Keeping The Faith

I'm officially official now. I have been appointed to Paraguay.

Slight change, though, I'm only going for six months instead of a year, which may mean being able to go to college during the second semester rather than a year late. This is all good stuff.

However, upon the reception of my budget, paperwork, etc., I had the world's biggest freak-out.

The budget is around $2,500 more than my estimate, they have me living in an apartment rather than the Bible School dorm, and, oh yeah, did I mention that my time plan is off?

What is going on?

My mind flashed back to my family's situation about two years ago, when we went up north to pastor. The whole year was extremely confusing and tumultuous and not what we expected at all. It was really hard and a lot of it has been blocked out of my mind. So, why do I feel like I'm going through the same thing again?

I sobbed for a while, asking God why he couldn't just stick with the clear, original plan that he gave me at an altar in July. He had proven that he was calling me somewhere, giving me a specific calling to a dinky country that I had never heard of, so it must have been him. He had answered within the amount of time that I had begged him for. I had never had God speak to me so clearly, then, so where was he now? Why is it that after I followed after everything he asked me- saving up money working at the stupid coffee place, spending some of that money to send off the ridiculously long application to FMD, waiting and waiting forever to hear back, and offering to sacrifice a year of my time, putting off going to my first choice college and program to go to a very poor country and live- why is it that after I listen and do all of this stuff, that he decides to turn it upside down and be nowhere near where I am.

I can kind of imagine God sitting up in Heaven, listening to this, drumming him fingers, letting out a huge sigh, and going, "Dude, are you done, yet? Can I talk?"

Every step of the way, I've hit some kind of jam. It took me three months to fill out the application, I couldn't find my application fee money, FMD took a VERY long time answering, I got an acceptance letter the same day as I got a letter from Foreign Missions. The coffee place was horrible. Without fail, I've hit adversity through every tedious step of this process over the past six months. Why should the real stuff, the stuff that counts, be any different?

God brought me through every last part of this process. He has never failed me, and although sometimes he's seemed distant, he's never left me during this entire thing. He knows I'm a wimp and can't do it on my own. So, he helps me.

I just have to keep the faith.