A cry for help...

Sometimes it's in the small details that we see God's faithfulness in action. I have a few friends to help me tomorrow with moving house, but I've mostly been alone in recent weeks with the task of packing everything into boxes, and having to intersperse that task with ongoing ministry commitments and trips to see possible long term housing solutions.

Today I began work at 7 am, packing things into boxes and throwing out all kinds of stuff that it just isn't practical to take with me. I slogged away until 12.00, when I had a ministry commitment - an online class for an upcoming course. Then I started sorting and packing again.

By around 3.00, the unfinished task began to feel overwhelming; just the sight of my kitchen made me want to cry. "Oh, Lord, " I cried out, "Please send someone to help me."

About fifteen minutes later, I got a text message from a relatively new friend - a Brazilian lady who has moved into my neighbourhood and starting coming to church. "Do you need any help?" she asked. "I'm not doing anything at the moment and could come round to help you with the packing."

What a relief to have some help for a couple of hours. I'll probably still be up well after midnight again, but it made all the difference to have a bit of help with one of the biggest tasks. Thank you, Lord.

The cloud is moving...

This week is a very full one. Three afternoons are dedicated to staff training times for our "Children at Risk" training course that begins next week. In addition, I'm continuing my search for a new place to live; yesterday I had to drive twice to the nearby town of Coín (that's around 80 kilometres in total) to view possible houses... neither of which seems to be the solution for now. And, of course, I'm packing up my current home - living amidst the chaos of piled up furniture, neatly lined up suitcases and a crazy mix of packed up cardboard boxes.

Yes, the cloud is moving (as it did for the Israelites in the book of Exodus) and this week I will leave the house where I've lived for the past thirteen years. Tomorrow will be the day of the main move: we're hiring a van to move all my furniture and boxes to a basement storage area in another part of town. I'll probably move myself and my animals over in the evening... and on Friday I'll be back at the old house to do a lot of thorough cleaning.

So, apart from the CAR staff training times, I've had to almost clear my schedule for the next three days; there's still a whole lot to be packed up here and I can see that it's going to take most of the day, and probably well into the night, to accomplish. For some reason, packing up the kitchen stuff, glasses, cups and plates, seems to feel the most overwhelming and will be one of today's biggest tasks.

The hardest thing at the moment is the uncertainty around my upcoming ministry trips. I had short teaching and training trips planned for May and June... but of course it's impossible for me to simply leave the country if I have no home. I can't leave my belongings and my animals with relative strangers (who didn't sign up for the job) and just abandon the ongoing search for a place to live. Yet, some of the ministry plans (like a trip to teach in a youth ministry training school in Switzerland), were already planned a long time ago. It's hard to be in this position and not be able to confirm plane tickets yet, and I can only cry out to God for a solution.

Thanks for your prayers as I make this temporary move and continue to trust God for whatever other moves still lie down the road.

Deferred, but not denied...

In recent days I've been reading the Old Testament book of Proverbs, and this morning I arrived at chapter 13. There were two verses that really stood out to me - perhaps because they are so reminiscent of my own situation at the moment. 

One of them is the well known proverb in verse 12, which says: "Hope deferred makes the heart sick."           I don't know what Solomon's experience had been when he wrote this, but when I read it I thought how true it is. I could so identify. It's discouraging to keep hoping and praying, day after day, for a new home to become available... and for that hope to be disappointed as I constantly bump up against closed doors. It makes you feel so helpless and so vulnerable.

But the second half of the verse says, "... a longing fulfilled is a tree of life," and vs 19 echoes that, saying, "A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul."

The news yesterday that I could stay for a month at a missionary guest house was like having a physical weight lifted off my shoulders, even though it's just a temporary respite. I still need to keep looking for a permanent housing solution. Hope has been deferred, but now homelessness has been deferred too.

As I was praying, I was reminded of another proverb, not a biblical one. There's an old saying that, "deferred is not denied," and this knowledge allows hope to grow again. 

