Glitches, Coincidences, and God- Invaluable lessons learned.

Ready for a crazy story? Alright, this will be interesting, hopefully I can do it justice by the retelling of it all through written word.

It all started pre-September. I and a few other staff members were preparing for our upcoming DTS and the possibilities we were looking into for our international outreach were Guatemala and Brazil. We ended up deciding on Brazil, for which I was super excited! Our Canadian family was staffing the DTS and had been to Brazil already, so they were excited to be returning.

The school started and about 10 days into it, our Canadian family returned to their country because their 6 month stay (that their visa allowed) was almost up. They had already long been in the process of applying for their U.S. religious visas and we were all hoping and praying that the visas would come soon, that way they could return quickly. They didn't and still haven’t. Sadly, we lost, temporarily, an amazing few staff members.

 

We continued on with our outreach preparations and we began learning how to apply for Brazilian visas. Little did I know how much work it would be and just how much I would learn. After over 25 hours of working visa stuff, sending and re-sending paperwork, multiple trips to FedEx, countless calls to the visa agency (we know each other by name now), and a very tired brain,  I am still learning.

During this whole process, we learn that the Brazilian Consulate takes about 3-4 weeks to process everything. When we sent them out we had about 4-5 weeks before our plane left for Brazil. Yeah, we were cutting it close. After overnight shipping our applications to our visa agency, we get a phone call the next day telling us all the paperwork we were missing. It was a lot. On top of all the things we were missing, we learned that our four Canadian students and their families couldn’t apply through that particular agency. Honestly, it was super discouraging hearing all of this as I thought I had checked and double-checked things (which I had, yet we still missed stuff).

Frustrated and tired we redid the paperwork that wasn’t correct the first time, requested our Canadians’ passports to be returned so we could send them to a different agency, FedExed some more things and prayed that we would be done.

About a week goes by, ever closer to our date of departure, and we receive an email from the Canadian visa agency. It’s not good news- one of the families were missing a few documents and that itself was going to take another few weeks. We began looking at other options and decided that this family would go to Guatemala as we have a lot of contacts/YWAM family there.

Alright, another “glitch” is figured out. Hopefully we can continue to make our outreach plans with no more hassle.

Yeah, not so much.

A couple days later, we get another email about the other Canadian family. Basically the same thing happened. Have I mentioned yet how frustrating all of this was?

It began looking like the Canadians would be having their own outreach in Guatemala. Honestly, I had a really hard time with this, that night as I was talking with God, I journaled,

“Lord, what’s going on? What do you have planned?

The next day it’s somewhat announced that the Canadian families were going to be going to Guatemala and not Brazil. It didn’t feel so good to the class. A couple of them came up to a few of us leaders and asked about it. Some of them hadn’t had a peace about going to Brazil since the beginning and were wondering if it were an option for them to go to Guatemala as well.

Class was about to start when the DTS leader quickly pulled all of the staff out of the room saying, “Let’s talk.” We went to another room and he laid it out for us- the Canadians were going to Guatemala and a couple students weren't feeling good about Brazil. “We need to pray.” Our leader said. “And see what God has for us.” We all began praying and God began speaking.

“I see two fists and they thrust out like this-” said one staff member, pushing her fists away from her body, separate from each other.

“God gave me the verse Joshua 1:9, ‘Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous, do not be terrified, do not be discouraged for the Lord you God is with you wherever you go.’” I said.

“I don’t know what this means, but I got a picture of a bumble bee.” Said another staff member.

“I see the bumble bee going from flower to flower pollinating it.” Another staff member says.

“When you said that about the pollination, I got the same picture, but I see God going to each member of the team and telling them where they’re going.” Said yet another staff member.

We decided to bring all the students into the room we were in and to pray about it as a group, letting each student hear from God for themselves as to which country they should go.

As one of the staff ran to go get the students the rest of us began setting up chairs in a circle. There was excitement in the air. God was speaking and we were listening and responding.

Once we had gathered all the students, we let them know what was going on and told them we were all going to pray about which country God was telling them to go to.

What transpired was precious and I began to cry at the realization that God was doing something great in the hearts of the team. You can learn so much in class, but not until your heart resonates with the message of the teachings does it really mean something. One of the students put it best, saying, “We’ve learned so much about God being a good father and putting desires in our heart, but I still have this belief that he is going to tell me to do the opposite of what I want.” Tears streamed down her face.

One of the staff members stood up and told the students that if they knew where they were going, to stand up and say it. All around the circle students began standing up saying, “I’m going to Guatemala!” and “I’m going to Brazil!” A few of the students remained seated. One such student spoke up, “I’m a soldier, you tell me where to go and I’ll go.” Another seated student looked up and said, “I feel the same way…” and he began to cry. “I’m used to being a soldier, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. But I know I am a son.”

Over the next 24 hours the students who had been seated prayed some more, struggled with their own thoughts- mostly of “Could this really be from God if it’s something I want?”- received pictures and confirmation from Him, and told the leadership where they had decided.

We now have a team of 16 going to Guatemala and a team of 27 going to Brazil.

Remember the DTS staff family from Canada that I told you about in the beginning? Well, as we (the staff and the students) were praying, one of the students spoke up, “I don’t think Mike and Joy are out of the game.” Indeed they are not; they are flying from Canada to Guatemala to lead that outreach team!

It’s crazy how God works… honestly the way some visas fell through, others didn’t, Canadians got ‘stuck’ in Canada, a super long process of all this where almost every step of the way we had to ask and wonder, “God, what are you doing?” it was more than glitches or coincidences. It was God.

Through it we have learned invaluable lessons- hearing God’s voice in the moment for the moment and continuing to listen as the plan might change and that we are sons and daughters of God- he loves us and wants us to dream together! He has put passions and desires in our hearts!

I don’t think we could have learned these lessons if we had not gone through all of this.

As for me, where am I going?

I’m going to Brazil!