Unwrap Our Valentine’s Gift to You! Love is so much more than modern romance can comprehend, much less convey. Meet Kirk and Dennae who fell in love with Jesus, with Shiloh and each other!
Where did your journey with Shiloh begin? You might be someone who has known about Shiloh for years, you might be someone reading about it for the first time, or you might be somewhere in the middle. No matter where you are on your journey with Shiloh, we would like to tell you about ours. We are Kirk and Dennae Moore, and we have been home parents at Shiloh for 20 years.
My (Kirk) journey with Shiloh began when I was 15 years old. My church came to Shiloh every summer on a mission trip and at 15 I made my first trip. Our group that year worked on the butcher shop. That summer I met Kevin and Denice Blew and learned what house parents were. They were mom and dad. That’s what they did full time. No other job to go to, just raise kids. I’d never heard of anything like that before. Growing up I had some aspirations of wanting to be this or be that, but in the end, I really just wanted to be a dad. I remember during that week telling my preacher, “Dan, I’m going to be a dad here someday”.
I was hooked on Shiloh. Over the next couple of years, I made my way to Shiloh any chance I got. I came for mission trips every summer, brought Christmas gifts, every winter, came to watch a few of the kids play basketball, and even a band concert. It was a 6-hour drive from home but any time a vehicle was headed that way I was in it.
My (Dennae) journey with Shiloh began a few years later. You see, I got asked to prom by a young man named Kirk. Our first date was Senior Prom. We dated the last couple of months of senior year and then the next fall we headed out to different schools. I headed to school to be a Social Worker and Kirk headed to be a preacher. The summer after my freshman year I made my first trip to Shiloh. That year we stayed in what is now the Penfield house, but the showers were not all working. So, some of the junior high kids in the group showered at house 2. I remember sitting on the front porch swing thinking I could live here someday and be a mom here. (Spoiler alert: that is the house we have lived in for the last 20 years.) After that I was hooked!
Over the next couple of years, we were both going back and forth to Shiloh any time we had the chance to. Any time we could, we talked with Kevin and Denice about what it took and what it meant to be house parents. We were still in college and schedules were crazy, but we were there as much as we could. We even made a trip out as Juniors in college to talk with Jim Thomas and Keith Gardner about what it would take for us to be home parents. They said getting married was the biggest thing, but we had decided not to get married until we finished college.
In May 2004 we both graduated. Dennae got her degree in social work, and Kirk got his in preaching. On August 28, 2004, we got married. It was a great day, and we even had some guests from 6 hours away. Kevin and Denice came to our wedding and brought Eric and Anna (two of their kids) with them. In the reception line they handed us some papers. It was an application to be home parents at Shiloh. We were 22 and 23 years old and had been married for minutes and the application we had been waiting for was in our hands.
On our honeymoon we filled it out and started the process. A short while later Jim Thomas made a trip to Indiana to officially interview us and to let us know that “you might feel called to Shiloh, but you are not called to Shiloh until I say so”.
In November of 2004 we went for a trial run at the Penfield house. The first night of the trial run was surreal. We were in charge of a whole family of kids. The weekend flew by, and everyone survived. We had passed the “test” and Major Jim indeed called us to Shiloh. We put our house up for sale and it sold in 8 days. We packed up what few things we had in a U-Haul truck and moved to Shiloh.
We started at the north site, and it was a huge blessing. We had known the Blews and the way they did things for years, so we assumed the north site would be similar. It was not, but not in a bad way. We got to watch and learn from the Pen- field’s, and it was amazing. They did things differently than the Blews did, but it was great. We started to learn that there were many different ways to be home parents. We began to take a little from here and a little from there and shaped the way we would raise kids. Mainly because we had never done it before.
In May of 2005 we got the opportunity to switch houses with another Shiloh couple. We would move to the south site, and they would move to the north site at Kahoka. It was a crazy weekend trying to move two families, but we got it done. That night we got the view that we had dreamed about many years before, our front yard. In all the places in the world we have been to, there is no place as beautiful as our front yard while we sit on the swing together.
Now let’s fast forward 20 years. In the last 20 years we have been blessed to raise 52 kids. Some for a short time others for a long time. Shout out to Mercy, our longest stay. She came when she was 6, graduated high school, graduated college, is a nurse in Kansas City and was back for Christmas again this year.
Many people ask us how we have done it all these years. The answer is simple, it’s our life. It’s not our job; it’s even past being a ministry. Every part of every day is Shiloh. That doesn’t mean we haven’t had some rough days, for there have been plenty of those. But that same call that came to Kirk when he was talking to Dan and came to Dennae when she was on the swing is still alive and well.
We’re not sure where you are in your journey with Shiloh. We are glad that you have read our story today. We hope someday we get to hear your story about your journey with Shiloh. We’re glad you are a part of our life at Shiloh.
Kirk & Dennae Moore