It's absolutely amazing how God knows how to make the timing of everything just perfect.
But...it's confession time for us. Our confession of faith.
It all started around autumn of last year. Jonathan and I started talking about what we were going to do once I had finished my student teaching in December. It would be our first taste of life after college together. The best way I can think to describe what that's like is to imagine yourself as a gardener in a tiny humid greenhouse in the Alps. The plants inside are all interesting and and growing beautifully, but you are trapped inside glass walls that only allow you see the blurry grandeur of the outdoors, just enough to tantalize your imagination. You can almost feel the cool refreshing mountain air blowing through your hair, so clean and crisp you can almost taste the the blue sky itself. It was
that feeling of anticipation that lead us to the next few steps we would make.
Step 1: Bask in the glow of accomplishment.
Finishing a bachelor's degree is no small feat. It was glorious to realize that 4+ years of hard work was behind us and we both now held some pretty valuable tools under our belt; Jonathan for Ministerial work and Counseling, and myself for elementary education. Now that we were finished with that chapter, we wanted to expand our horizons to use those tools somewhere for the advancement of God's kingdom.
...so we prayed...
Step 2: Plot our next chapter of life.
Both of us aren't suited for the ordinary. The status quo does not appeal. We wanted adventure, and no less. We also believe that God put that desire in our hearts. It takes all types of folk to make this blue ball go around, and it's crucial to the church in America (and all over the world) that there be established families to continue making disciples of the members in each church. But God has given us this special call. The ability to travel far from family and loved ones to answer the call He has put in our hearts. One of my favorite teachers, Mrs. B, once said that if you had several paths you could choose from in life, choose the most exciting one. That is exactly the beat of our heart. We're only young once, so why not make a splash?
So then God lead my parents to do a DTS (Discpleship Training School) with YWAM and ended up in Malaysia. They got back to the states so excited for what God is doing in YWAM. That kind of excitement is a contagious excitement. We caught the bug.
...and then we prayed...
Step 3: Apply
God gave us that sweet discontentment in our hearts that comes when it's time to move on. Like a gentle nudge that sends butterflies to your tummy. So we began our applications in January and turned them into YWAM in March.
...and we continued to pray...
Step 4: Wait
It seems like a lot of our faith is built in times when we are waiting. There's not much you can do about something while you're waiting on it, huh? And I am a "doer," let me tell you! So God has been using the time we've been waiting to build our faith. We heard not a word from YWAM in March, April, or May, but we preceded as through we had already been accepted into their program. Call us crazy or awefully bold, but we were acting on faith and trusting in what God had put on our hearts to do. We informed our employers of our plans, and bought our plane tickets, and even arranged to house sit so we could sell our things before we needed to leave. And we still had yet to hear anything from the organization we were planning on joining. Oh it makes me laugh how "planless" this whole "plan" really was. Finally in at the very end of May, WE GOT AN EMAIL! Wow! We were so excited about that silly email, but it was a faith booster. This email was sent to let us know that they were transferring us to a different "branch" of YWAM that they thought we were better suited for. Hmmm, interesting, but ok. We immediately got another email from the new "branch" called Community Transformations and they wanted to get together with us for a Skype interview. To make a long story short, we agreed on a certain time and both of us ended up waiting on the other for over an hour to connect on skype, but the meeting failed. Surely, Murphy's law of technology was at play here. Bummer. So another few weeks went by, and...nothing. Was God teaching me that it's only on Him I can rely and not my own planning? Yes. That is exactly the lesson I learned here.
...all the while we prayed...
Step 5: Connect!
We had our phone interview June 11, late at night. The time difference between Hawaii and Florida is 6 hours, so by the time we said goodbye it was midnight. We were so pumped to talk to the Community Transformations leader, John, and share who we are in a mini interview. We also learned a lot more about exactly what YWAM is about. This experience is not merely a missions trip. It is training to make us into Jesus-loving-disciple-makers for the rest of our lives. Just the thing to ruin us for good from the status quo of "just getting by" in life. PERFECT. But still no word on our acceptance.
...and we continued to pray...
Step 6: Move out
Still without a letter of acceptance, we did the most gutsy thing we've ever done. We sold all our furniture and moved out of our house. Some people have compared faith to sitting in a chair. You can believe that a chair will hold you up, but if you don't actually sit in it you are not exercising your faith in that chair. Well it seemed that our "faith" chair had invisible legs, so we sat in it.
God seems to have a sense of humor, and that was made clear the first night we stayed at the house we are house sitting for the summer. I had just sat down on my bed for the evening to check my email, lo and Behold we received our letter of acceptance into the Community Transformations DTS that very evening.
Through this, I've learned that Sometimes our lives require chairs with invisible legs before great things can happen.
