The Road to Gaza: Part 1

I was trying to come up with a good title for this post.

God's Detour (the title of a book we had as kids)
A U-turn (How's that for bland?)
An Unexpected Journey (but since I'm not a hobbit...)
When Your Life Doesn't Turn Out the Way You Thought It Would and You End Up Leaving the Place In Which You'd Planned to Live Many Years Before You Were Able to Accomplish Any of the Grand Things You'd Hoped to Accomplish (you're welcome for not choosing that one)

Instead I settled on The Road to Gaza, for reasons you'll see later (maybe not in this particular post, but I'll get there eventually).

Anyway, if you haven't heard yet, I'm planning to leave West Africa indefinitely.

I'd like to share a bit more about the decision (or rather, the process of coming to the decision), but first I'll by explaining some of what it's not.

1.  It's not because I have issues with my mission.  NTM is by no means perfect, and I will not pretend that they are, but I have no reason not to work with them in the future - either Stateside when I return, or maybe again overseas one day.

2.  It's not because of West Africa's leadership team.  I seriously could not ask for more Godly, sensitive, responsible leaders.  I am incredibly grateful for them.

3.  It's not because of teammate/coworkers.  The sad truth is that many missionaries do leave the field because of coworker issues, but I just want to state for the record such is not the case.  Again, are my West Africa teammates perfect?  No.  Am I best friends with every single person?  No.  But I'm not leaving because I have issues with anyone.

4.  It's not because I don't like it here, or because I'm tired of it and want to go back home.  If I had come to my decision a year or year-and-a-half ago, I honestly don't think it would have been that hard to leave.  Now, however, I've come to love this place and appreciate many aspects of life here (although I don't want to pretend that I never struggle with anything).  God has also given me some really incredible relationships.  It's going to be tough to leave.

5.  It's not because I tried this and it just didn't work or because there's just no opportunity for me here.  There are plenty of things here I could be pursuing.  Plenty of needs.  Everywhere.

Anyway, now that I have that off my chest...

Pretty early on, there was this strange question that kept surfacing in my mind.  What if this isn't where I'm supposed to be [long-term]?

For a while, I didn't really ponder it too deeply - for a few reasons.  One, I was certain that God had brought me to West Africa.  Whatever the future held, I knew that today I was supposed to be here.  Two, in the midst of adjusting to another culture, it's normal to wonder, Do I belong here?  While I had an inkling that it might have been deeper than just that, I didn't know for sure.  So I kept putting one foot in front of the other.  Three, being a missionary [read: serving God full-time overseas] is what I've wanted to do, like...my whole life.  Having been moving towards that for so long, I had a hard time even considering such a dramatic shift in direction [read: moving back to the States indefinitely] just like that.

But...

Time went on.  The question didn't go away.

There were more than a couple people ahead of me in the French program who didn't have specific ministries lined up for afterward, either, so I'd just kind of shrug my shoulders when the topic of the future came up.  "Oh, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  God will give me the direction I need when I need it.  In the meantime, I'm just going to pray and keep moving forward in E2."

And I kept moving forward.

I passed the halfway point, then the two-thirds mark, then the three-quarters mark (in terms of hours in French study), and started to feel a bit...anxious, maybe?  "Okay, Lord, time is kind of running out.  Can You please give me some sort of direction soon?"

By that time, I could no longer deny that leaving West Africa and moving back to the US - indefinitely though perhaps not forever - was a very real possibility that God was putting in front of me.  Words cannot fully express the questions nor the emotions that swirled around in my head and heart.

I felt nearly paralyzed in the face of the decision.  Afraid to mess up.  Afraid of what others would say.  Afraid of losing my identity.  Afraid to step outside the safety of my familiar little world of missions.  Afraid to let God down.  Terrified.

I prayed desperately.

And God, being perfectly faithful, perfectly good, and perfectly sovereign, answered my pleas for direction...

And yes.  I'm going to leave you hanging there for now.