Jeff and I have been 'playing in the rain' ourselves, over the last two days. Not a physical rain, but a spiritual one. Of course, a long drought is what makes the rain feel so beautiful, and we've been having a drought, no question about it!
Monday night, Jeff shared with me how frustrated he was with where we are right now. He admitted how disappointed he'd felt when he wasn't able to raise the necessary support for us to go to Ireland, even if there was a very short amount of time given to us to raise the money. He said he felt afraid to go back to the support-raising arena. The truth is, we'd both felt somewhat lost since we found out we wouldn't be going to Ireland. We felt our dream had been taken from us, as if it was really ours at all. We were sad, and to be honest, a little humiliated. We'd been sitting in this place for several weeks now, without any clear direction from God. We had decided to pursue MCYM, but we hadn't had a specific call for that. We just decided that if this is what God was putting in our path, we would go until He stopped us. But we hadn't heard Him say specifically "Go", nor had we heard Him tell us to stay. It is a frustrating place to live. Anyway, that night, we prayed that God would give us some direction, confirm our calling, give us some kind of comfort.
And the very next morning, the rain came. When Jeff checked the mailbox that morning, we had a letter from a man who helped us fix our car several weeks ago. This individual just happened to have 15 years of experience on the mission field. His letter was full of encouragement for the support-raising process. He reminded us that WE cannot raise the support on our own, that we don't want to... but that it is in God's hands. We realized how right he was as we thought about the fact that God caused our car to overheat in front of his house just so he could encourage us and support us when we desperately needed encouragement and support! God is amazing!
The next day, Jeff had a meeting scheduled with YL International's finance coach to try to set up a budget for MCYM. He had helped us create a budget for Ireland, and had seen how that situation had played out. However, it had been some time since we had talked with him. That day, he told Jeff that YL Ireland is struggling financially right now. One person who is there now was at CCO (training) with us in January, and she left about the time we were supposed to leave. She is now in a deficit. The finance guy told Jeff that it's obvious God is looking out for our family. I mean, I know that many times God protects us and we never even know. But here, He's allowed us to see a little bit of His 'behind-the-scenes' provisions.
Don't you just love it when He does that?
