Big moves, right moves, wrong moves...

I'm going to be moving house this year - a big change for me, after living 13 years in the same home. So I decided to begin the year by reading about one of the biggest moves in history: the mass moving of more than a million Israelites when they left Egypt and began to travel to their promised land. It's fascinating to read about how God helped them prepare for their big move, and then provided for them every step of the way.

Some forty years previously, there had been another move that was not quite so well prepared.  Rushing ahead of God's timing and taking matters into his own hands, Moses had killed an Egyptian. This led to his fleeing to the desert of Midian and staying there for a very long time.... until the Lord called him to go back to Egypt and do thing's God's way. Whether we're staying or moving, it's so important to discern God's guidance and obey it in the details.

Earlier in December, I had been reading about two other moves - one that ended badly and one that ended well. At the beginning of the Old Testament book of Ruth, we read about a whole family that decided to move to another country. There was famine in Israel at the time and so a couple named Elimelech and Naomi decided to pack up everything and move with their two sons to Moab, an unbelieving, enemy nation. (Ruth 1:1)

I'm sure that they thought they were doing what was best for their family's physical and material wellbeing... but it didn't end well. Within not much more than a decade, the father and sons were all dead and Naomi was left alone with the two foreign women that her sons had married. I'm not a parent, but this story has often made me reflect on how easily we could make the same mistake: doing something that seems to be materially advantageous for ourselves or our family and unknowingly jeopardising their long-term spiritual wellbeing.

Heartbroken and disillusioned, Naomi decides to move home to Israel... and one of her daughters-in-law decides to make the journey with her. She arrives home bitter and disappointed.... but this move has been a right one, and God in His goodness and mercy has better things in store for them.

And so we read of how the two women make a new home for themselves in Bethlehem... ultimately becoming part of a new family, and Ruth - even though she was a foreigner - gives birth to a son who would be one of the ancestors of Jesus, the Messiah.

There are right moves and wrong moves in life. Sometimes we make the wrong moves for what seem to be right reasons to our human understanding ... and sometimes we even make right moves for the wrong reasons. Worst of all, however, is when we make the wrong moves for the wrong reasons.

In Ruth chapter 3 vs 1, Naomi says to Ruth, "My daughter, should I not find a permanent home for you, where you will be well provided for?" In my own season of "moving," I sense that God would say that to me too, and I am trusting Him to help me make the right moves and avoid the wrong ones.

The "faith" of unbelievers...

If you are one of the people that receives my weekly prayer updates, you'll remember that just a few years ago I asked you to pray for my neighbour who lives in the house back to back with mine. (We're the yellow block on the map to the right; I live in Lemon Street and she lives in Orange Street.) After her husband died, an estranged stepson appeared and threatened to evict her from her lifelong home, so that he could claim "his half" of it. (My friend's husband had not left a will, as it seemed obvious that she was the only one who would inherit the house that they had bought together with her parents.) My friend faced the daunting reality that her house could be sold out from under her, and her half of the money would not even be sufficient to buy a tiny one bedroom flat for herself and the dogs.

I invited you to pray for her and this crisis situation, and God responded in an amazing way: out of the blue, a "benefactor" came along (a friend of a friend; someone she didn't even know) and offered to buy out the other half of the house, with an agreement that Matilde could continue living in it until the end of her lifetime - at which point the house would become his. While this was obviously a good deal for the benefactor (who was essentially buying a house for just half of what it was worth), it was also the miracle that my neighbour was needing, so that she could live out the rest of her lifetime in her own home.

My friend is not a believer, but that experience went a long way to increasing her belief in the power of prayer. It was so completely unexpected and so "out of the box" in terms of a solution, that she could only put it down to a miracle of answered prayer. Now she's saying to me that we need to pray for a similar miracle for myself!

