God is Never Late and Always on Time

I have a pretty cool story that I wanted to share with you all. Until this morning, I was still short of the funds I needed to pay for my expenses while I will be in India. I won’t lie, I have been a little bit stressed about it and it was something that I felt powerless over (except for jumping on every single babysitting job I could until I left). What I knew in my heart, deep down, was that God was asking me to be patient and trust Him.

We will start from the beginning. A couple of years ago, I went to Africa on a mission trip for 2 months. On the trip, I became really good friends with a girl named Tia. After the trip was over, we stayed in touch off and on as she lived in California. Then, when it came time for her to graduate high school, she moved up to Seattle to go to SPU. It’s actually pretty cool to see how our paths have crossed more than once, and it all started in a world away in Africa. This winter, she decided to take time off of school and move to Africa to do missions work full time. I would see her updates over face book and one day decided I would send her a message and see how she was doing. She replied back and asked me how my fundraising for India was going. I told her that I had just started to begin fundraising for my trip. Tia, although she was on the mission field herself, offered to support me financially for my trip back to India. Since she was away, she put her sister in charge of sending it to me. Months passed and I never received it in the mail. About a week ago, I was going over my fundraising with my sister one night and I remembered that I never seen anything in the mail from her. The next morning after this conversation, I got a call from Tia’s sister. It turns out that she had the wrong address and it ended up just being sent back to her when she tried to mail it. I gave her my home address and yesterday, I received Tia’s donation in the mail. I opened up the letter and I could not believe what I saw. The check was for MORE than enough money. I immediately began to cry, looking at the check that represented so much more than money. In this check alone, I am provided with all of the funds I need for 2 months in India along with plenty of extra funds to spend on the children. Not only was I blessed but the children at SCH will be too. I was, and still am, completely overwhelmed at the way God has provided in His perfect time.

Going to India last year was a leap of faith for me. And going back to India this year was just as big of a leap. Nearly draining my savings account on a ticket back to India, my heart was anxious and nervous as to whether or not I had heard God correctly. For a while, I have struggled with knowing if this was really the right thing for me to be doing. From an outside perspective, I probably look like a really stupid person spending all her money on a plane ticket to India. And looking at my circumstances, I probably wasn’t making the right choice by spending all my money on a ticket. But that little voice in my heart, the Holy Spirit, I knew I couldn’t deny. I knew that God was calling me back to India, whether I could see the provisions for it in front of me or not. One of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 4:18, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” I think it’s really easy for me to get caught up in staring at my circumstances and forgetting to look at Jesus. Jesus, who always provides, always comes through and is always faithful wants me to fix my gaze on Him, especially in the midst of uncertainty. For when my gaze is on Him, in all of His sufficiency and perfection, my circumstances suddenly have no effect. My circumstances are merely temporary and in the meantime, I can trust that God is working severely on my behalf, in His good time, to show me that he is faithful.

I feel so surrounded and blessed by the support you have all given me. God used each and every one of you to make this trip possible, whether that be through your prayers or your donations. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the way you have shown me so much support and love. God has used each one of you to show me how good He is. I have no excuse to believe otherwise.