Moving into our new "home"

“O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.” (Psalms 34:8) God has laid this verse on my heart as I have been reflecting over the events in our lives recently. I marvel at God’s timing and the ways that He brings affirmations into our lives when we seek to honor and serve Him. When we intimately know the heart of Jesus, we can KNOW that HE IS GOOD, in spite of our circumstances. Sometimes the awareness of God’s blessings comes through the trials and troubles that we face. We may become angry or frustrated or we may choose to see the goodness of God IN THE MIDST of the trials.

On Thursday and Friday of last week, our family was busy packing up our motor home and doing all the many things that are involved with being “on the road” for an extended time. This current tour will only be two weeks long, however, since we won’t be home long until we leave again, we decided to use that time for longer school days rather than taking all the time to unload and reload. The cupboards, fridge, freezer, and closets were all packed for living on the motorhome for almost six weeks. As we were preparing to leave, we had several discouraging moments with unexpected things that came up. Because we were looking forward to the awesome  opportunities at the prisons, we were still very excited about leaving on this next tour.

Leaving a few hours later than we had planned, we were FINALLY able to get left! Since it was almost 5:00 in the evening, and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, we decided we were going to stop at Subway and pick up some food. We were only about fifteen minutes from our office when our plans abruptly changed! After stopping beside the road because of a “low water” light, Duane stepped back in the motor home and said, “I have bad news. There is no way that this motorhome will be making it to Florida! There is water running out of the radiator.” After a series of groans and “Oh, no! Now what?”, I heard my phone alert me that I had a new text. I started to read it, and then in complete amazement, I read it out loud to everyone. It said, “I was thinking you really shouldn’t be surprised at opposition when you’re on the front line and when God is really moving, and with your DVD getting ready to be released…Just know that Satan is using whatever he can, to try to discourage you, so hang in there and fight!”

The timing of this text couldn’t have been more perfect! We just laughed in amazement at this confirmation and word of encouragement. This was exactly what we needed for the next five hours as we did all the necessary rearranging, cleaning, reloading, as well as some mechanical things that needed to be done. God blessed us with some wonderful friends and family members who came to assist us, even bringing our Subway meal to us, and at 10:30 that night, we were heading out again. After we were traveling, we were able to enjoy the Subway sandwiches and reflect at God’s provision and goodness. We were also grateful that the ministry’s Prevost bus was available, so we didn’t have to try to cram into a smaller vehicle. Although this means we will have the extra work of moving everything back into our motorhome when we get home, we are well taken care of and will hopefully have a dependable “home” to travel in for these few weeks. Although we wouldn’t have chosen to have these events right now, we are rejoicing in God’s goodness to us!

Thanking God for a table to do school work!