Traveling and Gods Directions

The past couple of days have been fun. On Saturday the wife and I headed out to the Blue Ridge Mountains to meet up with the Wilson clan for a family vacation. This would be the first that I and my brother-in-law Brent have attended since we both wed two of the three Wilson girls.

Anyone that has ever traveled with me knows that I love to travel. The one area that I could improve on is the preparation for the travel. For some reason, and I can't explain, I turn into a bear when we are getting ready. I get moody and short. My wife, who has experienced this more than anyone, understands this and, for the most part, lets me be. I'm not sure if I am worried about forgetting something or what, but I do know that I see travel as a time schedule and if we are not on it, I start getting stressed. I like to get on the road with no hassles and put 'life' behind us.

Once we got on the road, I calmed down and we had a rather pleasant drive. The area of Blue Ridge Mountains we are staying at are tucked away in an area that basically is the tip of Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Think the Ocoee River for some of you that have been near there. Where we are staying is actually in Georgia. As I was saying, the drive is beautiful. We took the route that takes us across the bottom of Tennessee, into Alabama, into Georgia, back into Tennessee, and then into Georgia again. The wife slept most of the way to the cabin, which should have taken us around five in a half hours. I say should because we ran into some trouble finding the cabin.

Once we made it to the point where our GPS no longer detects roads, we followed our printed out Google maps version. It said to take a right on Hardscrabble then a left on to Laurel Springs. CHECK. Once on Laurel Springs, go .3 miles and take a right onto Dana Rd (Which is where our cabin is). CHECK. Oh wait...there is no Dana Rd. So we drove up this street 3 times trying to find Dana Rd to no avail. My wife was manning the directions and I was following them to a T. Obviously she did something wrong! So she tried calling my father in law, but she couldn't get a signal. So we backtracked a bit and went back a few streets to make sure we didn't miss something. I pulled into a Dollar General about to walk in. I looked at the directions and pointed something to her that she missed. I had printed out text directions as well as mapped directions street by street. All you had to do is LOOK AT THE MAP and see what the next street was near DANA Rd. Pretty simple huh?

I'm being nice in this 'depiction' of our journey because it was anything BUT nice. I basically told her that she couldn't read directions and THIS is how you do it. So I went back where we were missing and was going to show her! The problem...still no Dana Rd. Fortunately we were able to get a signal (I did with my phone) and called my father in law to which he told me that you had to turn onto RHONDA RD (which we saw) and then turn onto Dana Rd. So we finally made it...only an hour later than we should have. And a good argument in between.

Moral of that story for me. Be cognitive of my words to my wife. I didn't want to talk for a bit after that and it occurred to me later Saturday night that it was exactly what Satan wanted me to do. Here we are trying to get away from 'life' and enjoy each others company and yet he used something as stupid as bad directions to cause an argument. It's amazing to sit back and realize how the enemy can interject himself into something so small and make it so big.

I thought about asking Heather for us to pray before we left on the trip. That God would watch over us in our travels and continue to bring fruit to our marriage and conversations. I thought about it and decided I didn't want to. Turns out I should be more sensitive to the spirit when my convictions are telling me something.

Turns out I neglected the most important directions before the trip ever started.

Sunday - June 13

Today we headed out to a church called International Evangelical Church (IEC) which was great. The congregation was completely diverse and the pastor really brought a great message.

God definitely is starting to stir my soul. He started speaking to me in the service about some things. Most noticeably to me was him speaking to me further about sacrifice and how little I sacrifice. Where we are staying, there are a lot of people who volunteer their summers, months, years, and even lives to come here and support causes such as the one we are currently working in. Every person that I continue to talk to speak about how God has called them to foreign lands to serve a God that doesn't only preside over their hometown. Just today I spoke with a family that live in Charlotte, NC and they are trying as hard as possible to move here to Ethiopia because this is where God is calling them to be. It is incredible to be around people that are so sensitive to the spirit of God that they get up and move their families to lands where they don't speak the language or understand their culture.

I'm witnessing so many things all at once and in some ways, it is difficult to take it all in. This morning was my first experience with the Islamic call to prayer. It happened...oh, about 5am. Then the Orthodox call to prayer started in. So when one could go off, the other would start. This went on for some good time. When I spoke to people about it here, they seemed to say they don't even hear it anymore. I guess it is like a train near our house that blows its whistle, but Heather and I hardly even pay attention to it anymore.

All in all it's been a great experience up to this point and we haven't even started working with at the drop in center with the kids. Although, I have met some of Joe's kid friends and they are all so welcoming and wonderful. Obviously, football is a great discussion and starting point, but I was able to speak to some of them about simple things today at lunch. One of them asked me today why I say "thank you" to the waiter so much. So I was able to explain to the kids that you are showing someone appreciation for an act of service. The talk went really well and I noticed them saying thank you to the service the rest of the day. Those little bits of time I get to spend and speak to them are precious to me. They may not know it, but their attitudes speak to me more than anything I could ever say.

Headed to bed. It's 12:15 here in addis. Just finished watching the Germany vs Australia match and I'm whooped. Still feeling a little jet lag, but not too bad. Tomorrow begins our work with the children at the drop in center. God has big plans for all of us.

Things to pray for:

• That our group is well rested (especially the five members that just arrived tonight). The jet lag could still be affecting some
  
• That tomorrow we can function well as a group and show the children as much love as possible.
  
• For safety and health (Fortunately the food has been very good and doesn't seem to have affected any of the first four that arrived early).
• Pray that God opens doors for us to minister to the children and people of Ethiopia. Whether that comes from conversations, medical needs, sporting activities, or anything else.
• Pray that God ministers to all of us as well. That we would be open to listening to his words.

Good night...