“Where are we going, Mom?” my son asked me when it was time for us to leave the house again. We are selling our house and it was our seventh showing in as many days. For each showing we had to get the house ‘show ready’ (i.e. make it look like a model home where no one lives as opposed to a home of six, four of whom are working from home or going to school online), then all pile into the car and kill time until we can return. The current coronavirus was severely limiting our options of places to go and things to do while strangers toured our house. But the answer to the question I heard my son ask was less immediate as we consider the long-term implications of selling our home in such a season of uncertainty. You see, we had also just been informed the language school we are planning on moving to after we sold our house, is considering the possibility of canceling classes for the fall semester and not allowing anyone new to move onto campus due to the coronavirus lockdowns.
I have been profoundly grateful for the stability owning our home for nearly the last six years has provided for our family – what a gift from God! Every time we left our home to visit family, to go on vacation, or even to go on short-term mission trips, we’ve always had a home to come to. So I heard my son’s question, “Where are we going?” and in my heart I asked the Lord, “Where will we go, Father? If our house sells quickly, as it is expected, and we cannot move to language school for an undetermined period of time, where will we go? And how will we learn Spanish so we can do ministry when we move to Ecuador next summer? Where will we go?”
The monarch butterfly is one example of God’s creation which travels to faraway places it has never been. It is guided by God-given instinct over thousands of miles in varying conditions, across the continent, to the place it is supposed to be at the time it is supposed to be there. I was blessed to see several beautiful monarchs just the other evening while I was out walking, and the Lord brought their flight to mind as I considered our circumstances. God also brought to mind the patriarchs of the Bible who were asked to journey by faith, usually under much less desirable conditions and with many more unknowns. And God took care of all of them. Moreover, He provided for their families along the way as well. We know this season is another invitation to trust in Jesus each day, and it’s also an opportunity for our children to trust in Jesus and witness His plan in their own lives as well. One of the translators we worked with in Tanzania in 2016 shared with us while we were there about a specific time when he was a child and he watched his mother hope and pray in faith for the Lord’s provision, and the miraculous answer to her prayer a short time later. This event helped him to put his own trust in Jesus and had a profound effect on his walk with the Lord.
So where will we go? In short, we will go wherever the Lord makes a way. We’ll stay rooted in the Bible and take our next steps with lots of prayer; we will continue to move toward learning Spanish and growing in knowledge as much as we can until we leave for Ecuador next summer, Lord willing. I am comforted and reminded that while this is the first time our family is setting out from our homeland under God’s direction to serve Him without a place to come ‘home’ to or return date, it is not the Lord’s first time in calling and accompanying those He has called to follow Him. Nor will this be the last time we are asked to, and enabled by the Spirit, to walk by faith. God’s word is true and He is unchanging – we follow the same faithful God as Abraham, Moses, Peter, and Paul did. We hope in the creator of hope who never fails to fulfill His purposes, and we walk step-by-step as we eagerly await to see his plan unfold and discover our new home. We invite you to lean into His promises with us!
“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” – Psalm 16:11
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth, the life and no one comes to the Father except through me.'” – John 14:6
“‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
just to take Him at His Word
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know “Thus saith the Lord!”
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him
How I proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!”
– “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”
Meaders on a Mission! 