One month later…

It has now been one month since we planned to fly to Brazil. Since then we have slept in about 5 different places. We still don't have our visas, and there is nothing we can do about it. I think that's a good thing though. Whenever a plan doesn't work out, I often try to fix it. In this case, I can't fix it and I think that God may have wanted it that way. Let me explain.

When we decided to see if God wanted us to go to Brazil, we prayed that we would do whatever God wanted us to do, not what we wanted. Doors opened and long story short — we were set to go to Brazil. We tried to be completely open to his will, even by selling our house and one of our cars and two yard sales later, most of our possessions. We set the plan to go to Natal on July 7th. We were ready to leave the country on that date, but no visa. Should we have made it work out by trying to call the Brazilian government and pressure them to give us a visa? What if God didn't want us to go on July 7th? What if He doesn't want us there at all? Could He have something else planned for us? We don't know. Should we pray fervently that He send us there now? I don't know. I'm not God. And I think that I shouldn't try to be. I believe that in search of God's will, we should always question our own plans and ask God to bless our plans that fit into His will and block our plans that don't fit His will.

So since we are waiting on God, we are finding blessings in waiting. We were able to go to Cyndi's family reunion in Oklahoma last weekend. She has never missed a single reunion since her birth and she was willing to sacrifice that to go to Brazil. But we were able to attend and it was such a blessing to us both.

I am still working full-time from wherever we are and we live out of a suitcase. Please pray for us as we seek patience. Our mission doesn't start when we arrive in Brazil, it started months ago when we decided to seek God's will. So please pray for our mission as it is right now. We can always use encouragement.