“Could you please step over here, sir?”
To his credit, the TSA agent was cordial. The graveyard shift at the international terminal of the Atlanta airport was certainly not the ideal working environment.
“Would you empty your bag of all its contents?”
Although he formed it as a question, you could tell it was an order. I racked my brain as to what could possibly be in my bag.
Ah, the gun, I always forget about the dang gun.
“Yes, uh, sir I’m so sorry. You see my wife and I are moving to Guatemala, and she likes to craft and….”
Just tell the man it’s not a gun you dummy.
“It’s not real!” I finally blurt out as I show him the hot glue gun.
After taking a look at the pink glue gun and shuffling through the rest of my things the TSA agent mumbles, “Guatemala, eh? What got you to leave and head down there?”
“I guess the question should be who, not what,” I countered.
“Oh, okay.” The agent said, seemingly uninterested in my response. “Well enjoy your time down there. Be safe.”
As the man walked away I just couldn’t resist.
“It was God, he got us to leave!”
The man stopped and turned towards me to ponder my words for a brief second.
“Well like I said, be safe and, God bless ya’ll.”
And with that he was gone. As I collected my things and began walking to meet up with Kimberly, I let my mind re-live the past 3 months our life. How did we end up moving to Guatemala?
I guess the answer to that is simple. It was totally a God thing, plain and simple. But the journey that got us to the Atlanta airport on a rainy morning in September has many twists, turns, stories and lessons.
Please, sit back and enjoy the ride, that is — #LietteLife.
It was week 6 of our 50-week global missions trip. Thus far, Kimberly and I had visited 7 countries.
Holland, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo and Bulgaria.
Everything had been going smoothly and God had really been at work in our lives and the lives of the team around us.
Then everything changed one night in Sofia, Bulgaria.
We got word through multiple sources that someone from our base back in Georgia needed to speak with us, ASAP.
So, we grabbed the laptop and ran to the roof to find some sort of wireless internet signal.
15 minutes later our world was rocked.
The mission’s organization wanted to send us to a marriage conference. Why? Well to be blunt, we really needed it. Our relationship was leaps and bounds from where it should have been.
Imagine, that, two full time missionaries had a tattered marriage.
So, we accepted the generous invitations under one condition. We return to the mission field when the conference ended. If only we had known the plan God was preparing for us instead.
“So, where is this conference anyway?”
“Actually, it’s here.”
“As in Georgia?” I asked in disbelief. “You do realize we are a 16 hour jumbo jet ride from you, don’t you?”
“We are well aware of your location. You and Kimberly’s tickets have already been purchased. We’re so excited to see you next week! We love you guys more than you know.”
“Uh, okay. This is all just a little bit crazy.”
“Yes it is.” The man on the other end stated. “Just remember, this is for you guys, not to you.”
And with that, the Skype call ended and everything worked out exactly as we planned it.
Except… it didn't.
The awesome thing about that is that if everything had worked out exactly as we planned it, we would have totally missed out on what God had planned for us. And what God has planned for us is always so much better than anything we could come up with.
You see, God likes us to trust him completely, even when it makes absolutely no sense. It’s interesting that we as humans often try to fight against the creator of the universe.
Which brought us to Lesson #1.
Don’t try to fight with the creator of the universe. He may let you think you are winning, but He will eventually get His way. That’s when you realize all the effort you put into your own plan really just delayed what God inevitably wanted to happen.
So, getting back to the story, we had a week before we were to leave Bulgaria. What were we supposed to think? What were we supposed to do?
I wish I could tell you that eventually God opened a door and the next day we were off to Guatemala, but that just didn’t happen. God wasn’t ready for us to go yet. So, we waited. Just like you will have to do to hear the rest of this story.
Subscribe to our blog to get updates whenever we post a new blog. It’s also the easiest way I can tell you to find out when the rest of this story is published.
You may also want to follow both Kimberly and I on Twitter. It's easy– @bradyliette or @kimmayann.
