God's ways are better than our ways!

Ps25:1-10

"In you, Lord my God, I put my trust. I trust in you; do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame, but shame will come on those who are treacherous without cause. Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, Lord, are good. Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant. "

Our Croatian visa was the first visa we had to apply for on the journey, and what an amazing revelation of God's power! During our stay in China we had to apply for our visa, but God had another plan. We searched for the embassy for almost two hours in Beijing, and when we eventually found it, the lady told us that we cannot apply for our visa, as we need a residency permit for China. The lady told us that we must apply in Russia in Moscow, and we had calmness about this which we did not understand at the time. The one thing she said we must do is to get an invitation letter from our host, as a travel visit for the team will be impossible to do. So we arranged for our host to send individual invitation letters to our host in Russia, and when I got in Russia I phoned the embassy in Moscow. Wow...was it now a struggle to speak to the guy on the other side of the phone. I even got Juanita to phone the Croatian embassy in South Africa, and she replied that they were laughing at her and mocked her. "Oh no, this is going to be a struggle" I thought. This caused me to ask the church in South Africa and Croatia to pray for the application process!

With all of this in mind, I left to Moscow on my own. Just a few days before I left our leaders from South Africa came and visited us in Russia, and they were such a blessing. They also told me that they stayed at a South African M's house in Moscow and I took take his details, as I remember that GCEX said Moscow is one of the most expensive cities to stay in. I messaged the M the last night, and I got no response. So I left for Moscow and I remember praying on the plane and asking God for the guy to respond to my message and I do not know where to go in the big city of Moscow. I thought I will land at Moscow and wait at the airport to search for accommodation, but I got a message "I am waiting for you on the other side of the Aeroexpress". An answer to prayer!!

A young afrikaans speaking friend and his wife came to pick me up, to help me go through the underground Metro, and to take me to the South African M's house! Wow, we serve truly a great God! It was great and weird at the same time to speak afrikaans to this stranger, as we haven't been speaking a lot of afrikaans on our journey! I stayed for a few days in the M's house, and I remember our leader asked me that the team should not stay in his house when they come to apply for the visa, as he need to prepare for a Christian summer camp. So I asked him to help me look for accommodation in Moscow, and he suggested that we stay at the house where he is hosting the summer camp, and we must help with preparing the place for the camp. Amazingly we are staying for free!!

The day before the team arrived in Moscow, which was Monday, I went to the embassy to find out whether we have the correct application forms and supporting documents. Wow, I met the most amazing guy behind the counter, who was not at all the person I spoke to on the phone and he told me that we have enough information to apply for the visas. Yeaah! He also informed me that we can apply for normal visas, which will be 35Euros and it will take 7days. We can then pick up our visas in Turkey, as they will send everything through to Istanbul when we are there. This sounded like a fantastic plan, as the other visas we can apply for is an express visa, which is 71Euros (R1050) and will take 3 days. I really wanted to save money so the plan was to apply for the normal visa. So the team arrived on Tuesday and we filled in our new application forms at the train station. We then left with our backpacks to the embassy and upon arrival there I briefed the team about the application process and that we will apply for a normal visa. We went inside and the nice guy suggested that we apply for the express visa, which was a shock to me, but he said that we will need to hand in all our documents in Istanbul as well and this is not possible for us. So we prepared ourselves to pay 71Euros for the visas.

This is where the rest of the miracle happened for us! We gathered all our documents, including our personal invitation letters, and we started applying for our visas one by one. When Justin applied, the guy picked up a discrepancy with our financial status, as the company name on the bank statement and the finance lady's email did not match. We realised the situation and stuttered some excuses, but his response was "I have a friend that does adventure camping and I understand". What!? What shocked me the most was when Thuli applied for her visa the guy told her that her name is misspelled on the invitation letter and she cannot enter the country. He just told her that "I will submit the application, but I cannot promise anything". By God's Grace he still submitted the visa application, but we realised that we might not get the visas! With all the visas submitted we had to pay at a certain bank which was not at the embassy offices, and on our way there I looked at the receipt I realised that we were only charged for a normal visa, but we applied for an express visa. God is AMAZING!

With our visas submitted we headed to the M's ministry house, which is just outside of Moscow. The house is under construction and 40% completed, so none of the bathrooms, i.e. showers and toilets were finished, the kitchen was used by the builders and needed cleaning, the floors were covered by cement and dust, a lot of furniture needed to be moved and the outside needed to be cleaned and grass be trimmed, and the long-drop toilet had to be painted. Upon arrival at the house we constructed a covering for the communal temporary shower, cleaned all the rubble inside the house and cleaned the kitchen so that we could prepare food for ourselves.

The next day I phoned the embassy, as I remembered that the guy told me that I must phone to check whether Thuli's application was rejected, but to my shock the guy told me that we can come an collect all our visas! What?! God is truly amazing! We got our visas in 1 day!

We continued for 3 days to prepare the house and we were busy from the morning early to late afternoon. What we realised was that the M would not have finished on his own to clean and prepare the house for ministry if we had not been there. God had re-directed our paths to Moscow to meet a M, who will provide free accommodation for us and we will also be a blessing to him by helping him to prepare his ministry house? He has made the application for the visas in Beijing difficult, but very easy in Moscow! God's ways are definitely better than our ways!

I was also challenged with the thing of how much things in my life am I asking God for direction, or am I just ask for blessings on the way. It’s enough to just ask God for a blessing, and not to follow what He has planned in my life. To follow wholeheartedly what He has planned and in that way be a blessing to God as well! So are you asking God for directions in your life? Is He leading the way or are you?