heart for kids and enjoyed helping with childcare at church and borrowing our friends’ kids. At the end of 2011 we made the decision to explore growing our family. Imagining all of the fun that we could have with kids of our own and sharing the love with our own kids was pretty exciting. Our condo was small (only 800 square feet) but we knew it was plenty big enough to start raising our family.

Around Thanksgiving 2011 we discovered that Bonne was pregnant, but it was super early, so we kept things quiet for the moment. Thanksgiving came with an announcement from Greg’s sister that they were expecting. Obviously, we were super excited for them and when we would be able to add to that news that the family would soon have two new grandkids.

December came around and Bonne had some serious pain that seemed to hit out of nowhere. We ended up going to the ER where the answers were frustratingly just not clear. Little did we know at the time, Bonne was going through a miscarriage. We were devastated but more concerning was that Bonne was still in a lot of pain. This continued into 2012 and we began a long list of doctor’s appointments that were anything but helpful. Answers were few or contradictory and often felt like the medical experts really were cold and unempathetic.

Over the course of 2012 and into 2013 we were determined to figure out what was causing the growing list of medical issues that Bonne was having. There were some successful appointments that gave us some answers and potential diagnosis. Ultimately, we sadly came to the realization that Bonne’s body just was not able to carry a pregnancy to completion. The total number of miscarriages is hard to know but we know of 6 for sure. Although we never got any official medical confirmation, these miscarriages likely had long lasting physical damage for Bonne that we continue to deal with today. Our focus changed from expanding our family to getting Bonne healthy again.

In 2014, we took our first vacation to a National Park – Yosemite. This would be the first of many National Parks we would visit over the next couple of years. Our vacations became a huge recharge and refocusing for us as we took in God’s creation all around us. Mountains became our reminder of God’s strength and gave us renewed love for Him and each other.

Back at home we continued to try and get life as much back to “normal” as we could. We wanted to be just a normal married couple doing normal things. This was a struggle as health issues continued and infertility reminded us that we just were not normal.

One area that was not normal was our spare time. Specifically, that we had lots of spare time. We saw all the other families around us running around with the “normal” responsibilities – soccer practice, school events, birthday parties. Spare time was precious for everyone else but seemed to be an endless supply for us. We asked God what we should do with this extra time, and we focused on our love of kids. In 2016 we started volunteering at a children’s hospital on Saturdays. This became a rewarding activity for us and gave us a greater appreciation and love for families dealing with children with medical conditions. We even managed to get our baby fix in holding little ones in the NICU. This continued up until COVID-19 reared its ugly head in 2020 and the volunteer program was shut down. Thankfully, this was also when our path was beginning to take shape.

From 2015 to 2020 we saw growth in our professional careers and stability in our finances. God led Bonne back to school to get her masters in Instructional Design. She managed to complete this degree despite all of the medical issues that were going on. From here she began a journey of jobs that led her to being a fully remote worker. At the time this was a huge blessing from the aspect that her health would not hinder her work as much as it had previously. Over this time we began exploring moving into a larger home that we could use to increase our ability to have people over to our home. We spent a ton of time browsing through Zillow or Redfin, sharing our favorite homes and thinking about the future possibilities.

At the beginning of 2020 we celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary. Once again, we found our self back at Yosemite celebrating and remembering where God had brought us. By this time, we had accepted that we had a “new normal” and that God had something else in store for us. We were not sure where He was leading us or what we would do but we felt like we had purpose. God was already working on shifting our focus. We found that we were no longer interested in the homes on the market. Not necessarily because the homes on the market were not to our liking, but the idea of moving no longer felt right.

A simple meeting with a pastor at our church became the “Ah-ha!” moment on our journey and really started the ball rolling. The idea of serving came about in this meeting and suddenly pieces that had been moving for the past 10 years started to come into view. God had been leading us through struggles, tragedy, and success to bring us to 2020. Suddenly, financial stability, Bonne’s remote job, the newfound love for travel, professional development, and our “new normal” came into focus.

We found ourselves excited at the prospect of being able to serve in some capacity and perhaps do so in ways most are not able to. There was a new path before us and ultimately a new goal to work towards. To say that 2020 was a challenging year would be an understatement for all of us. God seemed to have all sorts of twists and turns for our family. From job lay-offs to medical procedures, we seemed to be in a constant state of adjusting our plans. Thankfully, God continued to work in all our situations, and we continued to build towards our goal.

In 2023, God seemed to be pointing us towards the end of one journey and the beginning of our new one. We knew that Bonne would be able to use her remote job to allow us the freedom to be mobile with our ministry. This would allow us to serve on the road and for Greg to be able to serve full-time without the need for financial support. In August of 2023, Greg “semi-retired” from his job to focus on this new ministry.

The money that we once thought would be used to put a down payment on a house was not focused on an RV. Countless hours of research have been put towards this big purchase. Mid-August of 2023 saw us at an RV dealer signing the papers for a new Class A RV. God put us in an RV that we honestly had not considered heavily (due to price) but He ultimately worked out all of the details that we never could have imagined.

The last 7 months have been about preparation and planning for what lies ahead. In the next couple of days, we will finally get to see all this work put into action. Even though the last 7 months feels like the real preparation, it is hard to forget about the previous 14 years that God has used to bring us to this point in our life. Yes, God is the simple answer why we are here, but the journey is our reminder that everything is in His hands – good and bad.

Remember that picture of the trail from Zion National Park? Greg hiked that and lived to tell the story! More importantly, he witnessed the incredible beauty that God has created from what is known as Angels Landing. Sometimes those rough journeys can have some pretty amazing views at the end.

View from Angles Landing