Humorous Provision

      I didn't ask God if I could go to Belize, God asked me. I didn't make it possible or within reach, He did. I remember when he began whispering to me in my quiet time about going on a missions trip. I didn't take it seriously, because I didn't want to. In my heart I would say: "Nice concept, God, but I really don't think its for me. I'm doing fine right here and I'm doing outreach and mentoring children, just like you've asked me to do.” We were never created to be comfortable and complacent in our walks with God, though. He truly wants to stretch us and sometimes that means actually opening our ears to what He’s clearly telling us and boldly accepting that His ideas will forever be different from ours. God is hilariously ironic that way- I’m finding He has a way of placing me in situations that are the stark opposite of what I could have ever pictured and sometimes when He’s feeling particularly creative and funny,  He will guide me to do things that I specifically swore I would never do.

    God continued to imprint missions work on my heart relentlessly and at the exact same time my fiancé Simon shared with me that He was feeling the same pull. So we began to pray everyday- we prayed for God to clearly show us the “how” the “when” and the “where”. We vowed not to do any forcing or trying too hard to make anything happen; we laid it completely in His hands.  For the next couple months, the topic of missions was everywhere- hearing about trips and people's experiences and during that time, God completely transformed our hearts from being unsure about stepping out in faith in that way to feeling totally ready to embrace the adventure He wanted to send us on. In March, I was on Gateway's website and I happened to stumble upon a page talking about a young adult missions trip to Belize. At that time, Simon and I weren't living in Texas and we were not attending Gateway, but we decided to apply anyway, figuring if God wanted us to go He would work out all of the details. Soon after, we found out we were both accepted! After that, God didn't just open the door and say: "Okay guys, I've shown you where to go- now walk through."..instead, he literally carried us through the door, flooding us with provision in the most creative ways. We didn't have an ounce of funds to put towards the trip, but He taught us to trust. Through the several payment deadlines approaching, we would always wonder how in the world the money would show up. But literally without fail, for every single deadline, God would provide the exact amount on the last day possible. He could have chosen to bless us with everything needed to go all at once, right at the beginning, but instead He wanted us to rely and trust that He would always come through. We learned that God will always always overwhelm you with provision when He has opened a door. There was also definitely not a lack of humor throughout the whole process..we applied for our passports about 2 months before the trip; I received mine in plenty of time, but God chose to send Simon's the day right before we were supposed to leave. We checked the mail, day after day, hoping it would come- but it wasn't there. Other people were getting discouraged for us and trying to prepare us for the worst and some people were convinced we weren't going to go, but we knew. We knew with every fiber in our being that God had specifically plucked us out to go on the trip, so we knew that passport was going to come in the mail. And it did. 18 hours before the trip. Ha. Funny God.

"We're a very impatient society, but oftentimes, things from God come from waiting."

So we went. We got on the plane the next day and went to a whole new country and experienced God's miraculous ways exactly when and how He intended for us to experience them. He changed our hearts and built a whole new compass for our lives as a couple...

The adventures from the trip deserve a whole blog post of their own, so that will be coming soon!