God’s Provision – remembering how God has taken care of us during our first year

I have been consistently amazed at the way God has provided for us over this past year. Many things we prayed earnestly for. Some things we didn’t know we needed. A few things we didn’t even have the faith to ask for…

• An organization in the States that specifically helps missionaries to ship containers overseas. We didn’t know this existed, and hadn’t plan to ship anything other than what we brought on the plane, but we found out about it while in France and were able to ship our solar power system from the U.S. We didn’t realize what a blessing this was until we got here.
• Upon our arrival, there wasn’t anyone from our organization in the capital for a couple of weeks. A family we met in language school picked us up, took us to their house for lunch, let the kids play at their mission compound, and delivered us to our guesthouse. They introduced us to the director of their mission in Chad and his wife, who connected with a lady to help with the housework and cooking at our guesthouse. This was a life-saver in those crazy first few weeks.
• The guest house we had reserved in the capital didn’t have much space for the kids to play, which we didn’t realize until we arrived. God provided two other compounds in the capital with lots of space, kids, and even a trampoline for the kids to burn some energy.
• We arrived in Chad without having long-term visas lined up. We came on tourist visas, planning to arrange long-term visas through a contact Josh made through another worker with our organization. This worked out very well, and in addition to getting our long-term visas we have begun a relationship with a Chadian church that we think will provide many opportunities for ministry in the future.
• When Josh went back to the capital to purchase a vehicle, he didn’t think about the difficulty of making the return trip alone. But God provided an English-speaking Chadian MBB who also needed a ride to Abeche to make the trip with Josh. Oh, and he also happened to be a mechanic.
• The kids, especially Isaac, had a very difficult transition. He would wake up in the middle of the night screaming in his sleep with night terrors. After several nights of this we fell weeping to our knees, wondering what we’d done to our kids by bringing them here. We prayed, and Isaac calmed down almost immediately. From there on out his sleep patterns were much improved.
• After a difficult month in the capital, we moved to Abeche and were blessed to have a comfortable house on a large mission compound. This provided some much needed rest and quiet space after the chaos of N’Djamena.
• A Chadian friend who needed work and is experienced doing household maintenance and light construction. He has helped us since arriving in Abeche to make our house feel like home.
• DANIELLE! We were struggling to figure out life in Chad while taking care of our family and learning the 2nd language in as many years when God intervened with a huge blessing. Through a series of circumstances Danielle, who was planning to join another team in Chad, joined us for a year to help with the kids while learning some Arabic herself. We honestly didn’t have the faith to even pray for someone like her to help, but God knew the need and provided for us.

We could list dozens more ways God has faithfully provided throughout this first year. Thank you Lord for your faithfulness!