I need to take leave I don't have (Sign No. 2)

So this week, a colleague asked me if I had ever done any mission work overseas and if I had any advice. So I asked in response, where are you planning to go?  He said, oh this place you've probably never heard of called BBB.

!!!  So as it turns out, I have been on 4 mission trips in my life, and 3 of them were to... BBB!  So of course I shared all the stuff I knew about the place.

And if you've read my last post, you know I'm planning to recount at least 20 signs from God for each year that I have been His friend.  So here are a few more...

I first heard of BBB from my pastor sometime in 2006.  The previous year, I had just taken the family on our first mission trip to Japan, which was mostly spent in the suburbs around Tokyo.  The kids were then only 1 and 3 years old, and now, one year on, I thought we could ramp up the difficulty level!

But at the same time, I was also just about to leave the first and only job I ever had after a good 7 years.  I had interviewed at a bunch of places, but literally no offer was forthcoming, mainly because I had no relevant skills!

Recruiters were telling me that there was no way I could find an in-house position unless I joined private practice first, which was not something I was keen to do at the time.  Finally though, I found an opening.  The company was willing to interview me because they had a major rule-writing project they needed to deliver that year.

Just as I was going through a series of interviews with various people in the company, the dates of the BBB trip were published.  They were in November-December.  It was now May.  I would only have accumulated half a year's worth of leave by then.  It was not enough.  And it was perilously close to the project delivery dates that they were hiring me for in the first place.

I was of course worried, afraid, even terrified that this could lose me the one job opening I had found.  I did think that, well the kids are only 2 and 4, so we can't survive the mission conditions anyway, and we can always do the trip next year.  But I knew the BBB trip was something God wanted me to do.  I also knew that if He wanted me to have this job, it would be done.  He. Would. Make. A. Way.

So I called up my prospective employer and said, I want to work here.  But I need to take all my leave in a couple of months.  And you need to give me some extra unofficial leave too.

A (nervous) week or two later, I got the job.  Amazing.  It was impossible, but God made a way.  It was utterly unmerited favour.
 
Even more amazingly, 10 years later, I'm still here (less a two-year hiatus in between, that will need to be explained as Sign No. X in a later post).  There have been some majorly hairy moments, but I've loved working here, working on things that last, and making friends that last.

And that trip?  Yup, we went.  The massive work project was completed after many long nights and much being yelled at, but it was done.  Official and unofficial leave, taken.  2 year old, often still in a pram, coming along. 4 year old too.  Never been to a village, never been to BBB, never mind a mission trip out there.  Can't even speak the language properly.

But 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says:
That is why [Jesus] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me... for when I am weak, then I am strong.

And therefore, when in BBB, even more signs.  Why?  Because when I am weak, Christ's power may rest on me!  But more on that in my next instalments :)

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