Drawing near...

Draw Near to Me...

There is a song that I cant stop playing; and I haven't stopped playing it for months now. Its a song by Jeremy Riddle called "Draw Near." Track 9 on the Bethel Loft Sessions album. This song gets to me every time I listen to it, and I have to hold back the tears. 

God often speaks to me through music and He has an incredible way of moving my heart through lyrics or instrumentals. There is a certain part of this song that moved my heart months before we made a decision to go to California, and every time I heard this certain part of the song it felt like God was moving my heart and speaking the words to me....

"Ive made a place for you here. So come on, come on...

All things are possible here. So come on, come on..."

It was as if God was inviting me somewhere and, at the time, I didn't know where...

When I hear these words now my heart leaps :) 

Plans and Progression...

Our student visas have been granted and are ready for us to collect. We have just over 2 weeks left in South Africa and things are starting to speed up... 

We move out of our little home next week and after that we are driving to Johannesburg to spend a few days with my family. We then come back to Durban for the last few days before we fly out from King Shaka airport to Dubai. We have a 3 hour layover in Dubai before the monster flight of 16 hours to San Francisco. When we land in San Fran we will collapse for the night in a little hotel, and the next day we drive to Redding in a rental car. Whew! I feel exhausted just thinking about it!!

In all honesty this all feels totally surreal. Pete and I are running off our feet organising and packing and yet we feel completely at peace, happy and content. Yes, we have been stressed and overwhelmed, but on the other hand we have watched how everything has effortlessly fallen into place and we stand totally humbled. Our God is big and He looks after His children! 

I have had many moments of tears at what we will be missing - birthday parties, pregnancies and babies being born; family holidays. Just life's progression in general. But there is always good ol' Facebook, Skype and a whole list of other ways of communicating. It will feel like we are just down the road in so many ways :)

We have managed to secure a little apartment - with MUCH help from incredible, unmet friends in Redding :) So we will be able to drive from San Francisco into the drive way of our little home in Redding (thank you Jesus!) We have also been blessed with some furniture already. Amy will start school at the end of August and Pete starts school sometime in September.

Time is Drawing near...

...and we are ready!!! Ready for ALL that God has for us, the good and the challenging. Ready for the change, the adventure and the possibilities. NOTHING is impossible for God, and when He calls you to take a step, even if it is the scariest step of your life, you see how He carries you all the way. 

Puzzle Pieces

I have always admired people who can sit for hours with a 3000 piece puzzle and slowly, day by day, unscramble all these tiny but important pieces to eventually reveal this magnificent picture. I wish I could do that, but I am WAY too impatient and would get incredibly frustrated knowing that amongst all those scrambled pieces there is a picture and I cant see it.

Its kinda how I am feeling at the moment :)

ITS ALL IN THE DETAILS...

I realised in my last blog I didn't quite mention the specifics of what we will be doing in Redding California and how this process is working. So here are the finer details...

Redding is a small town north of San Francisco (about a 4 hour drive). It is incredibly beautiful with forests, mountains and lakes. In Redding is a church called Bethel Church and it is lead by Bill Johnson. He is an incredible minister; his preaching has had me captured for years. I remember listening to a preach of his on Inheritance and it had me on my knees weeping in my lounge. Anyway, the church offer a number of schools, seminars and courses; some of them being the Worship school, Sozo Seminars and the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry or BSSM (which is where Pete will be studying).

Studying at BSSM is full time - 4 days a week with homework - and the students get the opportunities to be involved in the life of Bethel church as well as attending some outreaches and going on a few retreats. It is an incredible school which focuses on the kingdom of God working in and through you. It is quite different to the traditional Bible Colleges and theological studies in the sense that it offers the opportunity to not only study Gods word but to allow Gods word to bring life in and through you in a very real way. Essentially, being Gods word and not just knowing it.

So while Pete studies I will be at home with the girls. Its not that I don't want to study at all, but my focus right now is my children; to be their rock and their security while they are small. I am secure in that calling and I believe that raising children is as important as reaching nations. I know that their little worlds are about to change too and I want to be the constant in their lives during this time.
Bethel offer evening courses on various subjects which I can attend and my intention is to do homework with Pete so that I can also get a taste of what God is doing in him.

As far as day to day living is concerned, we will be looking for a small apartment to rent and furnish it through garage sales. We will also need to buy a small car. I cannot wait to go grocery shopping there as I can totally see myself becoming an "extreme coupon-er" :)
We are responsible for funding our lives while we are in Redding. Our American visas are M1 student visas which means that we are not allowed to work or earn money while we are there. We have some money saved that will get us through our first year in America. Our intention is to stay for two years. This is where I get very excited as God will show us how living by faith actually works. YEEHAAA!

PIECE BY PIECE...

So back to the scrambled pieces of puzzles, at this stage we realise that there are 6 weeks left until we leave and a whole lot of unknowns. Kind of like a bunch of pieces and no real picture yet. I can visualise this table with a frame of puzzle pieces and nothing in the middle. I know every piece is important but not sure where or how it fits in. The only certainties are that we have our tickets and our appointment with the US Embassy has been made in order to issue our visas and thats kind of it. We are busy wrapping up our lives here: banks, medical aid, insurance, cell phone contracts etc etc. But when we arrive in Redding.....well that side is the unknown part of the picture. And I chuckle as I write this because this is where I feel HUGELY challenged; especially being a stay at home mum and homemaker. I cringe at the thought of arriving in a foreign country with a few suitcases and no where to stay or sleep. (popping a rescue tablet). I have tried to find out if we can secure a little apartment before we arrive but most agents say that they don't rent properties to people they haven't met, or "unmet" people; which I can understand. So we will have to find something when we get there. Then we can go garage sale crawling - yahoo!! (laughing and popping another rescue tablet)

THANK YOU LORD!

But you know what? I feel totally humbled that we have this opportunity, that we can pack up and go to the States for a year. WOW! How many people get this opportunity?
Amongst the jumbled, scrambled emotions and thoughts, God is shaping the most amazing picture for us and we are SO excited to see what it is.

Am I ready? No. Am I scared? Yes!

"Time to be brave Lis. Throw off everything that hinders...come to the edge" I keep hearing those words.