This homebody changed countries seventeen times in fourteen months

All I ever wanted was to live a quiet, secure life in a little white house with a picket fence and a rose garden but, as I told you a few days ago, my husband Dave and our adventuresome God had other plans. Just when our youngest finished college, both Dave and God hollered, “Africa!”

Not only had I wished to live a predictable, serene, uninterrupted, sheltered life—I also wanted a travel-free life. For years I had awakened every morning and realized I’d had yet another bad dream about travel.

Maybe I had been on a train speeding down the tracks, knowing I needed to get off someplace—but where? Or perhaps I was on a city bus and needed to get off and transfer to another route—but where? Or I had arrived at a dock to board an ocean-going vessel headed toward foreign shores when I discovered I’d forgotten to bring my passport. And on and on.

It was worse than not being a fan of travel—I had a lot of angst about travel. And I wanted to stay put!

Yet God seemed to stand there and say, “My best plans for you involve both Africa and travel.” Period.

I wanted to avoid facing my fear of travel. God wanted me to face it, stare it down. Overcome it.

To begin with, He sent me to Africa, and getting there required quite a journey—to the opposite side of the world.

But that was only the beginning. Once I got there, God gave me a job that required travel. A lot of travel.

I started my memoir, Grandma’s Letters from Africa, with an example of what my job required:

September 29, 1994 

Nairobi, Kenya 

Dear Maggie,

I awoke at four this morning, unable to sleep any longer. Ah, I thought, surprised, I’m still not over jet lag. I had arrived back in Nairobi twenty-eight hours earlier and thought I should’ve recovered from jet lag but, to my dismay, I had not.

I lay there in bed mentally drawing lines, tracing my journeys over the past fourteen months: the United States, England, Scotland, Kenya, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Niger, back to Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Canada, the United States, Holland, and back to Kenya. As of today, I have changed countries seventeen times in fourteen months. 

Imagine! This homebody had changed countries seventeen times in fourteen months! Not states, but countries—nations. On three continents.

Do you suppose God was being mean-spirited when He gave me a job that required travel? And not easy travel, either—often international journeys have unique challenges, especially when those countries are in a place like Africa.

I don’t think God was being mean. He knew my fear was something I needed to change. Perhaps He was acting like a good coach, saying, “You can do this. Work hard. Work harder. Persevere.” If I’d been paying close attention, I probably could have sensed him saying, “I’ll help you. Trust Me.”

I love Chuck Swindoll’s words:

“Don’t be afraid. Stand still. 

Watch [God] work. Keep quiet.

It’s then that He does His best work on our behalf. 

He . . . handles our predicament opposite the way we’d do it.” 

(from Great Days with the Great Lives)

Did you get that? Chuck says that sometimes 

God does just the opposite of what we want 

or would tend to do. 

I didn’t want to face my fear, 

but God seemed to say, “You need to get over this.”

And I must let you know this: Even before I arrived in Africa, I stopped having those bad dreams about travel. I still had worries about travel, but not the bad dreams.

I was on my way!