We want to thank all of our family, friends, and acquaintances for taking an interest in our lives, and for asking some really good questions. We think good questions deserve good explanations. These weeks we are posting the top 10 questions you are asking and our responses. Feel free to message us questions you may have. They may just make the top 10 :)
QUESTION #4: HOW DO YOU SUPPORT YOURSELVES?
Did you know that 1+1=infinity? Of course it does ;)
Now, you are probably too polite to tell me to back away from accounting and I am probably too eager to agree with that assumption. But this time, I need to defend my case and share with you how this equation holds true for our family. 1+1 DOES = Infinity. Just blame the Apostle Paul for my math skills on this one :)
Now glory be to God (1)! By his mighty power at work within us (+ 1), he is able to accomplish (=) infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.
How is it that 2 people, who give up the security of two full-time salaried positions, could possibly make ends meet while raising a family, pursuing adoption, and starting a national non-profit ministry? (a whole new meaning to "non-profit" lol) It seems to not all add up, like the equation I gave you earlier. We get where people are coming from when we are frequently asked about how we manage ourselves in this new (ab)normal.
No time to haul out the violin and play us some droning music. And no, this blog is not going to pull a fast one on you with a paypal link below for the poor stupid couple who gave up job security to change the world (insert Canadian sarcastic tone here). This goes deeper than one's pockets. It's about 1 God patiently working within 1 flawed but seeking couple, showing to us that he is able to do infinitely more than what common sense tells us is reasonable.
At the time we resigned from our previous positions, it seemed like a HUGE leap of faith. Now looking back this past year, it seems like it wasn't so much a risky leap of faith as it was a trust issue. The same could be said in the present tense. I know God is our Provider, but do I really trust that God will provide for our family, the new ministry, the adoption? It's cute to trust God when I have things figured out and within calculated control. It's something fierce to trust Him when I don't.
We wish we could recount to you all the ways that God has provided for us, like when support came to us on different occasions without even asking, when scholarships were granted to be at important conferences we needed to be at, hotel accommodations and billets offered to us without asking, or when children's clothing were passed on to us just at the right time, and you've likely already read about the time our van was healed while travelling. So maybe we live a little more simple, so what, it does us good. Our lives have been made richer by countless guests in our home like you wouldn't believe (I kid you not, we have 11 sleeping in beds under our roof tonight) Good times. This only is made sweeter by the fact that last summer when we made the transition, we found ourselves in a humourous situation where we had beds of all shapes and sizes find their way to our doorstep from different unrelated sources. Heaven must have sent out a memo that we would be needing them, because I never would have imagined it. Harold and I looked at each other with a curious smile and wondered how God would ever cause us to need soooo many beds. Tonight, every bed is being used, just right. And this hasn't been the first. That's how good God is.
Not to leave you with visions of rainbows and unicorns, I need to confess that trusting is not always easy. What we think we need is not handed to us on a silver platter. God hasn't been our ATM machine, nor our genie in a bottle, and neither a bling-bling prosperity gospel show-off God. But we have all we need. It's in the provisions of what God knows we need that keep us in awe. Provisions don't come to us on our clock, on our budget forecast, nor do we have all we need for the vision God has given us moving forward... yet. But I do know that God can be trusted.
