Thursday, August 23, 2018

When Following God Leads to Lonliness

God never said the road would be easy. He never said it would smooth. He only said,”Take up your cross and follow me.”

I’ve felt a lot like Jonah lately. I know God is calling us to move. I know there is a really good reason.  And, unlike Jonah , I do know that the people we are going to be with are worthy of the gospel. But, I’m revolting a little in my spirit. I selfishly will miss our home. I’ll miss our life here where we are so comfortable. I’ll miss the people we call friends. I will miss our Homeschool group. I will miss
my family and our dogs. This part is breaking my heart.

I’m already connecting with people in Hong Kong and that is very exciting. I’m trying to be joyful in this part of the journey, but honestly I’m very tired. Physically, mentally, spiritually.

As with anything, when you decide to follow God’s calling for His purpose, Satan rears his ugly head and wreaks havoc. Try’s to steer you back to the easy path. The path of comfort. Tries to cause you to doubt. Tries to ruin friendships.

We have to move forward in faith.

Moving and change is very hard in more ways than one. The effort it takes to pack and organize. The goodbyes. It is a very lonely time. What makes this time worse is that something amazing and overwhelming is occurring in our family, but everyone else is moving forward and caught up in their life as it is. I feel some people don’t really fathom what we are going through right now. Others are extremely supportive and helpful. Others have dismissed us already. Maybe because they don’t want to have to say goodbye? Maybe the friendships weren’t as strong as we thought they were? Maybe it is just the busy season with school being back in session.

But, the Bible does say people are in your life for seasons. We have been through a lot of seasons in our life. We know that there were people in each season who were there for us right when we needed them.

This season has been no different. We have new friends.  We have old friends. We have those friends who will be there in our lives no matter what, no matter where we are. And to those friends you make this challenge bearable.

To those of you wondering where we are when we used to be present at church or events. We are packing. It takes a lot to purge everything you own and determine what will be worth taking up space in a small apartment! I’m thinking our flat in HK will be no different than our house here- covered in toys and Legos. 😜

For those of you who can’t be present in person, prayers are needed now more than ever.

The Cheung’s Adventure begins September 19 for Gary and November 3 for Anna and Declan. We appreciate everything. We love you guys.

We will have new phone numbers then. We will have a new address. Our best form of communication for a while will be email and Facebook. We also will be using an app on our phones called WhatsApp.

And, if any of you are adventurous, look us up when you visit Hong Kong! We will definitely welcome visitors and the simple things like granola bars and deodorant! Lol.