Week of praise!

This week has been one of those weeks I have to write about to show the incredible God that we have. It all started Monday when my boss emailed me (a very long email) about some time off I had asked for. The time off was for an orientation training period that we are planning to attend in Florida at Teen Missions headquarters. But this week and a half time falls right in the middle of a production period for a big project that I work on three times a year. It so happens that this training falls only in November and March, and I had already gave up the November training to work on this project. My boss was adamant that he did not think it was wise for me to take the time off in March and he was against it. So i responded by asking to have a meeting with him to discuss it. We had scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon.

So the first thing I did was email my Sunday School group to ask for prayer. This was something I did not want to go into without the covering of prayer. I was at the point where I was willing to resign my position if I had no choice. This was a matter of obedience to the Lord as I feel without a doubt in my mind that the Lord is telling us to keep stepping forward with Teen Missions. Well Wednesday came around and my boss was out of town and unexpectedly was not coming back for our meeting. So we decided to meet Thursday afternoon instead. In our meeting I felt the Spirit prompt me to ask if the schedule (for the project) was set in stone. I asked this and my boss continued to tell me that if I could get the majority of the project done before I left then I could get the time off (that's my shortened version). Praise God!

But I had also been praying about telling my boss about my call to missions (I had not done this yet because in all honesty I was afraid of his reaction). So my boss then said "I got a reference this morning." Huh? (that's exactly what I said) He repeated it and I said that was the other thing I wanted to talk about. Apparently he had received a reference from Teen Missions earlier that morning as we filled out an application about a month prior. I did not expect them to send my current employer (boss nonetheless) a reference! I went on and explained what the Lord was doing in our lives over the past few years and that we are stepping out in faith and trying to be obedient to where we feel the Lord is calling. He then told me that he went to lunch with the president of the college (for a planned luncheon) and they discussed this. The president shared a story with him about a missionary he knew that used to be an employee. This story softened my boss' heart to prepare him for our meeting.

WOW. What an incredible God we have! He knows the plans He has for us, plans to prosper and to not harm us. (Jeremiah 29:11) Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us... (Ephesians 3:20)

The second praise is that since we have had this confirmation that we should proceed with going to the orientation, we need to go to Honduras in December to experience "Boot Camp" and help the Chicas as a family. But since Boot Camp falls the week after Christmas, the plane ticket are of course the most expensive of any time of the year. We visited my parents this weekend and told them what we were planning and my dad said he would give us his airline miles which would help a lot. At church today we shared this as a prayer request and after class we were told that we could use the airline miles of a friends of ours in the class. They just happen to be from the same credit card milage plan as my dad's.

We praise God for what is happening here. His people are coming together in faith and moving His hand by praying for us. It's incredible. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being part of this journey!