In some ways, what she says is true. Hours of searching the internet have shown me that there is genuinely no rental house or flat listed that is not well above my total monthly income. And while everyone says that buying a home is cheaper than renting, they don't take into account the fact that even selling a three or four bedroomed house in Scotland would barely buy a studio or a one bedroomed flat in my part of Spain. I understand when my neighbour says that the only solution is another mystery benefactor to make it possible to rent or buy my new home here in Spain.

I also know, though, that God doesn't necessarily do the same miracle twice. He is infinitely creative and can answer my prayers with a completely different "out of the box" solution to my housing situation.... just as He has provided homes in so many different ways in the past.

But I'm nonetheless thankful for the "faith" of my neighbour. It tells me that my presence in this neighbourhood and our friendship over the past decade have opened her eyes to the fact that God exists and has the power to do amazing and unexpected things in answer to prayer. 

I don't yet know what the miracle will be in my present situation and, to be honest, I'm not even sure what my next steps should be. Should I go to view rooms or flats for rent, even though I know that the asking price is more than I have available? Is that the step of faith that God is asking me to take? (like the first widow I wrote about on 3rd January in this blog; see the post below this one.) 

I can only trust that the miracle God does on my behalf this time will not only strengthen my own faith, but also the slowly emerging faith of my unbelieving friends and neighbours.

The tale of two widows... the first widow: a story of flour and oil.

What I've been reflecting on this morning is not a brand new idea to me. In fact, if you scroll down on the right hand side of this web page and click on the link for August 2008, you will find my original experiences in following the example of two widows we read about in the Bible. 

In the story of the first widow, in 1 Kings 17, this lady was facing some real needs, but I saw that she stepped out with the little that she already had (some flour and oil) even though it wasn’t nearly enough... and God caused that supply to keep flowing. When the prophet Elijah asked the widow for something to eat, she didn’t say, “Sorry, I can’t help you. I don’t have enough to live on myself.” She just stepped out with that little bit of flour and oil that she already had, and God did a miracle: her flour and oil simply never ran out, but continued flowing and were always enough.

I realised, back in summer of 2008, that I’d been feeling as if my life was “on hold” - knowing that I couldn’t step out to rent a flat in Spain if I didn’t have even a reasonable percentage of the money needed to pay for it and furnish it. (I’ve lived my whole life with the principle of never getting into debt.) But I also knew that I couldn’t wait indefinitely and so, when I read this widow’s story, I felt challenged to “step out” with the resources that I already had - even if my “flour and oil” wasn't nearly enough yet - and to trust that God would keep the flow coming. It doesn’t sound a particularly responsible thing to do, but - as I’ve discovered over the past decades - steps of faith often don’t look the slightest bit responsible or logical on the surface. 

And so I stepped out and booked my plane ticket to Malaga: I was going to move down to Spain on Sunday 5th October, even though I didn't yet know where I would live, or how I would pay for it, but I knew that God was saying it was now time to take a new step of faith.

What about you? Are you facing any situations at the moment that just seem "too big" for you? At times when our "flour and oil" seem totally inadequate for the task ahead, that's when we need to remember that God is always bigger than any challenge we might face, and sometimes He asks us just to step out in simple trust and faith.

A couple of weeks after I booked that Malaga plane ticket in 2008, a relatively new friend contacted me to ask if I'd like a housemate; she was planning to move to Spain to work with the same ministry project I'd committed to. Suddenly, I only needed to be able to pay half of the rent on a house or flat and, by the time I arrived in Spain, we had found the house we'd live in for that first year in Alhaurín de la Torre.

Now, in 2023, I find myself in a strangely similar situation. I need to move to a new house this year, but I don't seem to have adequate resources to make that possible. And so I'm again asking myself: Is there a step of faith that God wants me to take this time too? Am I to step out in some way with the resources that I already have?

What about you in whatever situation or circumstance you find yourself in at the beginning of this new year? What might God be asking you to do?

Read on below to find out more about how to help miracles happen.

