We were planning to leave Asia for America in May of this year, but in Feb. we got word that S's Grandpa was dying, so we decided to leave as soon as we could. We arrived back in America on April 1st instead. Unfortunately S' Grandfather passed away before we arrived.
Our biggest concern was finding someone to manage our business while we were away for 9 months. A few weeks before our departure date, two ladies came to us and said that they would manage it for us. I thought, "Wow! God answered our prayers. Praise God!" I worked with them for several days to go over all the information and books.
THEN, three days before we were to leave, the ladies came to me to tell me that they wouldn't be able to manage the business. I didn't panic right away because my faith was still strong. But about 30 minutes later I started to freak out. I told a teammate that he would now be in charge and I was turning over all my heavy burden to him. He was gracious enough to try to take it all on himself and told us not to worry about it. Although he and his family were leaving the country within a couple weeks of our departure. I admit, I was disappointed in this "answer" to our prayers.
On our way back to America we stopped in another country to visit friends who previously lived in Asia. While we were with them they told us how they felt God might be wanting them to move back to Asia and that they wanted to work with us in our business. This was a HUGE change for them and they weren't ready at that time to say they were 100% sure, but that they wanted to make a decision in a couple weeks. We tried not to get our hopes up having just had them dashed. But these friends would be perfect! We talked together of how wonderful it would be to have them back as our friends and better yet, to work together. But we didn't want to influence them for the wrong reasons so we tried to remain calm.
A few weeks later we got an email from them stating that they were now 100% sure that they were moving back to Asia and would run the business for us until we got back and then we could work together in it. Six weeks later they moved and are now there, in our house, taking care of everything for us.
I learned that God doesn't always answer when we think He should. I was putting a time limit on God, thinking that my problem had to be worked out by such and such a date and I had all the faith that He would answer by that date. I mean, He just HAD to. But, His plan was even better then I could have imagined. I see how God worked in our friends' life too during this time. If we had the business taken care of before, they might have thought that there wasn't a place for them in Asia. So again, in God's perfect timing, not mine, He has done exceedingly and abundantly more than I could have asked our thought. Now we have them as teammates in the business. Through them God supplied for another need in our lives, the need of a partner. They aren't just there for the 9 months, but for the long term. YEAH GOD! I could go on and on about how perfect it is, but you get the point. We love them. God brought back our friends.
