For anyone who reads my blog and hasn't heard... here is a summary of what has happened in my life since Joshua came home from India. If you got my email, you won't want to read this, it's basically the same thing.
In late May, Josh and I traveled to Florida for the wedding of our close friends Matt and Breanna. After a weekend full of wedding festivities and seeing family and friends, we were both very homesick. My parents live in Tampa, and Josh's mother relocated to Melbourne this spring. On our 10-hour drive back to Asheville, we talked a lot about the possibility of moving back to Orlando. Neither of us have any family in North Carolina and we were feeling very alone in Asheville. Both of us were frustrated with our job situations-- Josh was a shift manager at a local Chick-fil-A and I was working at a small Christian college as an administrative assistant. Although I enjoyed the people I worked with at Montreat, I really wanted to try something new. I've essentially been an administrative assistant since my sophomore year of college, and while I'm good at it from so much practice :) it's not my passion.
Joshua left for India on June 2 and we decided that I would look for a job in Orlando while he was away for the summer. If I could land a job, then we would move down to Florida after Josh returned on August 2. I scoured the internet for a few weeks and then I found an interesting position with the JESUS Film Project (JFP), a branch of Campus Crusade for Christ. It was a interviewer/reports writer position that would afford me an opportunity to use my writing skills and talk with missionaries around the world in order to communicate their stories in official publications for the JFP. I went through the application process and was accepted in July, and via sporadic 20-minute phone conversations, Joshua and I planned the move back to Orlando. August 9 would be moving day.
As Josh's return drew nearer, I started to feel less and less excited about the job with the JFP. It's a support-based position, meaning I would have to fundraise my salary-- and while I have raised support before to go on various mission trips, the thought of raising close to $30,000 put a damper on my decision... mainly because of the required time-frame. While on staff with the JFP I would have to remain unmarried, because if two people are married, both are required to be on staff. Current staff members estimate that it takes almost an entire year to raise the needed support, plus my year of service. That is two more years as a single woman. I didn't know this summer what Josh's thoughts were concerning marriage, but the idea of taking a job that would put at least a two-year delay on the possibility all but killed my enthusiasm. In the last few weeks before Josh returned, I had a growing sense of uncertainty about the decision to move, and really about my direction in general.
I picked Josh up in Atlanta on August 2. We talked about the future and I told him that I didn't really want to take the JFP position anymore. I asked if he thought we should proceed with the move, or if we had been too hasty? Josh told me that he felt we should continue with our plan to return to Orlando until God showed us otherwise.
The night before moving day, Josh and I sat on the front porch of "Grammy" Doris' home (an older widow and mother-in-law of our pastor) and rocked in a double rocker, watching the evening sunlight filter through the leaves of the giant tree in her front yard. It was a beautiful evening and we were struck by how much we would miss the mountains. Are we doing the right thing? we wondered, vaguely unsettled. We decided to pray about it, to "throw out a fleece" before the Lord. "Lord," we prayed, "If for some reason we have missed your leading, or the plan has just changed and you want us to stay in Asheville, please have one of our cars break down on the way to Florida tomorrow. Safely-- so no one gets hurt-- but just break one of our cars down and we'll take that as the ultimate sign."
Moving day. With a U-Haul trailer attached to the back of Josh's pick-up truck and me following in my car, we headed down the mountains out of Asheville. We were 40 miles outside of Columbia, SC when Josh's truck overheated. He pulled over to the side of the highway, and I pulled off the road behind him. After several minutes of deliberating, we decided to get off the interstate at the next exit and buy some coolant for the truck. I followed behind Josh, praying all the while. "If this is you answering our prayer, Lord, it isn't good enough. We could buy some coolant and be in Orlando by this evening. I need one of our vehicles to NOT GO any more."
Josh made it a half-mile off of the interstate before his truck died in the middle of the road. It wouldn't start again.
Struck by what this all could mean, Josh and I decided that we would think about that later and just focus on the situation at hand. We towed his truck and the U-Haul trailer to a local repair shop. We were on the phone with U-Haul for much of the afternoon, trying to see if we could rent a regular truck so that we could at least transfer all of our belongings that were in the U-Haul trailer and get back on the road. In the end, there was nothing left to do but pack as much as we could into my already-loaded car and pray that we would make it back to Asheville safely. We did. And then as soon as we pulled into the driveway at Grammy Doris' house, smoke started billowing out of the hood and transmission fluid started leaking all over the ground. At that point, there was nothing for us to do but laugh in disbelief.
So the sun is setting on August 9, and we are supposed to be in Orlando, unpacking our U-Haul trailer, and instead we are back in that double rocker on Grammy Doris' front porch, astonished that God had really answered our prayer in such a fashion.
We had a decision to make. We could accept God's answer and proceed in faith down this new path that he had redirected us onto, or we could try to argue circumstances and try again for Orlando. After the summers we had both just experienced with the Lord, the decision was a quick one for both of us. God had clearly indicated that we are to stay in Asheville.
I'm glad we didn't waver that evening, but in the end it seems the Lord really took it out of our hands anyway. Examined by multiple mechanics, we've learned that my car (and most likely Josh's truck-- still waiting on the second mechanic to give his verdict) are damaged beyond repair. All of our money that we had saved is gone. There is no way to get to Florida of our own accord.
God has shown his faithfulness, though. We are jobless, vehicle-less and at times feel aimless, but at least we are not homeless! Grammy Doris has taken in Josh, and I've been taken in by another family at the church-- a couple named Bryan and Mary and their four daughters (11, 10, 8 and 5!). We each have a room to call our own and a place to put our stuff. Bryan and Mary are loaning us their 1993 Toyota Tercel... a little bit rusty but still running perfectly well. Josh and I both learned to drive stick last week and we've sure been giving the people of Asheville a laugh as we jerk our way around town and desperately try not to roll backwards when stopped on a hill. We've unexpectedly received close to $1,000 dollars since August 9-- enough to cover all of our bills that will be due September 1 that we did not have money to pay after the whole ordeal with both of our cars. And we've both been busy serving the people of our church-- baby-sitting, landscaping, housecleaning, the works. So even though Josh and I still feel in the dark as to why God wants us in Asheville, we are at peace knowing that this is where we are called to be and that God is our provider.
We are disappointed about not being able to live close to our families and friends in Florida. I'm especially disappointed about missing out on great Orlando restaurants. :) But just last week we went blueberry picking along the Blue Ridge Parkway and I can honestly say that I'm glad that I still live here in the mountains. It's a beautiful place.
This chapter of my life seems to be a bit of a cliffhanger-- I'll be sure to fill you in on what happens next!
No comments:
Post a Comment