For some time, I have been wrestling with how I was going to go about telling my bosses at work that I plan to move to the mission field in Uganda in about a year.  You see, I have an awesome job at an awesome bank and work with awesome people.  The people at the bank are like family to me and I’ve been given an excellent opportunity to manage several departments as Vice President of Operations.  I also greatly respect my bosses and see them as almost a father figure.  To the world, it seems so impractical to turn away from such a great opportunity and give it all up to serve God in a foreign country 8,000 miles away from home.

These reasons have made it tough to get up the nerve to let my work know about our mission plans, but my biggest fear was them terminating me as soon as I let them know my plans.  I know that Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope”.  I know in my heart that I should just trust God, but the enemy was whispering in my ear that God would not take care of this situation.  The entire time I knew that I was called to the mission field and withheld that information from my employer, I felt like I was not being honest.  I was holding a secret and was living in constant fear that they would find out and fire me.  It was a huge burden and was weighing on me and causing quite a bit of stress.

It seems so silly (looking in the rearview mirror) that I would have the courage to accept the call to the foreign mission field and move my family to the other side of the world, but not have the courage to tell the bank about my plans.  As the circle of people that knew about our plans widened, I started getting more and more worried that my bosses would find out and come talk to me about what they had heard.  I wanted to be the one that went to them to initiate the conversation and not wait for them to do so.  I also needed to kick off our fundraising efforts, and the word would spread quickly, so the time had arrived.

I determined that I would spend some time in prayer and Bible reading to gear up for the conversation.  I spent my lunch hour the day before I planned to have the talk sitting at a picnic table praying and reading my Bible at a park.  A couple of related verses really spoke to me during this time:  Deuteronomy 31:6-8 where Moses told Joshua to be strong and courageous and Joshua 1:1-9 where God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous and reminds him that God would be with him wherever he goes.  These verses gave me peace and courage about my upcoming conversation.  When I got up to leave, I observed a wasp fly under the picnic table where I had been sitting.  I looked under the table and found this directly under the table precisely where I was sitting:

I had been sitting there for almost an hour with my legs inches away from these wasps and yet they never bothered me.  I feel like that was God’s way of telling me that though my bosses could sting (terminate) me, God would protect me.

With the confidence of these verses and the wasp experience, I went into the bank President’s office and told him that we were called to the mission field.  This conversation could not have gone better and I was greatly encouraged by his acceptance of this news.  I now feel like a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders and like I’ve exhaled completely for the first time in months.  I’m excited that I don’t have to hold in a secret or be careful who I tell about our future mission work.  I’m so excited to begin the next stage of this journey, fundraising.

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