October 24th 2011 - An envelope and detour sign

     A Monday morning and it seemed like one of those days that was not going to slow down. You know what it’s like when you take two steps forward and one step back, or even worse one step forward and two steps back. We have our normal prayer meeting at the office and then another meeting starting 15 minutes later. It turned out that I needed to talk to a couple of people in between, in addition to printing a couple of documents too. Rebecca had gone into town to go swimming and get a coffee, do a bit of shopping and then I’d meet her and another friend of ours at a coffee shop at 11:30ish. By 12:00 the meeting I was in ended and I was in a rush already running a half-hour late for our time at the shop and having a 1:00 ministers meeting in Oakley. (Very few days are this back to back, but such the life on certain days) Before dashing out the door Mike the administrator at BCC’s called me into his office and closed the door behind me, this meant a level of importance higher than how do you do. He briskly handed me a sealed envelope, he said it was for us, not from him he was the go-between. He also stated it was not for the church, or do to our work for the church, it was simply for us. When you get a surprise package like this the mind runs quickly and you can get overwhelmed by the generosity and potential change of your situation. I had to rush off to meet our friend knowing full well that I possessed an envelope of who knows what in my bag, but I couldn’t say anything to Rebecca yet. Once we got back to car that would be ok to spring that on her without time to open it would not be very wise would it? Once we did in the car I revealed the envelope and decided that we’d open it there and count whatever money was contained within it. Let’s just say that we were blown away, the joy we experienced, the awe of a generous and faithful God seen through this gift. It was quite a car ride, we had to detour because of road works. 

 

         To be honest I was so flabbergasted by the contents of the envelope that I struggled to help Rebecca with directions to get back to Oakley with the detours we were encountering. I did in fact run about 20 minutes to next meeting also, such the way the day went, better late than never as they say. A couple days later we found out that the amount given to us when translated into USD (American Dollars) it is within 20 bucks of the amount needed for the home study and interviews. If this is not confirmation what is, at this point for us it full speed and dead ahead.