The last two months have been such a whirlwind! I’ll do my best to start at the beginning. When our time was nearing leaving the UK, we became extremely emotional. We had spent six months developing a ministry and a vision of what the Lord wanted us to do there, and then all of a sudden, we felt like we were being asked to give our baby back. It was such an emotional time, I didn’t even have the words to process it. My face was permanently swollen from the amount of tears I cried that last month, and Billy was overcome with emotion too, so it wasn’t just a girl thing. Haha! We had the opportunity to share at two different churches in Bradford in October, just before we left, and we are so thankful for those opportunities. The Lord moved mightily in each service.
We really desired an answer to our visas before we left as we had built up so much momentum for the ministry, that we just didn’t want it to all come to a stop. We kept hearing from the Lord, “Wait”, and that was the hardest answer to hear at that time. In that moment though, I realized just how much I had changed, because normally I would be trying to twist God’s arm to make something happen, and this time, I was content to just say “OK”. Looking back on that time just a few short weeks later, I can see why he was saying “wait”. It’s never good to make a decision on the back of emotion. We were so wound up in emotion over leaving, that it made hearing the Lord speak on any direction, impossible. He needed us to come away, recenter our focus on Him, and then in that place of peace and rest with Him, make a decision.
When we arrived back in South Carolina, our emotions welled again at seeing all of our friends and family we hadn’t seen in so long. It was great to be with them and share our stories from the mission field with them, and to hear about their past 6 months, too. We got to share at our home church, God’s Way Church of SC, on our first Sunday back, too. Just nine days after we arrived home, Hurricane Helene, or the Storm of the Century as I like to call her, hit. Hurricanes hit the USA all the time during hurricane season, but where we live, we never get more than the residue of the hurricane in the form of a tropical storm and those are fairly rare. Not this time, Hurricane Helene produced such strong winds and damage like I have never seen. People only a 30 minute drive from us suffered catastrophic damage and entire communities have been wiped out. The buildings don’t even exist anymore. Some people local to here were without power for 11 or more days. Thankfully, we were only without power for 3 days. It was such a crazy time and another emotional rollercoaster in the span of just a few short weeks. In the aftermath of Helene, Billy and I have had the opportunity to serve people who lost homes and cars from the storm, and He is teaching us even off the “mission field”, we still have a mission to serve and help how we can.
I know I said earlier that the Lord needed us to come away and recenter our focus on Him so that we could be able to make a healthy decision about our visas, and thankfully, I can say that shortly after Hurricane Helene hit, we were able to get away for a few days to a missionary cottage for some rest and renewal. We didn’t realize how tired we were. It was the first time we truly slept through the night on local time, instead of waking up on what would be UK time. We were able to spend several days in prayer, and the Lord also used the time to allow us to connect back to the UK, too. Randomly, we ended up having several video calls with people back in the UK. Most people would have said that we didn’t need those while we were away, but we did. We had come home to such a whirlwind of emotion between seeing everyone and then with the hurricane, that it almost seemed as if England didn’t even happen. It was like we had stepped into another world, and nothing we did there had mattered. God always knows what he is doing, though, and we had so many divine phone calls and chats with people, and God used that to show us that what we did there, did matter, and it hadn’t ended. Its season wasn’t over. We did make progress on our visas on that trip, too. There were things I was concerned about and the Lord used a dream to give me peace about our decision. So I am happy to say that we have moved forward with visas! Keep praying with us on this, as there will be red tape we will have to jump through, and lots of funds that will need to be raised in order to get us back there.
Our time here in the states is not being wasted, though. I am currently enrolled in a course on how to best reach Muslim women and I have learned a lot in just 2 weeks. We are also going to be taking some missionary training courses as well. I also plan to use our time here to develop more videos to put out, rather than just the blogs, and develop our ministry even more. We also are staying connected with our friends in the UK doing weekly video calls and chatting with them and we hope to be doing bible studies soon via WhatsApp, Messenger, and Zoom. I am so thankful for technology that allows us the ability to stay in touch. Since our little retreat last week, we have been able to join in on one of the Community Meals at Fountains, and reconnect with some of those folks, too. Good things are in store, and we appreciate your continued support and prayers as we walk out this next step of faith to get back to Bradford!
I’ll leave you with a parting gift from our friends in the UK. They asked that we show this so that y’all would help send us back! This video is special because they don’t like to be on camera. It took a lot for them to do this for us, and it is one of my most treasured possessions. I’ve seen it 100 or more times, and I still can’t watch it without crying.
We love all of you, and we thank you for all you guys are doing to support us in this journey!!