Now faith is…

the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen. He 11:1

Our family was living in a nice house surrounded by rock walls patrolled by guards 24/7. We were safe but not sound. God was leading us to a difficult place in our relationship with Rafiki leadership. Private discussions were not going well. I sensed that God may be preparing us to take new steps of faith, trusting Him for the unseen. I shared with my children that we may soon leave our secure home, and that I had no idea where we would live next. We needed to pray together. The next day my youngest son, John, approached me with a big smile on his face and with a look of certainty in his eyes. “Dad, we should go find a house tomorrow after church. Then we could move in next week.” He had prayed and now he was sure. I mustered all the self-control I could to bite my tongue as the words crashed against the back of my front teeth, “that’s impossible!”. Instead I said, “sure, let’s give it a try”. Keep in mind that I had no idea how to find property for rent in Nairobi. “For rent” signs are not posted, real estate agents do not work on Sunday and there were just too many details involved that John did not understand. Mel and the girls wisely let John and I go alone for our search. As we left church, we “just happened” to see a teacher from John’s school walking to lunch. Teacher Jay accepted a ride from us and “just happened” to mention there may be a rent house available nearby. We drove by the house and found nobody home. After taking Jay to his lunch spot, we drove back to the house and “just happened” to meet the residents who were new owners of the house. It was no longer available for rent but the owner was sure the house next door was available. As we got in our car to leave a guard “just happened” to come down the street and offered to open the gate so we could walk around the outside of the vacant house. He took our phone number and offered to have the owner call us next day. By Tuesday our family had toured the house and made a decision. On Saturday we moved into our new house in a neighborhood appropriately named “Whispers’. I missed God’s whisper, but John heard it loud and clear. Our family is taking bigger steps of faith… together.