The moonlight created a path along the sand as we made our way down the beach that August night. Our children, Nathan, then 11 and Emily, 5 were back at the apartment we had rented for our summer vacation. This was a time for us to talk about some important things. Things that would affect all of our lives but that needed to first be worked out between the two of us. It was a conversation that would set our lives on a course neither of us could have imagined.
“I think it’s time,” Ron said. “If we don’t do this now, it will be too late – our kids will be too old, and it’ll be too hard for them”. He was referring to something we had talked about off and on for many years but always as a “maybe” or a “someday”. He was talking about Colombia. He was talking about pulling up the roots we had put down over the past eighteen years – dismantling all the things that had become our lives – and replanting – reconstructing — us in a country thousands of miles away among a people and a culture that were completely foreign to us. It was not an easy conversation. And it began a year of many even harder ones.
For me, the struggle was the most difficult. While over time I became more certain that Ron had heard God’s call, I had heard nothing. God had said nothing to me about His plans for our lives. And so, as Ron began to talk about all that we would need to do to prepare, all the things we would have to let go of, I felt my fingers gripping our lives there in California more tightly than ever.
The beautiful home we had built ourselves, set in the cul-de-sac of a quiet, country club neighborhood, filled with beautiful things and even more beautiful memories. Our extended family, all of whom lived within a few miles of us – our children’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Our church friends and family – the people who had been such an important part of our lives and ministry for years. I felt everything that had comprised our life as a family being pulled away from me by hands I could not see for a purpose I could not understand. I was terrified. I felt powerless. But God…
God, who is rich in mercy and grace, did not leave me in that place of uncertainty and insecurity. He met me where I was and gently, over the weeks and months that followed, led me through a process of surrender to a place of peace. Through His Word and His Spirit, He assured me that He was not doing this to me but for me. That the plans He had – His good plans — were not just for Ron but for me and for our children as well. That I could trust Him with all I did not know and understand about what He was doing because I knew who He was (is) – a good God who does only good things for those who belong to Him. Even when those “good” things are hard things.
Eleven months after that nighttime walk along the beach, the four of us boarded a plane for Bogota, Colombia. Our home had not yet sold as the economy was not strong at that time, so it was being cared for by a young couple from our church. But except for what we could fit into our suitcases, mostly clothing, everything we still owned after having given away and sold many of our possessions, remained behind. And it was okay. Really okay. I was excited about what God had in store for us. While I may not have heard His “call” in the same way Ron did, I knew we were following Him and that was enough. And the assurance of that calling would be critical in the following months as everything we thought we knew about what God was doing and what He wanted for us began to unravel and we were left with more questions than answers.
