Divine Appointments

We have almost finished out our first month here and we are just beginning to process all that has happened in this transition. We have been granted visas and set up a bank account; big steps to becoming official! We have met friends, visited churches, searched through {so many} houses to find home, and have worked to learn and to begin to love.

This transition has wielded some unique and unexpected challenges, but we will continue to confess the faithfulness and truly Holy Provision of our Father. Folks, God is real and living and active and at work and it only takes a moment of our story here to see evidence of just that! He knows and hand crafted all of the details and today was no exception.

Around lunchtime we went for a meeting with the landlord of a house we have been hoping to call our home soon. While we are so incredibly thankful for the blessing of places to live with families here, living out of a suitcase is not a glamorous concept for us and we are ready to plant our roots somewhere more permanent. After our search took us to over thirty houses and we began to lose hope that anything would work, this property fell in our laps in a way that is only God’s handiwork.

First of all, we just so happened to read a post on an expat Facebook group from a woman who was advertising her house to be for rent soon. The name of the neighborhood caught my eye because it was our ideal location so I decided to message her. We had seen so many houses with real estate agents with little success, so it was worth trying a different route if it seemed promising. I went to message her and it turns out she had already sent me the details in a message that I must have overlooked when we first got here. We had requested on the same expat Facebook group for people to share any available properties they knew of; somewhere in the flood of responses several weeks earlier I must have missed hers. While some of these details may seem mundane, I am sharing because I can’t describe in any other way than recounting the story, how truly supernatural it is that we stumbled upon this place. Not only is it in our budget and perfect for all of our needs, but it is in the perfect location for us. I went to see the house with my friend over a week ago while Chase was working. I had such a peace and excitement about it that I couldn’t wait to share it with him. Without even seeing the house for himself, he trusted that it was perfect and we moved ahead with plans. We had to wait for a meeting with the landlord for over a week, which just made the anticipation grow.

This afternoon when we walked into the house it just felt more like home than anywhere else we had been. The landlord was running a bit behind so the current tenants started Chase off with a tour. After a few minutes of walking around to see the rooms, asking questions about power bills and trash day, Chase and the husband began to talk. The husband is a businessman and the wife is in health (what?!). The husband worked in partnership with HOPE International (the non-profit that Chase has done a lot of work with, part of how we got connected to Karisimbi and Acacia) and was actually AT the Leadership Summit Chase attended here in Rwanda the Summer of 2013. Turns out, Chase thinks he MET the husband at that conference! The two are believers who were here to share the good news through development. As he and Chase continued talking, the man shared that he is involved in Business As Missions (BAM) and KNOWS people from Birmingham through this network. He even knew about the Lions Den competition, a business plan submission program that takes place AT SAMFORD! The connections continued to click and the tears welled up in my eyes—this was clearly a divine appointment. Peace washed over me in a fresh way.

So many times here we’ve met people and shared moments that have clearly been divine appointments. When friends in the states buy coffee in honor of us because it says Rwanda on the bag and it turns out that we are staying with the CFO of the very company that made the coffee they bought: moments like these are not just coincidence. When we get invited to attend a banquet for YoungLife Rwanda, and the Lord knew it would be just the thing to make Kigali feel like home that night: that was not just happenstance. When we start to make connections with new friends that lead to new relationships that lead to new opportunities: those things don’t just happen by accident. Divine appointments are all around us, and we are invited to engage. We just have to be brave enough to listen and to walk.

It’s difficult to explain to friends and family that we are OK and we are still entirely confident that this is our home for now, but some things are HARD. And all things here take TIME. Getting settled is and is going to continue to be a slow process. Some days we miss home. Some days we are entirely overwhelmed by the weight of what we are doing. And then some days God takes us by the hand, leads us into His perfect plans, and invites us to take a seat at the table that promises His holy provision. We don’t have transportation yet. I don’t have a job yet. And we still don’t officially have a home yet. But we are reminded by sweet, small gifts like today to be patient, to press on, and to revel in the goodness that He is showing us with every step of obedience.