Sometimes, only hindsight can show you how God nudged you into a better place. We were nudged this year in South Africa.
We planned to go to Cape Town in mid-to-late January and stay until late March, summertime! We also wanted our friends to visit.
Aaannnd the nudge. Our friends had plans to be elsewhere in March and needed time between our visit and their March commitments – who knew that a calendar would be an agent of the Holy Spirit? We did a quick shift and agreed to travel just after New Year’s – arriving earlier and leaving earlier.
This wasn’t logistically convenient. We had to scramble to “de-Christmas” the house, get packed, clean out the refrigerator, arrange remote bill-paying, double-check the packing, arrange transportation from our home to the airport, over 2 hour’s drive away, and deal with the myriad other small details involved with spending months away from home.
We arrived in Cape Town on January 8. We settled in. Our friends came. We volunteered, shopped for 2020 Christmas presents, drove on the left side of the road, and ate lots of fresh fish. In early March, we reluctantly packed, returned the rental car, and flew home. Upon arriving home, we got an email from a South African friend saying the nation had its first case of coronavirus. Two weeks later, there were over 250 cases, and international travel from South Africa to Europe and the USA had stopped.
During our stay in South Africa, the news said there was no coronavirus in all of Africa for a long while as China, Iran, and then Europe struggled to contain the disease. No one could have predicted the speed and magnitude of travel restrictions imposed just after we returned. The virus changed the world that fast. If we had stuck with our original timing, we would have been stranded, with no way to return to the USA.
Sometimes, luck is more than that. It’s a nudge from someone who knows what’s about to go down that says, “You really want to adjust your plans.” We need to continually listen for the “still, small voice” and to be sensitive to the nudges that God provides us. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t obvious, except in hindsight!
we are glad you can ‘self isolate’ in your home and have access to community supports during the evolving pandemic. we hold all those across the globe who are coping with the disease and the radical changes in our interdependent economies.
we know the impact is grave for so many locally and globally….as one small business owner in Los Chiles, Costa Rica texted: it’s bad and only God can help. the support networks that you have created across the continents are part of “God’s help” for the solution, for survival…thanks for being Divine actors in this life and for all that you do to keep our world interconnected!
best wishes for your health and better days for all of God’s creation ahead, n