Provision - miracle #1

God is a good gift-giver and loves blessing His children.  That's who He is.

We have been a little discouraged at the price of things here in Uruguay.  If you know me, I hate to spend money, and everything we are looking at - from outfitting our house, to buying a vehicle, to going out to lunch - is extremely expensive.  It's almost as if you went to JCPenny and tried outfitting your home from their selection of show room material - and that's the low end stuff.  For some of you, this may not be a problem, but for me, raised on garage sales and, more recently, spoiled with things like Craigslist, it is difficult.  I like getting nice things at a fraction of the cost, which is nearly impossible here.

Sunday morning, I was sitting having a little quiet time with my Jesus, sharing my concerns with Him.  All along, we have known that God would supply us for this assignment He has given us, I was just having a hard time getting my mind to accept what my heart was believing.  I read about how Abram went after Lot when Lot was captured, how Abram recaptured Lot and brought back the goods and people that had been seized, and how the king of Sodom told Abram that Abram could keep all the goods he captured.  Abram responded by making it clear that man would not be receiving the credit for Abram's blessings, but that God would get the credit for providing, and it would be clear that God was responsible.  With that, I rested.  I asked God if there was anything He wanted me to be doing as I waited.  I listened for a few minutes and heard God's voice instructing me to look up the ex-pat community (i.e. English speakers that have moved here from other countries) here in Montevideo.  I looked it up and posted something about our arrival and asked if anyone was selling anything.

I left it at that and went and enjoyed my Kayden's birthday.  Late last night, I returned to the computer and discovered someone had written me about a moving sale from 4:30-6:30.  I had missed it and felt the sting of frustration.  I e-mailed the people and asked if they had anything left over.  This morning I awoke to an e-mail that they had a lot of things left and that I was invited to come take a look.  I called a colleague, and he graciously took me to the other side of town to look at the stuff.  We entered the apartment and began looking around.  Everything was very nice, and the prices I was hearing were good, but expensive.  Two bedroom sets, a fridge, washer/dryer combo, a big flat screen tv, a coffee table, end table, lamps, towels, rugs, paintings, floor scrubber, 5 chairs, desk, leather office chair, coffee grinder, plus a bunch of house decorations.  A bunch of stuff that was all within two years old. The people are wealthy and are selling their apartment and needed everything gone by tomorrow.  I asked them to give me a price for everything.  They went into their office and returned in ten minutes with a price of $3,500 for everything.  My jaw dropped, and I hope it wasn't too obvious.  To buy things separately would have been outrageous.  The fridge itself, new, costs $1,000, the washer/dryer, new, about $900, beds run around $1,000 each, not to mention the set that came with it.  I called Timbrel, and we agreed to the price.

Then the part about moving it all. They live in a high-rise apartment, and the elevators here are tiny. They need it gone by tomorrow (Tuesday), and we are not supposed to sign on our apartment until Thursday.  To move things can be very expensive, and we are going to have to do it twice, since we are moving it into storage (storage location also provided by God) for a few days until our apartment is ready.  We went and spoke with a moving company, (conveniently located right next door to their apartment building) and the price they gave us will move it twice for less than we thought it would take to move it once.  Tomorrow morning at 9:30 the pick-up begins.

God is good, and His word never fails.  His timing is right.  Seek Him, listen, and obey, no matter how hard it is to wait or obey.  Our strength is renewed.  Now we wait for a vehicle and the rest of the things we will need.  On paper, we need more money for both outfit and vehicle funds, but God is not limited to paper, as today proves. Wait, pray, and trust with us.