World Changing, a History

Before moving forward, I want to share the history of the reason why we came to Tanzania.

When we first started dating Ema told me he had this dream to one day go into business— specifically gold business in Tanzania. When I heard that it was like everything in my heart and soul was like “NOOOOOOOO!!!!” But I think (hope!) I was nicer than that when I expressed that I didn’t really see myself doing that. Our first date I made a point to tell him that I had no desire to move to Africa, and that that may never change. As we continued it didn’t look like that was a deal breaker, but I know that deep down he always hoped I’d change my mind.

Before we were engaged I took a trip to Tanzania to see what I would be getting myself into moving forward. Love prevailed as I had a hard time but still wanted to stay in the relationship where we were already talking about and planning for marriage. I loved him, and his family was amazing!

He ended up moving to Thailand of course, and that looked like the answer of joining our two cultures and working in a different one on something we both loved.

Things shifted and life got increasingly harder for me in Thailand. I was severely burned out which didn’t help things. All the love I had for Thailand started to disappear. And our support became abysmal. I’d always hoped that getting married and responsible and becoming a family that it would be easier to get supported. Turned out to be the opposite. I am still trying to recover from that sting of rejection from the pool of people who were my support that I had trusted so much. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why that happened.

The pressure and the weight of financial trouble has weighed on us since we first got married. It’s never really let up for 3 and a half years. 

I’ve never in my life been ‘well off’, but as a single missionary I generally had everything I needed, and didn’t worry more than any normal person about money. As a married person— it’s been constant, every present and oppressive. 

So, cultural difficulties in Thailand, burn out, and money problems had me in a depressive state. Plus finding out about some health issues that will make family planning a bit harder (I'll go into this later).

We finally made it to America for a 6 month support raising venture/sabbatical/introducing Ema to America. It was glorious. I felt like myself for the first time in a long time. I realized that part of it was that I was so much happier there. It’s always easier to be in one’s own culture, but it was more than that. It felt so right to be back.

When the time came for us to go back to Thailand, I took an afternoon and went for a long drive to spend time with the Lord. It was not pretty. A lot of ugly crying and pleading with God. 

Sometimes these are the times where the Lord speaks the most clearly to me. When I cry till I can’t cry anymore. I work through the stuff and get down to the quiet where it’s just me and God. And he dropped the dream into my lap. “Go back to Thailand for a time, then go to Tanzania for 2 years to begin Ema’s dream of the gold business. After the right time, back to America”

The joy and relief from this word from God was immediate. 

God spoke— the working out of that word is going to take years. And so began the working and the waiting. 

The next year Ema took a course called “Business as Missions” and during this time moving to Tanzania to do his dream started to make more sense and get more exciting in the missions side of things. The day before he started the course I was having one of my extended quiet times and God dropped a passage of scripture in to my heart that burned and popped. I cried and cried because I felt like it was more than just a verse, but FOR US. It was Deuteronomy 8. 

It’s too long to write here but here’s some highlights:

“And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 
And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper (gold?). And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to create wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.” (This was a mandate for us, that He wanted us to be like the hands of the Lord to create wealth so that we can then support missionaries and mission organizations, even to one day have a foundation who’s sole purpose is to support those missionaries who aren’t able to find support. Especially those from developing countries.) 

The next day Ema came home from his first day in BAM, and told me that this SAME PASSAGE was what the whole course was based around— DEUT 8!

Confirmation!!!!

Various things started to converge. One of my most faithful supporting churches very painfully dropped us, and that was how we had been covering our rent. When we lost that support, it was enough to send us home. 

During the BAM we spent time in prayer and felt like all of this was coming together to shake us up to get us to finally leave Thailand. 

And so we asked God for a date. 

And then we told our leaders. 

That was April of 2016. 

And now it’s July 2017. I think I did know deep down that it was going to be hard. But if you had told me then that I’d have to be apart from my husband for 6 months, that raising up the investment would be 99% doors slamming in my face with a multitude of painful “NO’s”, that I’d be limping to Tanzania with only 20% of what we need and facing potential African level poverty and mountains of debt—— well, let’s just say I’m glad no one told me. 

Because OH MAN you guys— the payoff is going to be WORLD CHANGING!!!