Annointing Life

"We need to give up the life we planned, to get the life God meant us to have."

This quote from a friend over lunch, struck me hard.  It's exactly what happened to me, but she was referring to her own life.  I have been so blessed since giving up my home in Chicago to come to a place that scared me, a place I told God I wouldn't go... The Mideast.  I also told Him years ago I would never move to Chicago.  Ha ha, joke's on me.  No seriously, God was telling me, "I can work with you, no matter where you are, and I can bless the socks off you if you just let go and follow Me."

Okay, I need to write down our story of how this move and adventure started; before I forget.

Years ago, when Matthew was only a baby, Bogie asked me what I thought about him applying for Dept. of Defense schools overseas.  I have an adventurous spirit and Bogie explained to me that if we get Korea, it would be a one year commitment and we could move back after that year if we didn't like it.  I thought how cool it would be for us to see his place of birth, meet some of his family and learn his family's language.  Well, he applied and at the end of summer, was offered a job in Bitburg Germany.  We would have had to pull our lives together in about two weeks time, it was a two year commitment, and we thought we would never save any money being in the heart of Europe like that.  I was also still wanting to have children and didn't want to be so far away from family while still building my family.  So, we turned it down.  We didn't feel called to take the job at that time and we didn't feel called to go to Germany.
What's funny about this whole thing is that God had other plans with us.  He kindled a passion for travel in us that subsided for a time being.  We also knew God was calling for change in our lives that summer, so we gave up our apartment and moved in with Bogie's parents condo with them.  For any of you who have been to our home in Chicago, you know it's rather small.  In 3 bedrooms we fit Bogie's parents, us and baby Matthew in there.  
Well, now we had no idea what to do at this point with our residence.  We were rather crowded in that condo and I think it was wearing on Bogie's mother a little.  

Now back track about 5 or 6 months earlier... 
Bogie's parents found out about a retirement village in Chicago near the North Park Nature center.   They never had applications available because the place was so much in demand.  You couldn't even get an application to apply to live there!  And even if you did, you would have to wait years before you even stepped foot in the place.  Nevertheless, Bogie went back everyday to look for an application.  Everyday, same answer, "No".  Finally, he did get one and we were amazed.  So, they filled the application out and the waiting process for the apartment began.  We assumed it would be years...  WRONG.
Not even a month after we turned the job down in Germany, Bogie's parents were offered an apartment in that retirement village.  Wow!  God was working in that one for sure.
We had a place in Chicago to live, and Bogie's parents were taken care of.  Bogie and his parents jointly paid for the condo, so naturally the condo coming to him made sense.
It's a good thing we stayed in the states, because Bogie's dad had 3 surgeries in one year for 3 very different reasons.  His mother also broke her hip.  They needed us in Chicago to help them through it all.


Okay, now fast forward to the summer of 2009.  All dreams of moving far away were far from our minds.  Even though my sister in law told me that if we ever moved away, it would be extremely far away.  I would just smile at her.  Yeah, right... But, who knew, right?
Well... that summer Bogie went to an AP conference for Chemistry and there was a DoDDS teacher at that conference and guess where he taught?  Yep, you guessed it, in Korea.  Yep, he taught in Korea and Bogie started talking to him again about the whole thing.  He asked question after question and then came home from the conference asking me if I was interested in pursuing that dream again.  We also, like 7 years earlier, knew God was calling us for a change.  So, I said, "Sure, we're done having kids, let's try again.  We may even get Korea this time."  God was totally dangling a carrot in front of our faces.  
Bogie applied in the fall of 2009 and we started preparing our friends for our possible life change.  
We waited all school year long and we didn't get a single call until July 2010 and that was to interview for Korea.  We were pumped and excited, but nothing came of it.  We also knew from our past experience that the call might not come until the last minute.  Silly me prayed, "God I will move anywhere you send us, but the middle east."  I probably prayed that because of fear and looking back, I wonder what I was really afraid about.  It's wonderful here, but hindsight is always better than foresight.  In August of 2010, Bogie received a call to interview for Turkey.  My knee jerk reaction was to say, "no".  But I posted on FB about the call and I had so many friends jump up to tell me this is the opportunity of a lifetime and our very good friends, Del and Ruth said they would travel back to Turkey in a heartbeat.  Well, I guess that settled it, if Bogie was offered the job, we would take it.  


We knew God was calling us here.  He prepared us in ways that at the time we didn't realize He was.  We met a man who became a very good friend to us and his name is Berk.  He is a Turkish citizen and there is so much to that story that it would take me even longer to explain all the cool things that prepared us through our relationship with this friend.  How awesome God works.  We even had sweet neighbors right next door to us in our condo unit who are from Turkey.  We didn't even realize it till we told them we were moving.  I thought they were Polish.  LOL.

That's most of the story for today.  Thanks for listening.