The tale of two widows... the second widow: a story of empty containers.

The second widow's story that I was remembering this morning is found in 2 Kings 4: 1 - 6. This woman only has “a small jar of oil” when the story begins, but the prophet Elisha tells her to go around and borrow as many empty containers as possible from her friends and neighbours. So the woman goes around everyone she knows and gathers as many jugs and jars as she can. She doesn't ask them to give her oil; she simply asks if she can borrow some empty containers. Then she starts to pour from her little jar of oil, and the oil miraculously just keeps flowing and flowing. I can imagine that this woman’s friends were just as excited as she was to hear about this miracle and to know that they had been part of making it possible.

As I prayed about this story, back in summer of 2008, I realised that I had been feeling embarrassed to keep on asking people to pray about my financial situation - about the fact that I still didn't have sufficient monthly income to cover my living costs and ministry costs when I moved to Spain. I think I was sometimes afraid that speaking about finances would offend people – that they would think I wanted them to feel sorry for me, or that they would feel manipulated and think I was “hinting” that I needed money. 

But that wasn't the case at all. I hadn't felt that God was telling me to ask anyone for money, but I did feel that I was to keep asking for prayer. We are so dependent on other people’s prayers whenever we are in times of stepping into something new, especially something that seems much “too big” for us, financially or in other ways.  In the story of the second widow, she didn’t ask her neighbours to give her the oil that she needed to live on. What she actually did was to ask them for “empty containers,” and then it was God who filled the containers for her. I felt God showed me that people’s prayers are like the “empty containers” that those neighbours gave to the woman in the story. In the NIV translation of the Bible, Elisha specifically tells the widow, “Don’t ask for just a few; ask for as many as you can.”  You see, when the containers ran out, the oil ran out too.

As I read this story, I felt God put on my heart that I was not just to ask once or twice for prayer, but I was to keep on asking for as many “empty containers” as possible; I wasn't to feel embarrassed about asking people to pray for my financial needs - because I’m not asking them for oil, I’m asking for their empty containers - and these people will share in the miracle: the blessing of seeing answered prayer when God fills the containers. 

As you read in the post above this one, the way God "filled" my empty containers in 2008 was not initially by providing more money; it was by providing another person to share the costs, and by leading us to a house rental option that was within our budget at that time. 

Nearly fifteen years later, I am again asking people for empty containers. I am asking you to join me in praying that God will guide me to the new home that I'll live in for the next season of my life and that He will provide, in whatever way, all that I'll need in order to live there.

I’m sure that the people who gave containers to the widow in the Bible story had their faith boosted by seeing God do a miracle and knowing that their containers had been part of it. If you are one of the people who has committed to partner with me in prayer, I'd like to say a really big thank you for that. I promise that I'll let you know the exciting story of how your empty containers get filled up by God this time.

A new year... a new adventure...

A new year has just begun. None of us really know what it holds in store for us, but I find security in the fact that the God I follow does know what lies ahead; I can enter the new year without fear or worry if I am walking hand in hand with Him. As I was praying on the first day of 2023, I felt that the Lord told me this year would bring me some challenges and losses, but also some times of unexpected joy. I believe He showed me that the key to walking in joy, even amidst the sorrows and losses, is to walk in intentional thankfulness. So, in my journal, I'm regularly writing down the things that I am thankful for.

Have you ever wondered why the URL of this blog is "back in Europe"? It's because I lived in Africa for almost 15 years and I began writing this new blog in the very month when I moved back to Europe. Now I've been "back in Europe" for 15 years. Sometimes I can hardly believe that I have lived in Spain for almost the same amount of time that I lived in South Africa!

I haven't written much on this blog over the past two years, choosing to communicate more on other social media platforms instead. But I'm coming into a new season of change and transition, and so I invite you to join me, and to pray with me, as I embark on a new adventure.

Read on below to find out more about the new adventure for 2023.

Not knowing what lies ahead...

