Story time; why I’m moving to Latvia

You see, I actually believe that God has plans for our lives, plans more crazy,  maybe dangerous, beautiful, challenging but ultimately better than we could ever imagine or make up for ourselves. And I know for sure, that if you invite Him into decision making and ask for His opinion and His plans He won’t leave you hanging. He also won’t let you just live for yourself. As your father He wants the very best for you and no matter what you think, living for him is always the right way.
People raise their eyebrows when I tell them I’m moving to Lativa for approximatly half a year. I’d like to invite you to read this little story – it’s the story of how God opened the doors for me to go to Riga. It’s a story about God’s guidance and God’s goodness.

April 13, 2017 – Los Angeles: In front of us were sheets of paper with long lists of different countries. We were praying for the nations and all of a sudden a six letter words caught my eye. Latvia. A small country in Eastern Europe, that’s all I know about it, but something starts stirring in me. It felt like God took a big highlighter and marked that little country for my inner eye.
Later that afternoon I did a quick google search about it and wrote down in my journal “…Latvia? has human trafficking“. And then I thought to myself that it sounded like a cold place, not somewhere I would prefer to go, and then I didn’t think about it for a long time.

July 11, 2017 – Canada: I visited my friend on the canadian prairie and on a Tuesday night we headed over to join her young adults group for a camp fire. The youth pastor was asking me about my life, my dreams and what’s next. In all honesty I told him that the only certain plan for the future is joining a baptist camp in Norway the following month. Then something unexpected happened. When I mentioned that camp the Holy Spirit started speaking to him, and he prophesied over me, that in Norway would meet somebody that I would get to be something for.

August 5, 2017 – Norway: Sitting by the lake, enjoying some quiet time on the first night of the camp. I’m blessed to be there, but also asking myself what I’m actually doing. Ultimately I’m here to visit my friend, but she’s on the worship team and I don’t really have a role to play.
I see a young girl sitting on the shore all by herself and wonder how she’s doing. A lady tells me the girl is from Latvia and my heart almost skips a beat, as I remember that day back in Los Angeles where the Lord spoke to me about this specific country. The Latvian teenage girl and I end up hanging out that whole week. She doesn’t really know anybody and doesn’t speak Norwegian, so we are in the same boat. By the end of that week I couldn’t help but think, that she was the fulfillment of that word the Canadian youth pastor had given to me. From this point forward I was convinced that the Lord was trying to tell me something about this little nation in the Baltic Sea.

December 3, 2017 – Denmark: Fall 2017 was a great season of working and enjoying my family, church and home town. As December came around restlessness started to stir in me. I didn’t know what I was working towards. On this date I wrote in my journal: “Lord, I would really like to know if you’re sending me off again, so I know what I’m working towards. Please, speak soon.” And he did. He started to speak about seasons, about patience and trust, and reminded me how he promised me the future wouldn’t leave without me. I felt like he was speaking about seasons in a very literary manner, and stagnant frustration was replaced with anticipation and excitement.

January 1, 2018 – Denmark: On the very first day of 2018 I sat down with God and tried to cast some visions for the year. As an act of faith I wrote down “go and see Latvia”. I knew the Lord had said something about it, I just wasn’t sure what exactly it was – all I had was day dreams of working with a social justice ministry in the city.
On this cold January night I decided to look up a ministry in Latvia called Freedom61. Before I went to bed that night I shot them a message…
Turns out that every little detail of this ministry ligns up with my (seemingly) random daydreams of living in Eastern Europe. I will spare you for the details, but in August I’m hopping on a plane to Riga.

This process took place over a span time of eight months. For weeks on end I could do nothing but hold on to the few things the Lord had already said and choose to trust that he had a plan better than what I could come up with. And sure enough – he did show me what was on his mind. In his timing of course.
Besides patience, I’ve learned how easy it is to say yeah, I want to do God’s will, yeah, I trust God with my life, yeah, this and that – but if he doesn’t do it the way we want him to it’s even easier to get anxious and doubt if he really meant it when he said he wants to give you a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).
When God gave that promise to his people they still waited for 70 years before God brought them out Babylon, where they had been taken captive (side note: and he actually told them to just live life with excellence in the meantime). Do you actually believe that God cares enough about you to guide your life? If you doubt it, give him some time to prove you wrong.