Heart Stirrings

It was during a missions service one evening at the church I grew up in; Calvary Pentecostal in Woodstock Ontario. The Keddy's were speaking and I was so stirred in my spirit. I knew one day I wanted to go. I guess that is when I first felt the "call" I would have been around twenty at the time.
I actually did have an opportunity to go to Africa one time. All I really had to do was find a way there. But then life happened. I met Dale!
However, I think it is something that both of us have always felt we would do someday. Maybe when the kids were grown, out of school, on their own.
Yet, now is the time!
It was this past fall during my quiet times/devotions that I began to sense a change was coming. I really felt as though God was telling me that we would be going on the mission field full time.
I kept it to myself for a while. I didn't tell Dale. I "put my fleece out" and told the Lord, "Ok God, if this is truly of You, then You need to tell Dale the same thing." Sometimes I struggle with truly knowing if it is God or my emotions talking to me..
I did tell my friend Deana though how I was feeling over coffee one night. I told her I had a sense that Bethel would be our last church and that I thought we would be going on the missions field.
Around the same time, several people were approaching Dale telling him that he would be a great lead pastor. A similar comment was also made by the regional director and if Dale wanted to put his name out there, let him know and they would help him find a church.
Flattering as that was, my husband has always said he would be ALWAYS be a children's pastor. That's where his heart is.
He was unsure about how he felt about it all, and he really didn't think it was something he wanted to pursue.
As for me, it created some confusion in my heart. Perhaps a little disappointment too. Not that I didn't think my husband would make a great lead pastor- but if that truly was the path God was leading him on, then what I 'thought' I heard must have been in my head.
Don't get me wrong. The idea of moving to a foreign country scared me to death. It still does! The thought of leaving all the we know here, the amazing life that we have come to love, our aging parents, friends, our beloved beagle Maddie whom we have had for 11 years now. It made me sad.
Not to mention the cultural differences, trying to find a home to live in, a school for the children. The list goes on, but those three things are pretty much at the top.
When we decided to do a short term missions trip to Honduras, I think part of me knew that it wasn't going to end at the end of our short term trip, that it would end up being something bigger. I felt it in the depths of my heart and it terrified me...yet excited me too. Hard to explain. I just knew that if God wanted us to go then we definitely had to go!
One evening when the girls on the team retired to our bunk room for the evening, I wrote this in my journal..
" Standing in the play area of the school, overlooking the city I felt so overwhelmed. Almost like God was saying " how can you think of leaving?" I am afraid to write what I am really feeling- but I sense that what we did today is what Dale and I will be doing and we are going to be here some day."
then on our last day in Honduras, I wrote,,,
"My heart is here in Honduras...One day I'll return"