Matthew 6:8 “…For your father knows your need before you
ask him.”
I have not been encouraged like this in a long time. We talk about God knowing our needs and being
able to meet them, but then at least for me - my actions most of the time
reveal something different. I usually
take the “just in case you missed this one God, I’m going to take care of it
myself” approach. However, this time He
clearly had me stumped! As we’ve shared along the way, we’ve been on this path to moving our family full time to
Mozambique. We were invited to come
check it out, we went about 18 months ago, and strongly felt the Lord wanted us
to return. One big encouragement when we
were there was watching Samuel and how much he loved it. He loved everyone on the team, loved the
atmosphere, loved the Africans, loved it all!
Albeit, he was only 21 months old, he was still remarkably adaptable and
happy. As a parent, this was a huge
relief. If God was calling us there
full time, my heart’s desire would be for it to be a good place for our child
(and now children). One of the strongest
confirmations we had about going back was how naturally we all clicked with
everyone. The team is diverse with folks
from several countries (England, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, America) some
single, some married with children.
Which by the way I love the mixture.
I’ve never been a fan of huddling with people my exact same age or in
the exact same stage of life. Boring!
There was just one gaping hole I felt…Another similar aged pal for our kid. All of the other children were wonderful, but they were significantly
older. Considering
the fact that if Samuel were to take a personality test for three year olds he
would score 100% extrovert and 0% introvert. This has been weighing heavy
on my heart which brought me to some even bigger questions that have rolled around in my head: “Do I
only obey you, Lord when what you ask me to do meets all my so called
“needs/desires?” How do we move our
DRUM ROLL....................
Right after Thanksgiving, we called our friend Tracy who is
the founder of iReachAfrica (the organization we’re teaming up with) to ask her
a medical question since she is a PA.
After she answered our question, she says “Hey, I’ve got some good
news.” “There’s another family who has
decided to join us in Moz.” “I think
their kids are the same age as yours.”
What?!?!!! Then she proceeds to
tell me about them and later gets us connected through email. To make matters more exciting, yes this
couple has decided to come. Yes, they
have two little kids, and yes their oldest is a boy who is just one month younger
than Samuel. Their baby girl is slightly
older than Luke. Since then, we’ve
connected with video chat and email.
We’ve already hit it off. We’re
all encouraged that we’ll have another family there in the same stage of life
and our little ones will have each other to play with. You might be bored to tears reading this by
now (if you’ve made it this far), but I can hardly describe the clouds I was
walking on for days since hearing this news.
It wasn’t while I was struggling with this, but later after we found out
about this family that I came across the verse Matthew 6:8 that says …”For your Father knows what you need before
you ask Him.” Basically, it’s
totally within God’s character to lead us forward without answering all of our
questions first. He will ask us to leave
it up to Him to decide how He’ll meet our needs. He’ll ask us to let go of what we’re holding
onto before we can fully grasp what’s ahead.
Just so you know, He’ll also gladly surprise the HECK out of us with His
goodness far beyond what we can come up with ourselves. Just so you know.