I looked up "deferred" in the dictionary, and it says that the word means delayed or postponed. "Denied," on the other hand, means that something is refused; it will never happen.

Hope deferred can be really hard.... but it doesn't necessarily mean that what we hope for has been or will be denied to us. It just means that we need to hold on a little longer and keep trusting. I know that God has always been and will always be faithful, and so I choose to trust Him and to hold on to hope.

Homeless and counting....

It's an awful feeling to watch the days ticking by and to know that, in only a few short days' time, you have nowhere to live.  The friend who usually looks after my dog when I travel had said that we could move into her tiny flat as a temporary solution while I continued the search for a new home.... but then her landlord said no - that he didn't want two people and two dogs in such a tiny apartment!

It was devastating to see the very last option suddenly disappear... but, even without a place to go to, I still needed to find a storage place for my furniture and all my other belongings. So on Friday, I set out to look at two possibilities: one was a large tent on a friend's property on the edge of town, and the other was a large basement underneath a big house that another Christian organisation uses as a guest house, a respite house, for missionaries serving in hard places. Hopefully one of those locations could be a temporary home for my furniture, even if not for myself.

The lady with the yurt/tent suggested to me that the garage basement would be an ideal storage space for my furniture and that would allow us to make the big tent into a temporary home for me and my animals. I was so thankful for this friend's generosity and the fact that it gave me a real alternative to finding myself "on the street," but - as I already mentioned on 17th March (see this post) - I was pretty nervous about trying to keep my cat inside a tent on a property with two guard dogs wandering around. But it had become the only option and I was grateful for it.

Later in the day, I set off to see the house in town, the one with the large basement. Sure enough, it was perfect, with plenty of space to store my few items of furniture and my many boxes and suitcases. Ironically, it has palm trees on the property and it's in the part of town called "Springs" - that I mentioned in this post of 2nd January. At least my furniture was going to be in the place of springs and palm trees!

But then something completely unexpected happened. “We don’t have any guests coming here during April" said the American missionary who lives on the property, "Partly because I myself have a ministry trip to the Ukraine in the middle of the month. You could stay here for the whole month of April, and that would give you breathing space to continue your search for a more permanent solution. Your stuff would be right nearby in the basement, and your dog and cat are both welcome.”

I just cried. The news that I and my pets had a secure place to stay in town - even if it's only for a few weeks - lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. It's not a long term solution... but it gives me a respite, some more time to keep seeking God's permanent solution to my need for a home here in Spain.

A strange little detail in the story is that a Scottish friend had written to me a few days previously, saying that while she was praying she had an impression of me in a "spacious place" where my animals were welcome and that had a "chapel" in it. This missionary guest house that has offered me temporary refuge not only has a prayer room within the house itself, but also has a little chapel-like room down in the basement. It may not be my permanent home, but it certainly seems to be God's provision for the short term.

Thank you for your ongoing prayers as I continue to edge my way forward in this perplexing situation of not finding a long term home here in Spain. I know that God is always faithful and there must be a good solution further down the road.

Déjà vu...

 Nearly fifteen years ago, when I was leaving South Africa and moving back to Europe, I remember being struck with the reality that you can't pack fifteen years of your life into a couple of suitcases. While my furniture and my pets on that occasion were staying with my South African house and housemate, I had to make hard decisions about all my other stuff - what to take back with me, what to give away to others and what to simply throw out.

That's a normal part of moving 10,000 km away to another continent, and I didn't really expect that I'd have to face the same experience again in the future. But, in a smaller way, the reality of having to move out of my house here in Spain, without having anywhere to move to, and the prospect of having to put most of my stuff into storage has brought a strange sense of déjà vu and forced me to be ruthless again about what I need to get rid of.

Plenty of shoes have been disposed of this week... I've thrown out any old dog-walking shoes that have seen better days and I've packed up for the charity shop all the pretty little summer sandals that I would actually have liked to keep, but in fact I only wear them a few times a year.

