I think one of the most difficult parts of our decision to go on the world race was the financial aspect of it. When you do the math and think about financial implications of this trip it seems like a really bad idea. Yet we felt like we were suppose to do it anyway. So Michael and I worked to find a way that we could cover most of the costs without much assistance from others, and without having to stop paying on our mortgage. I have a second job and I take all the income from that and put it toward our trip. This has worked out well, but is not nearly enough to cover all of our costs.
We decided together that since Michael had a CDL license he could make very good money fairly quickly with him doing over the road trucking. We did the math and figured out that if he did that up until the point that we left we would be nearly covered. Since the whole point was to make money, he took the highest paying position. This meant being on the road 28 days straight and home for 4 days. We knew that it would be tough, but felt like it was the best way to meet our needs.
So Michael went out for work and we were both unhappy, but we were dealing with the situation the best we could. We were counting down the 28 days. Then the 29th day came, and he wasn’t allowed to come home. He was dropped off 4 hours away with about 2 days notice and told to figure it out. I had to work, and didn’t have time to drive 8 hours to get him after work and still function the next day. So when the weekend came he had spent 3 days off work (away from home) and we decided that it was not worth it. Money was not worth giving up our relationship. So I went and picked him up for good.
As I was driving to pick him up obviously the thought “what are we going to do now” came into my head. Then I came to the great realization that what we really needed to do all along was trust that if God wants us to do this, He will provide. We had done all the planning, calculating, and figuring, but what we really needed was to trust. I think that for both of us the hardest thing for us to trust God for in is the finances, so we didn’t. We figured out how to do it ourselves, we were determined that this part was going to be done under our power…but it seems that God had other plans.
We are now trying to look at the finances of this trip as a faith building experience. Not to say that we have stopped doing our part, because we are still putting as much as we can toward our trip, but our mentality is changing. I still have a really hard time not doing the math at least once a week as to how we are going to make it work. Our prayer is that God will provide some wonderful people to stand behind us and support this mission. But in the end we don’t know how we will be provided for…but God does. And when God provides for our needs it will be a much better testament to His power than us doing it all by ourselves.
