~DETOUR~

Hello friends!! This post is brought to you from the comforts of home! It has been so good to come home and see our family and friends! It’s been super refreshing for us!

I wanted to write a little post about where God is leading us next. We had planned on staying in Townsville, Australia, where we were based out of the past 6 months. We were going to join staff there and help with the ship ministry. We started getting restless with the idea, however, on the last week of outreach in PNG. We didn’t know where this was coming from, because we really liked the Townsville base. But the feelings persisted, for me at least.

After returning to Townsville from our PNG outreach, we were going upstairs to do some laundry, and I spotted a brochure for a Medical Missions School in Perth, Australia. I was immediately intrigued. The Medical Missions School is for medical professionals or those who have completed YWAM’s introductory medical course. It includes 3 months of training on basic dentistry, community health, God’s character and His healing, obstetrics, suturing, and much more. Then, there is a 3 month outreach, putting all the skills to use, in Manila, Philippines. Jason also explored options for him in Perth, and he found a Discipleship Bible School. This school is an intensive study of the entire Bible.

Perth seemed like a really good option to us, but we were very confused about what we should do. Each day presented a new option that we could pursue, and, of course, we could stay in Townsville. We were supposed to be going home in a week, and we had no idea where we were going to go after that. One night, I was stressing out about the decision, and I decided to read my devotion for the day. The devotion just happened to be about how God wants to cocreate dreams with us and turn them into reality, but we must wait for His timing. I knew He was urging me to trust Him and He would reveal our next step in His perfect timing.

A day or two later, one of our leaders had a dream that confirmed our consideration of Perth. Both of us then got peace that Perth was the right decision. As received further confirmation when staff from Townsville prayed with us DTS students who were graduating. One woman, who had no idea that we had changed our plans to Perth, prayed over us and said that she felt like God was going to use a detour to teach us, grow us, and bless us more.

I’m so glad that God’s thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts and His ways are so much higher than ours! We have no idea what this detour will hold for us or what our next step after this will be, but I am certain that it will be far greater than anything we could ever hope for or imagine. Our God is so faithful!!

~Jason and Monica