Domestic or foreign, mission field or everyday life, we can find ourselves getting hung up on surface details when we meet with big or small challenges.
Rose Perry (younger sister of Lisa who shared on this blog in November 2016) served as a teacher for missionary children in Mozambique for 3 years. This past fall, Rose has been serving at an orphanage in South Africa while she’s been planning to update her visa to a more permanent status. I’ll let her tell how God has worked through the experience to help her see past the obstacles to find trust in Him.
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There are countless stories that run through my mind of how I see God at work around me and in spite of me. I could share stories of life in southern Africa – learning a language, building relationships, and caring for orphans, or being stuck alone in airports with no place to go, or visa impossibilities, or what God has been teaching me about fear and courage and mercy.
But I think I’ll just share what God is doing in this season right now.
In December, I returned to the States for a visit. One of the things I needed to do was apply for my visa in Chicago, to be able to return to Africa. There was so much required paperwork and I spent weeks working through the list to get everything together. The obstacle walls were high and there were a couple things on the requirements list that I simply didn’t have. One of the obstacles being, that I was going to have to make a trip back to Africa, to get some paperwork, that could only be retrieved in-person. Don’t you just love and hate these times?! When you know it’s only God who can accomplish what needs to happen? And there is no other way around it. Enter some anxiety, desperation, prayer, and a faithful Father! And God is bigger than all the difficulties, so guess what? I got the visa!
Though I have the visa in hand now, there are still many unknowns in this next season- where I’m going to live, how I’m going to buy a car, what exactly is my new job position is going to look like, etc… My nature is to forget His faithfulness and turn to anxiety and fear. 
This morning I read 1 Samuel 28-30. Saul and David, in two different situations, are both faced with incredible calamity and a vast army coming against them. Saul’s response: ‘he becomes frantic’ and then later is ‘paralyzed with fright’. David’s response: ‘But David found strength in the Lord his God.’
So how do I see God working around me? I see Him teaching me in this season. I see Him moving mountains in my hard heart and mountains in the visa office and mountains in the orphan-care ministry in South Africa. And then when I am still feeling anxious and fearful, He leans in and whispers exactly what He knows I need to hear today: Take courage. You are not a slave to fear. Find your strength in the Lord.
The Lion Is Alive 