Following God's Voice

Many are wondering why we left China.  It has been the first question that most people ask.  I have a feeling that because we love China and were very sad to leave that people think that something happened that caused us to leave.

I just want to clear things up, we were not asked to leave, nothing happened that caused us to get hurt and want to leave, we really just felt because God was leading us back to America.  We do love China and we will always have a special place in our heart for China. We loved the experience, the culture, the people and the friends and relationships we built there.  We have so many great memories there.  (All three kids were born in China!) So it's easy to understand why someone might be asking . . . "Why did you leave?"

I believe it was a year ago that my husband was really feeling unsettled in his job and began to seek God for guidance.  My Husband knew he wasn't going to sign another contract at his job, but we really wanted to stay in China.  So we began to pray that God would bring something to us.  There were several things that did come up, but as we looked into them and sought God's guidance, we didn't feel that those were the things that God had in mind for us.  Time was running out, our job was coming to an end and God still hadn't made anything clear yet.  So we planned to pack up and head back to America.  When we made this decision it was made evident to us that that was what we were suppose to be doing.  Oh, how God provided for us!

We moved to China about 6 months after we were married and have been there ever since.  Spending all that time away, our families really haven't had a chance to get to know the respective spouse and us as a couple.  We also had three kids who don't really know their grandparents and cousins.  We want to spend time with our family and our family to be able to spend time with our children.  We also want our kids to get to know America!

We had been in China for almost 8 years!  It was a great time of learning and growing, but it was about time for a break.  Life can be hard in China, if you want to cook Western food, you have to make things from scratch (sometimes even making the ingredients from scratch, --- one time I had to make corn syrup).  All the attention we and our kids get because we have white skin and light colored hair can be very overwhelming.  Because of the language and culture, anything we do ends up taking a lot more time than you think.  We enjoyed the challenge of learning and using another language, but that can also be tiring, It's hard work!!  And no matter how well you know a culture there is always something that happens that just makes you go "huh?!".  After 8 years we have learned to expect the unexpected, because it will happen!  So I say all that to say, we need a break from it all and come back to America and rest.

So as we began to make plans to head back to America we were given a financial gift which was such a huge blessing!! We were able to bring stuff back from America and then have some money to live while we looked for a job and also buy a car.  Also, once we got settled into my mother's place, my husband began to look for a job.  He did not look for very long and it was only 2 weeks when he was offered a job that he really wanted!  It's amazing that during this time when people are losing jobs, or jobs are very few that we find a job in just 2 weeks!!  It is the perfect job for him and he is loving it!!  We really feel that God has had his hand on us through this whole thing and as things work out, we really feel that we are exactly where God wants us to be.  God is taking care of us!! and we are so blessed and thankful.

We don't know how long we'll stay in America. We hope to rest and spend quality time with family.  We would love to go back overseas, but as of right now we don't have any plans set for that.  We will continue to seek God and listen for his voice to lead us.