Timing was a very early decision point as that played a significant role in our planning. Personally, it would have been nice to immediately drop life where it was and abscond to Israel without a second thought. In reality though, there’s so much more to consider. As we moved forward timing proved to be crucial – in more ways than one.
Earlene’s entire work calendar existed around two main events – budget and audit. To abandon her team at the wrong time would have been disastrous for them. If we moved too early, her coworkers wouldn’t be prepared or trained to take over as needed. If we left too late, she would be fully entrenched in the next cycle and her team would still be in a bad position. It’s never easy to leave your team of 12 years, but it is possible to optimize the timing and minimize impact on your team.
If hindsight and questionable memory has anything to say about it, easing the burden on our work teams was chief among our considerations. We have also desired to visit Israel during the fall feasts – Day of Trumpets, Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles – so this too also played into our decision making.
We settled on mid to late August for our trip to Israel. We planned to move to Missouri at the end of July, spend a couple of weeks in preparation and then we would head out for Israel. We had tentative plans for Israel that had us getting there in late August so those were the plans we were working with.
Our minds turned to the more intricate details of our timing. As we are renters at the time of this writing, we needed to worry about cutting our lease short and what the financial impact of that would be. We pulled out the lease and started reviewing the fees and penalties that were associated with the early termination. Then we looked at the lease end date to make the calculations.
Our lease expired on July 31st. This was our first “open door” and our first confirmation that we were on the correct path. This was one of those moments where you have those long dramatic movie pauses because it was simply too “coincidental” to be happenstance. It was the first time where it just felt like God was telling us “I have everything covered and taken care of.” It was enough to move us to tears.
Many weeks later our timing shifted slightly when our Israel plans changed. “Our plans” being the key phrase there because our plans were still coming into alignment with God’s chosen path. As of the time of this writing, we are well aware that our timing may still be coming into proper submission and alignment with God’s, but there a few more “coincidences” we plan to share with you. Our date changed to September 1st for a projected embarkation date. Our plane tickets weren’t booked and nothing was officially paid for so our projected date was still moveable.
Hopefully the coming posts will convey clearly a few more moments and “coincidental” events to help you see what we see. The providence of God will never cease to amaze us.
Timing is everything. It wasn’t just about the jobs. God has had a bigger plan all along. Turns out that 2020 was going to be a crazy year. This thing called COVID happened and if you happen to be reading this 20 years in the future it probably didn’t even make the history books. Suffice it to say – a virus shut down the planet.