When this blog first began, I was "homeless." I had just left the home I had built in South Africa, and I had no clue what lay ahead or where I would live back in Europe. Scroll down and click on those early links on the right hand side of this page. The blog posts for September and October 2007 were full of the uncertainty of not knowing what lay ahead or where my new home would be.

Before I left South Africa, I had felt that God spoke to me through a verse in Exodus 15: 27 - about how the people settled down in a place that had “twelve springs and 70 palm trees.” I had kind of a sense that it was something to do with where I would live back in Europe, but no real understanding of what it might mean. A year went by as I trusted for God's guidance and provision; then ministry opportunities led me to move to Spain and settle in the town of Alhaurín de la Torre. The name of the town comes from Arabic and means, "garden of God."

Imagine my surprise, after I’d already moved to Alhaurín, to discover that the town had been famous historically for its underground springs of water…. and that the little park around the corner from my home had exactly 70 palm trees in it. Was it just a weird coincidence or was God confirming that I had settled in the right place?  

I've now lived in Alhaurín de la Torre for 14 years, and the town has become home to me. For 13 of those years, I have lived in the same house (the longest I have lived in one place during my decades as a missionary) and I have built lots of friendships in the neighbourhood as I've reached out to share God's love with my neighbours who don't know the Lord.

At first, I rented the house with a South American friend and her daughter. Then, when they moved out to start a home of their own, my generous landlord allowed me to continue living in the house and to continue paying only half of the rent, as I had done up till then. (I see this as a miracle of God's provision, because the full rent was more than my total monthly income, and it would have been impossible for me to stay there.)

That amazing season has come to an end. My landlord has other plans for the house in 2023 and has told me that I will need to move out within the next two months. After thirteen wonderful years, I now find myself "homeless" again, and am beginning the process of looking for a new place to live.

So I begin 2023 not knowing where I'm going to be living this year. Read on below to discover some of the faith challenges that this adventure brings.

Expecting the impossible...

One of the intergenerational outreach teams I led with KKI in South Africa had the theme of, "Expect the Impossible!" Even though it was a long time ago, I still have my team T-shirt from that time of summer evangelism.

 "Expect the Impossible" had to become kind of a motto for me when I moved back to Europe. You see, during my last decade in South Africa, I had lived on a regular income of around £200 a month. It was a unique window of time where prices were low in South Africa; the currency was decreasing in value and the favourable exchange rate of the pound to the rand meant that my missions support didn’t really need to increase for that whole decade.  When I returned to Europe in 2007, it was a huge shock to realise that no one can live on just £200 a month in a European setting. I would need to see my income double or even triple in order to be able to move to Spain and find a home there in 2008. Not only would the rent alone be more than my total income at the time, most rental houses were unfurnished and so I would also need enough money to furnish the place.

Yesterday, 1st January 2023, I had a sinking sense of déjà vu as I began the process of scrolling through estate agents' websites in search of a new place to stay. Even the tiniest of places (one-roomed "studios" with no separate bedroom or kitchen) have a rental cost that is more than my current monthly income! I realised that my landlord's incredible generosity over the past seven or eight years has given me a completely false impression of the true costs of housing.

A Spanish friend told me it's generally cheaper to buy than to rent. Of course, that would be a total impossibility on my income - and, even if I did have more income, it's impossible to get a mortgage when you're in your sixties. But I took a look at houses for sale, anyway, just to confirm if my friend's information was true. 

Well, it probably is true, but my sense of impossibility only increased even further when I saw that a one bedroom flat in Alhaurín would cost the same as a three bedroom house in South Africa.

And so, here I am again - setting off on an adventure of expecting God to do the impossible. I don't know what that will look like. (Will I amazingly find another home with a fairly low rent? Will God provide money in another way? Will there be a new housemate to share costs?) I have no idea what to expect. All I know is that I can trust God as I set out on this new adventure.

Watch this space!