Thank the Lord for resting spaces! Thankfully we have settled into our last stop before we head back to America in September. It is a lovely room in a home with 5 other people. We are thankful to the Jolley’s for letting us stay here. It is so peaceful here.
We have had an eventful few weeks! We finally were able to go and see Brittany and her husband, Anthony. It was so good to see them and spend a few days with them. They were kind enough to bring us some much missed items from the States to us. They also spoiled us rotten with steaks and so many other items that we haven’t had much of here.
The Lord has been teaching me many things the past couple of weeks too. I am not sure if I posted about it or not, but Billy lost his phone on one of the buses here a few weeks ago. We went through the proper channels to report it missing, and they said it could take up to a week to get in touch with us about it, but not to call them. When we realized it was missing, we were at a prayer meeting, so everyone there prayed with us that we would find it and it would be returned safe and sound. I agreed with them, but I thought that phone was gone, and I am pretty sure Billy did as well. Everyone we told was immediately in faith believing it would be located and returned, and I would say “I hope so!” I didn’t have any faith in it though. Thankfully in the meantime, we had an old phone from America that Billy was able to get at least a UK sim for here so we had a way to stay in touch, so we hadn’t purchased another phone as of yet. One week and a day later, someone from the bus service line messaged us and said they thought they had found Billy’s phone, and for us to come and attempt to identify it. I couldn’t believe it. Only then did I start to have faith that maybe it had been found. It took us a little bit to get to the center to see if it really was his phone, and the entire time we were praying it would be his. We got to the place, and lo and behold, it was Billy’s phone. I started crying. Not because we had found his phone, but because the Lord used it as a lesson to me. He was saying you need to be faithful in the little, too. I trust the Lord wholeheartedly with our Visas and the process, but that is because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wants us here in Bradford so He will make the way for us to be here. I didn’t trust him with that phone though. I didn’t trust him in the unknown at that moment.
The Lord has provided for us at every turn, too. It is so wild to watch him work. When we needed housing, he provided it; every bus pass we have had to buy has been able to be covered by recurring monthly donations, and even down to food – when we were missing certain things from home, miraculously, someone here would cook it for us. We have been blessed beyond measure!
The reality that we are coming home in just one short month is starting to hit home, too, and it has been sad. I am very excited to come home and see everyone, and get started on the next phase of this journey, but at the same time, it is going to be so hard to leave everything the Lord has started here, not knowing at this moment when our exact date to return will be. We know we have to do it though. We can’t continue like this forever, and it will be wonderful to be able to finally settle here and really establish some roots. The Lord has given us such a heart for this area and the people here. I told my mom it is like I have 2 homes now, and I will always miss one or the other, wherever I am.
As for Visa’s, we are still in the process of figuring out the next steps. He has given us a vision for this area, so now it’s just a matter of finding a Visa that fits it and gets us here. We have had so many meetings and phone calls about Visa’s lately. The Visa that we thought was it, has had a hiccup thrown into the process, but we have also had another possibility come out of the woodwork in the past few days as well. Pray for us as we continue down this path of exploring our options, that the Lord makes the right one known, and that the process is quick. We really have started to establish something here, and we don’t want to lose the momentum we have gained here. We want to be able to leave here knowing what our next steps are and what the future will look like on a more permanent basis. When the hiccup presented itself last week, I’ll be honest, we both felt defeated and like we were back at square one again. Thankfully, though, after much prayer and worship, we felt like the Lord was telling us not to fret and grasp at straws, but just to wait patiently and rest in Him with it, and so that is what we are doing.
Next week is a prayer week for us about all of this, so if you guys would agree with us on this, we would appreciate it. We need the Visa path to be figured out so that we can begin to plant more roots in Bradford. For now, we look forward to seeing all of our American friends and family come September.