Some furniture will need to go too. The rocking chair and table from my porch can go to a neighbour... as I've no idea whether there'll be a porch or any outdoor space in the place I end up. That old sofa that the dog likes to use as a bed will need to go to the dump. She loves it, but it's not worth renting storage space for old furniture of little material value. 

There's a Bible passage where Jesus sends His disciples out on mission and tells them to take almost nothing with them. (In Matthew 10 and Luke 10, for example.) There was a good reason for telling them to "travel light" - He wanted them to depend completely on God and on others for all their needs.

And so that's been my experience this week: throwing away and giving away! As well as doing the normal "de-cluttering" that we all need to do periodically, and getting rid of old stuff, I'm also giving away plenty of newer stuff too... because I've no idea where I'm going or whether I can take it with me. 

With exactly one week left until I have to move out of this house, I guess that "throwing away and giving away" is going to be a big part of how I'll spend this coming weekend. 

Following the Shepherd...

 

Our local Shepherd is back this week. He didn't come last spring and so Maiki hadn't seen sheep since she was a tiny puppy. But today the meadow was home to a couple of hundred sheep and goats. Thankfully, my little sheepdog showed them respect and didn't decide to follow in her parents' footsteps and practise her herding skills.

Every time I see the shepherd, it makes me think of Psalm 23: the way he leads them each day to a new area of green pastures and watches them carefully to protect them from any predators.

But the phrase that stood out to me today was verse one: "The Lord is my Shepherd; I will never be in need."

You see, right now I do feel in need... and I'm needing one of the most basic things in life: a home, a place of safety and shelter. I know that my Shepherd has always cared for me throughout my whole lifetime, and so I don't really understand why there's still been no breakthrough in my need for a new home.

There aren't many water sources in our Sierra and I wonder if the sheep, as they follow the shepherd, sometimes feel the same way I do today: they know they're following faithfully in the Shepherd's footsteps and they ask themselves why he's not providing them with any water. But the shepherd knows more than they do, and he knows that a tank of water or a small underground spring is just around the corner.

I can imagine no reason why it's taking so long for me to find a new place to live. .. but the only thing I can do is trust that the Shepherd knows where it is and what He's doing.

Of course, finding closed doors at every turn has meant that I've also been asking myself some hard questions: Is there something I'm missing? Something I'm doing wrong? Somewhere else I'm supposed to be?

I've prayed long and hard about whether I should go to spend a season with my Mum in Scotland... but there are multiple reasons why that probably wouldn't be wise... not least that it might jeopardise my residency and my healthcare here in Spain. And I've had friends phone from other countries, offering to put me up for a few months' there.

Being out of Spain, however, would mean that I wouldn't be able to continue the search for a long term solution; I saw that very clearly when I was in Scotland for the whole month of February. And so I'm staying here for now, in the place where God put me, and trusting that there will be some sort of breakthrough before too long. People are sending me scriptures like 1 Corinthians 15: 58 - "Stand firm; let nothing move you."- and this seems to be confirming what I'm already feeling from the Lord.

One housing situation is already certain. Psalm 23 finishes by saying that, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." But before I get to that particular home, all I can do is keep trusting that there's also a home for me this side of eternity, and that God will lead me to it when the timing is right. Thanks for your prayers.

A special date...

Today is a special date. It was on this date, 70 years ago, that my parents committed their lives to each other in marriage. Today they would have been celebrating their platinum wedding anniversary.

Of course, Dad passed away a few weeks ago and isn't here to celebrate the day.... but we know that he's with the Lord and is celebrating in other ways. My thoughts and prayers today are with my Mum: that her memories today will be good and precious ones.

A break in the mountain heights...

There's a verse in the Bible - Habakkuk 3: 19 - where the prophet proclaims: "The Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to walk on the mountain heights."

That proclamation of victory was made at a time when everything in Habakkuk's world was falling apart. His people and his nation were in a mess and he was calling out for God's help. Amidst the seeming hopelessness, he declares in the final few verses of that third chapter that he is going to rejoice in God and trust Him no matter what.

