Out Of Options
The
coastal town
hadn't worked out and Kristin's visa extension was running
out so we had to leave the country again, but where to? China's air was
too toxic for Kristin, USA had been a
disaster, and all countries in Asia that
we wanted to try had been tried. Four years after leaving southeast Asia, we were back in southeast Asia, but out of options this time.
We were also out of friends. People don't want to associate with those dealing with spiritual warfare or dissociative identity disorder or borderline personality disorder, and Kristin and I were dealing with all three of them. We didn't know anyone else in the world from whom to seek help and even those who had prayed with us in the beginning had long since given up and withdrawn from us.
It felt like we had reached the end of the rope but giving up was not an option, so I pulled up a map of the world to find other options, which were expanded by my not returning to China for a ninth semester of teaching but also limited by the end of that income source, as well as the recognition that I can no longer earn an income by teaching since I cannot abide by pro-homosexuality policies.
I prayed and then combed through the map of the world twice looking for a new option that the Lord may be granting us in the regions where we hadn't yet been to but came up empty both times. I knew Europe well but it was a spiritual wasteland and too expensive. Canada also was a spiritual wasteland and fast becoming overtly anti-Christian. In fact, while driving across America looking for churches that may be able to help us, Kristin and I had driven into Canada but had left after just two days because she said the country had what she called a strong smell of death. I knew a missionary sister who was serving in the South American jungle, but that was no place to take someone fighting spiritual warfare and dealing with dissociative identity disorder and borderline personality disorder.
Then I saw in the middle of the world map the small country of Israel. I had visited Israel a decade earlier and found many of the "biblical" sites in Jerusalem to be fakes owned by the Catholics to try to boost their status or by the Jews to fleece Christian tourists. But the real Golgotha and the real tomb of Jesus' resurrection had been discovered in the 19th century just outside Old Jerusalem, and visiting them had electrified my faith.