Our family moved to Thailand as residents in 1992. We expected to be there for about 5 years and then would move to another place with World Vision. After Jeremy's accident in 1993 we knew that we did not want to move until the children had graduated from the International School in Bangkok. Jeremy had such wonderful support at the school, Justin was two years behind Jeremy and had been there since 5th grade and Amanda was further behind but had been at the school since 2nd grade. It was a great surprise when we were told that since Bryan had completed his job of setting up Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) and Myanmar (Burma) with field directors that were now autonomous....we were going to be moved to Africa. Jeremy still needed the supports that were so readily available at the school in Bangkok and we believed that we needed to stay there. Therefore, Bryan resigned from World Vision after nearly 19 1/2 years.
This was a difficult separation for me. Throughout the time we had been in the USA with Jeremy in rehabilitation I had received a phone call daily from Sheryl Watkins to encourage us. To me World Vision was like a family and the loss of that was very difficult. But moving from Bangkok before the children finished school was unacceptable.
Bryan worked for some time with an import company selling furniture.....then the economy crashed and this company withdrew from Thailand. Finally Bryan was hired by Unocal.....an oil company as their director of Organization Development. It was a wonderful job for him and he loved working there with all the staff.
Now through each of those changes although I had felt great anxiety, I also felt such confidence that God would work things out for us to care of our children and provide for them....most of the time.
A new director had come to Unocal and within a short time the department of Organization Development was to be closed. Bryan was called in and told that his services would no longer be needed. By this time Jeremy had finished school and Justin was nearing the end of his college education. Amanda was just starting college and finding the adjustment to the USA a difficult one. She had lived in Thailand for 10 years and returning to her passport country and going to school with all strangers was an adjustment.....it had been for each of the children but it was quite difficult for her.... Oswald Chambers writes, "When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God. But our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His name have an underlying confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the ones who are reliable."
We stayed in Thailand for several months seeing if there was a new job for Bryan. It seemed to make sense since he speaks several South East Asian languages. But God had other plans.....so on July 4, 2004, we returned to the USA....with no job..... A very scary place to be. Usually the children move back home with their parents but in our case, we moved in with the kids and Bryan began the long process of job hunting and I returned to the workforce.
While we were living in Bangkok.....we were very active in our church.....Chaengwattana Community Church. Because the community was so small, everyone knew the changes we were facing. Several of the women came to me to encourage me.....and I keep in my Bible a note from one of the Japanese ladies to whom I was teaching English.....encouraging me to keep my eyes focused on God during this time. Bryan and I were on the worship team at Church and so each week we would stand up in front and sing songs about trusting God during difficult times, songs about God molding us into the people that He wants us to be....and this was difficult occasionally for me but mostly was encouraging to remember how faithful God had been throughout the years. Singing praise has always raised my spirits.
As the months went on and the job for Bryan seemed allusive, we would both feel this great building of increased tension. Oswald Chambers continues, "Yet our trust is only in God up to a certain point, then we turn back to the elementary panic-stricken prayers of those people who do not even know God. We come to our wits’ end, showing that we don’t have even the slightest amount of confidence in Him or in His sovereign control of the world. To us He seems to be asleep, and we can see nothing but giant, breaking waves on the sea ahead of us." It is during these times of extended waiting that we can see how much we have grown in our faith and trust in God. "But it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to place our trust in Him, the crisis will reveal that we can go to the point of breaking, yet without breaking our confidence in Him."
Bryan was offered a job with Chevron. It was very different from the one he had been hired for with Unocal but a good job using his education and skills. This meant we needed to move from Los Angeles and being close to the children to northern California. I was surprised at how easy this transition was.....not because Bryan had a job but because we knew that God was going before us and preparing the way. Oswald Chambers writes, "It (becoming more like Him) will be expressed in our lives as a peaceful resting in God, which means a total oneness with Him."
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