Amidst the various pressures I've faced in recent weeks: losing my home, losing my Dad, battling pneumonia... it seemed fitting last weekend that I could spend just a couple of hours "on the mountain heights," enjoying the beauty of God's creation.

Sunday was the day of the famous annual Pinsapo mountain trail race - a route that takes runners through the forest and across the mountains of Andalucía. Some friends and neighbours of mine had signed up as runners, one doing the 29½ km marathon that has an altitude difference of 1700m and two others doing the 16½ km route that involved a climb of 800m.

And then there was the lazy version for those of us "in recovery" (Maiki recovering from a tummy bug, and I still coughing with the aftermath of the pneumonia). The dogs and I took a leisurely 7½ km walk around the village of Yunquera, out through the olive groves and up to some lookout points with beautiful views. We had an altitude change of only 140m, but we had a big temperature change from 9° in the early morning to 23° at lunch time.

What a joy it was, amidst the pressure of impending homelessness, to be able to take just a few hours away from the craziness, to breathe in the mountain air and to remember that God's goal is for us to experience the victory of walking in the high places.

Coping with the countdown...

Sometimes, in American movies, there's a character who is "living out of their car." It always seems like something not from real life: how could someone genuinely have nowhere to go?

In a small way, I'm beginning to have a sense of what that would be like. No, it's not that I'm contemplating living in my car (it's too tiny, anyway), nor is it that I have nowhere to go. (I have friends who could take me in temporarily, and options with family or friends in other countries.) It's just that I have that sense of having reached a complete dead end when it comes to finding a new home here in my town.. (or nearby towns.)

This week, my priority will be packing just about everything I own into boxes. It'll probably mean having throw out or give away things that I would otherwise have wanted to keep, because you can't afford to hang on to stuff when you're in the position of having to look for a place to store it all. I'll be looking for storage options this week: a garage or storage unit that isn't damp or mouldy and doesn't cost too much... Various friends and neighbours have said they would have room to store a few boxes or suitcases.... but I'll need to find a solution for all my furniture... (and I shudder when I hear the experience of missionary friends whose family belongings have been in storage for three years, because they could only find a furnished accommodation option.)

Packing things up and throwing things out will both be part of the countdown. Then will come the cleaning of the old house and the finding of temporary accommodation. The dog will be fine, but I'll need to come up with ways of keeping the cat safe in a temporary and not ideal situation...

And amidst the pressure of a countdown.... I'll keep investigating more permanent solutions and hoping perhaps for a last minute reprieve. This is a perplexing season to be in...

Time is running out...

 

Today I got really bad news. The owner of my house told me today that I need to leave the house completely empty at the end of this month... because they've already made an arrangement with another family.

If you've read recent posts on this blog, you'll know I had already begun to accept the likelihood that I will have to find some kind of short term accommodation while I continue the so-far-unsuccessful search for a new place to live... but I had hoped to be able to leave my furniture in the old house. The owner had said that would be okay...

However, I'm already a month past the moving out date, and leaving the furniture behind is no longer possible now. It means that (unless some completely unforeseen breakthrough happens very soon) I'll need to look for a solution to store my furniture while I'm looking for a place to live... and I'll probably need to find some kind of short term accommodation while continuing the search for something more permanent…..

I have no understanding of why there's been no breakthrough yet. I've been taking all the steps that God has shown me, and various other people who have been praying for me have sent me prayer impressions that confirmed the things I was sensing myself....

So it's a bit of a vulnerable time, as I'll be literally homeless in just a few days. I value your prayers that I'll have wisdom as I continue to move forward and continue to wait for a miracle.

Life on hold - musings of a temporary nomad...?

Since writing my last post a few days ago, I've slowly been getting used to the idea of looking for my new home in other towns, instead of here in Alhaurín de la Torre where I've lived for the past fourteen years. All my friends and neighbours tell me that it's just a bad time of year to be house hunting - that there are always more options after the summer. 

