At Ease

Soon it begins.  

A little background before the excitement starts on Wednesday morning.  Let me go back several years.  Sweet Steve has always had one eye on his suitcase.  No, not that hurry, scurry stress-filled business travel he once did.  But travel at leisure, for pleasure and fun.  He’s been ready. 

I am a homebody.  Give me a deck or a porch, some sweet tea, my dogs and a book and I have all the excitement I need.  And overseas?  No way.  

Our church in Virginia sent mission teams.  I prayed for them, supported them, applauded them.  My cousins in Arkansas became more and more committed to mission work and I cheered for them.  My thought was “if God intends for me to go, He’ll let me know.”

In Vacation Bible School this past summer, we had a mission emphasis every day.  And every day, I felt a small urge, a need to get involved.  I chalked it up to the enthusiasm of the moment and the kids.  But the weeks passed and the urge didn’t.  In fact it grew stronger.

I got in touch with my cousin whose heart for missions has always beat strong and true.  He has been involved in so many mission trips that I suspected he would know the right one for me.  He told me of English camps in the Czech Republic, where the people do not want to talk about God.  But they are drawn to the tender-hearted Americans who keep coming.  And all they do is talk!  The Czechs want to learn conversational English.  They’ve studied the grammar but they need the practice and who better to do that with than Americans – especially Americans who care about them and, little do they realize, are praying for them.

The idea of going excited me.  But I was thrilled at the thought of Steve’s participation.  This is his strength!  He talks with strangers as if he’s known them for a very long time.  He was enthused as I described the trip to him and we were set!  We agreed to pray – and we agreed to go.

And God has been confirming our decision ever since.  A couple of months later, friends of ours from church flew to Germany using military space available.  We felt like they paved the way for us.  Reluctant to go overseas?  I had been.  A person of extreme structure?  Absolutely.  Even though the travel is free for military, adventurous Steve could never get me to even consider it.  I was not about to get on a plane unless I had a ticket in hand and a very firmly fixed itinerary.

But, once again, the ease came.  This provided a way for us to go and to use the airline ticket money to do a little extra touring beforehand.  And then, another confirmation.  We found a timeshare they we could trade for in Oberstaufen, Germany.  We would have a place to stay for an extra week and from which to take day trips.  The plans began to become a picture.  

We believed God intended for us to go and He had already begun to prepare the way.  We would trust him for the right time and place.  With Space A travel, we just had to wait until a few days before we would fly.  As the time approached, we saw that our only option was to travel to Spain a couple of days before we had intended on flying.  Spain is a twelve-hour train ride to Germany.  We just trusted that all would be as God intended.

I started this blog post yesterday.  This morning we discovered that the air force had added another last-minute flight bound for Ramstein, Germany – our original destination!  Another confirmation that our plans are in God’s hands, that He is leading us.  

We leave tomorrow night.  I’ll be using Penny Jo’s Porch to “journal” our travels.  I hope you come back and enjoy them with me.