Our "nudges" or rather "giant shoves" in one direction...Kenya.

There have been so many ways that God has shown us that this is His will for us. The first and foremost for me, is the incredible PEACE I feel. It is a “peace that surpasses all understanding”. I have a million things to do, and while it is stressful, I am at complete PEACE that we are doing the right thing. There are other ways we have “seen” His hand over this. Some of these probably seem like minor coincidences, but when you look at them all together, it is hard to not take a sharp breath and say “Wow! He is working!” Here’s a quick list of all the “hints” we’ve received: 1-The mere fact that I needed a new doctor, and the one I found just happened to be from Kenya, and just happened to need a Psychologist the SAME week Daniel lost his practicum site from school. 2-The day I got home from my second appt with the doctor and we started “talking” about Kenya, Gage asked to play a song on Daddy’s iPad. I pulled up a program and the song that popped up was “Little Shepherd” with the outline of Africa as the background. I ran to show Daniel and he said “I’ve never even seen that program on my iPad before!”

3-The Friday we had lunch, Daniel went to the gym shortly after. It was raining, and Gage was far ahead on the sidewalk, but Daniel saw something that made him pause – even in the rain. He stopped to look at what was a crack in the cement. He saw THIS. Mind you, he has gone to this gym 4 days a week for the past 3 years and parks in the same spot every time. Coincidence? I think not.

4-I volunteered at the Women of Faith conference this past weekend. I went alone, not knowing anyone who would be there. The leader put me in the World Vision Booth, selling African jewelry from orphans. It was the only booth at the conference.

5-Daniel and I went on a mission trip together in 2005. The small village that we went to is called Kakamega, and borders BORDERS the village we will be serving in. Of ALL the villages in Kenya...we will be neighbors with the Kenya people who first captured Daniel's heart. I guess the Lord began working 7 years ago on this plan!! 6-Another way we have seen His hand in this is by moving us to our new church home, Cornerstone. We have been welcomed in with arms wide open and have felt a Christian love unlike anything we have ever felt before. These people are truly "doing life with us" and walking alongside us through everything. Not only does this church have a BIG focus on world missions, but it's members take on that world mission, too. Out of the initial 4 couples that we met at Cornerstone and forged friendships with, 2 families are moving to Vietnam this summer, 1 just got back from a China mission trip and will likely be moving there eventually, and the other God is calling to China as well. Crazy? No...it's simply answering the call to GO! But their willingness and obedience has made it easier for us to accept that maybe, just maybe, God really DOES want us to move across the world!!

From There to Here

About a month and a half ago, I had an appointment with a doctor. After talking with her for a few minutes, I asked her where she was from. She was clearly African, but I couldn’t place the country. Turns out, she was from Kenya! We engaged in a reminiscent conversation about Kenya and life over there, and the fact that the world is such a small place. She shared that she was opening a hospital over there to give back to “her people”. I was excited to come home and tell Daniel about our conversation and the coincidence that my new doctor was from Kenya. At this point, that’s all it was, a coincidence and a neat conversation. Over the course of the next month, Daniel and I become to be disgruntled with “life”. At one point, Daniel even shared with me that “he feels like a slave to life, to the chase to get ahead, the nice cars, nice house, better job, etc”. He said he was just ready to leave the US. We joked about moving out of the country, but it wasn’t a real possibility, just conversations to relieve the stressors of the reality we were living. So one Sunday night, I started looking at mission opportunities online, just to see what was out there. I looked up my old school in Kenya, where I’d always wanted to go back and teach. I prayed to God that I was frustrated and didn’t know how people “got into the mission field” because there were SO many organizations and I didn’t even know where to start. So I just closed my computer and went to bed. I had a doctors appoint early the next morning. That Monday morning, I met with the same doctor I had met with the previous month. She started the appointment asking how life was. I proceeded to tell her that it wasn’t great. We were struggling. Daniel’s unemployment had run out. His student loan money was on hold. And he had just been let go from his practicum through school. So we had no income, no way to pay our bills and just a bleak future. She just shook her head and said “Alicia, I just wish you weren’t my patient so I could talk to you about something!” So, I proceeded with… “Doc…you’re fired!” No seriously. I fired her. At this point, she said that she had prayed for a miracle yesterday at her church. Her pastor said that so often we pray for little things, but that we serve a BIG God and we should pray for BIG things. So her prayer, was that God would bring her someone to open up and run the Psychiatric ward at her new hospital. She asked me if I thought that Daniel would be interested in heading up the program, and if we would be willing to move to Kenya. My jaw dropped. I told her I needed to talk to Daniel about it and we agreed to meet for lunch on that Friday. I went straight home and shared everything with Daniel, not sure at all what to expect. His answer was “let’s GO! I’m ready!” He was so excited and it was torture waiting until Friday.