I'm still running into this new legal obstacle that they won't give you a rental contract (won't even let you view the property) if you can't prove that your "salary" is at least three times the amount of the rental. That's totally crazy, and impossible for me... so I'm more usually looking at places for sale than for rent and realising that this is likely going to be the sort of miracle I have to have faith for.... 

I'm only too aware, though, that property purchase, and especially overseas property purchase, isn't something that happens quickly. The process can drag on for months (or even years, as friends of mine here in town are discovering!) I'm having to contemplate the very real possibility of needing to find a temporary solution until the more permanent solution is sorted out. 

A friend with a dog has said I could stay in the tiny spare room in her flat until I find my permanent home. Another friend - with two doberman dogs - has offered that I could stay in a yurt (a Central Asian tent-like structure; see photo above) on her property for a few months... 

I'm grateful for people's offers of help, but the trouble with these temporary solutions is that they offer no security to my elderly cat. I kind of feel that my life is "on hold," as it's hard to contemplate making my planned ministry trip in May if it means that I'm leaving my cat in a tent with two dobermans roaming around outside. (One of them already killed a cat a few years ago.) And I'm not convinced by some other people's proposed solution that I just need to put Teddi to sleep. As I wrote already on 21st January, I don't believe that I should have to kill my cat in order to find a new home!

So, this rather perplexing process continues. It seems that the two most obvious steps on the horizon are:

a) finding a little place to purchase, rather then to rent

b) having to find a temporary solution until the permanent one falls into place.

Thank you for your prayers, and thanks also to those of you who have sent me Bible verses or impressions that came to you in prayer.
 

Which way to turn... wisdom needed!

Here we are, half way through March, and my search for a new home just seems to be running into an endless succession of closed doors and dead ends.

I search daily on real estate websites, I phone to make an appointment to view a house or flat.... and they tell me that I am "not eligible" - that I don't meet the requirements. (In other words, they won't let me a view a flat that costs €1000 a month unless I can prove that my income is €3000 a month... As my monthly support hovers around the £700 mark, this of course is impossible for me to do.)

I look on WhatsApp forums to see if other missionaries in the region are looking for a house mate or renting out a room in their flat.... but again there are few or no options - other than the occasional offer of a short term room rental on the other side of Malaga, 30 miles away.

I know that God is faithful and there must be something for me somewhere, but trying to find it is becoming demoralising. Is there something else I should be doing, some action step that I haven't already taken over the past three months? I'm only too aware of the time ticking by with still no viable option on the horizon.

It was with a heavy heart that today I began expanding my home-hunting search to smaller towns and villages further inland. I'm only too aware of the huge implications of moving 20 miles away from everything and everyone that I've known for the past decade and a half... but, if I'm to continue living in Spain beyond the end of this month (which is what I believe God has put on my heart) I have no other wisdom than to start looking for solutions further afield. I have to do "the possible," even as I continue to hope and pray that the impossible might still happen closer to home.

Please would you pray with me for wisdom, that I would know if there are other steps I should be taking in order to see a breakthrough in this perplexing situation. Thank you. 

A wonderful encounter...

I can hardly believe that I've been back in Spain for less than a week. It's been an incredibly fully week, largely due to the LDE - the online leadership development encounter.

We were 105 people connecting every day for this short and intensive leadership seminar. Almost 90 participants had signed up for the course, which meant that we needed a staff team (pictured above) of 18 people to give the teachings, lead the small processing groups and meet with individual students for personal mentoring and prayer.

Sadly, my coughing and ongoing breathing difficulties meant that I had to withdraw from giving any teaching (I was supposed to teach on the Monday and Friday) but I still enjoyed participating in class every day and working with a small group of ladies from different nations.

The students came mainly from different parts of Europe, Africa, North and South America. In my process group I had missionary leaders from Albania, Morocco, France, Greece and Brazil.

Now that the teaching part of the LDE is completed, the second week will consist mainly of homework assignments and the one-to-one mentoring times. Then, during the third week, I will wrap up all the paperwork with the University and send out the course completion certificates to the 40 students who opted to do the course for academic credits.

The most encouraging thing of all, however, is that those 87 participants will be applying biblical leadership principles with their missionary staff teams in dozens of different nations, and this will make a considerable impact for the advancement of the Kingdom of God in those locations.

A challenging season... and a breath prayer

It's been almost a month since I was able to post on this blog; life took a few more unexpected turns. First, we got word that we had to move out of our temporary accommodation and move into Mum's new home in Grangemouth. This left us completely without internet, as it would only be installed there in early March. To complicate matters even more, on the day of the move I woke up with pneumonia. A round the clock cough dragged on despite four doctor's visits, two weeks of antibiotics and various other medications. This meant it was hard for me to get out and use the wifi in another location, like the local supermarket.

At one point I got concerned that the debilitating cough would prevent me from being able to give the eulogy at Dad's funeral, which was scheduled for 3rd March (my brother's 60th birthday!) Mum was also coughing by this time, which suggested that there was also a virus involved. Fortunately, a codeine cough syrup helped suppress our coughs so that they weren't a distraction during the memorial service... which was a precious time of remembering and celebrating Dad's life. He was 94 when he died, and only weeks away from celebrating his 70th wedding anniversary with Mum.

I flew back to Spain on 5th March - with wheelchair assistance, as I was still very weak and coughing a lot. I'm coughing a little less as the week progresses, but still having a lot of breathing difficulties. Yesterday, walking back from the veterinary clinic, I could hardly make it up the hill and had to keep stopping to sit down on a bench. Yes, we were at the vet. Amidst my own coughing and spluttering, Maiki has been really ill all week with some kind of gastroenteritis, culminating in our needing to go to the vet yesterday and again today. Teddi, thankfully, seems fine.

And so I'm back in Alhaurín - and still in the house that I was supposed to move out of at the end of February. The search for a new home is being renewed, and I'm continuing to pack all my belongings into boxes and suitcases. I have to confess to feeling a little bit vulnerable now that we're already past the deadline for my moving out of this house, and I'm extremely grateful for your renewed prayers that I will very soon find a place to stay.

Have you heard of "breath prayers"? They're a simple practice that has been common throughout church history and we read about them in the life stories of ancient saints and church fathers. A way of "praying without ceasing," they're basically a short prayer that can be spoken out within just one breath. Perhaps one of the most well known breath prayers in the Bible is the prayer of the tax collector, found in Luke 18: 13 - "God have mercy on me, a sinner." Some ancient church traditions, like the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, use a slightly longer version - “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” - calling it the Jesus prayer and using it while praying the rosary.

A breath prayer typically consists of: a) a name of God, and b) a verb, that expresses c) a desire.

Lord Jesus, help me reflect your love to others.

Prince of Peace, fill me with your peace and joy.

Father God, help me to know you more.

Holy Spirit, increase my faith for miracles and answers to prayer.

Because a breath prayer is so short, it's easy to memorise it and to pray it out dozens of times during the day. 

My friend Rite, who used to live here in Spain, but moved to Canada a couple of years ago, sent me this photo today. She told me that she currently has a breath prayer asking the Lord to provide a new home for me: "Lord, please open a door for Barbara." She works a lot with pre-school children and likes to have something visual to represent what she is praying for in her own life. So she made this little house (with an open door) and has it sitting on her desk. Whenever she sees it throughout the day, she prays, "Lord, open a door for Barbara."

In this post-pneumonia season, when my breathing is laboured and each breath is very short, this is a good breath prayer for me too: "Father, I trust you to open a door for me!"

If you think of me over these coming days, I invite you to join with Rite's breath prayer or to create one of your own. I am grateful for your prayers as I trust God for a miracle. Thank you!