Submitted by: I.L. who migrated from Diamond Bar, CA to Columbus, OH in 2008 to serve full-time in a job-dropping way.
What is the spiritual highlight of your migration?
Migration has started me on the pathway of learning to trust the Lord in the Body for everything. Before I migrated and as I was considering it, I was unsure if the Lord would have me go to Champaign or Columbus. So, after I submitted the applications for those two cities, I just began to purge and pack. As I was packing, I was also wondering how I was going to get my things and my car over to the Midwest. The cost of shipping the items and my car was way too much for me to bear alone. This caused me to have hundreds of conversations with the Lord and to also fellowship and pray with some members in the Body. One week before I was to leave, the Lord worked out all of the details in a way that only He can. A family from Irvine who was also moving to Columbus had just enough space in their moving truck for my things. Also, a young sister developed a burden to drive with me across the country and then to fly back. This sister had just gotten a new job working for a dear couple who allowed her to take her one week vacation early. We enjoyed much blending with each other and with the saints that we stayed with along the way. We were also impressed with the vastness of the country and need of the Lord’s spreading. In Columbus, the saints had arranged for every detail of my living. They even provided the bed sheets and comforter for my bed. On the one hand, I enjoyed the Lord’s provision in the Body and on the other hand, there was a cutting off of my own choices and preferences. I began to and am still realizing the ramifications of migration. Outwardly I was moving from one place to another. Inwardly there was the beginnings of a realization that my life is cast on the Lord and that I have no liberty to go back to my old way of living. Since pretty much nothing was familiar to me in Columbus, I had to depend more than ever on the Lord and on His Body. Also, because we were on the front lines (so to say) to retake the ground in the Midwest area, there was much attack on and wearing down of the saints in the church and the serving team. However, I had never experienced such a flowing of life and abundance of grace before that time.
Is there anything else you would like to explain or share?
Although I am still very much learning how to live in the church life, it seems that migration caused me to lose my “training wheels.” I came from a wonderful and healthy locality where there was much supply, structure and fellowship. I was in this kind of fostering environment for 13 years minus the two year in FTTA. However, toward the end of my stay there, I had an undeniable urge to get out of Southern California. When the co-workers began to fellowship with the saints about migrating to the cities within the US, something inside of me was leaping. Matthew 24:14 “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations and then the end shall come” began to resound in my being. The Lord provided an opportunity for me to leave my job and begin serving full-time on the Cal Poly campus until the time was right for me to go. My thought was to get some experience serving the Lord in Diamond Bar for a year and then migrate to the Midwest for five years. After that, I would go abroad to Europe. However, that was not the Lord’s mind. I served in Diamond Bar for only five months, lived and served in Columbus, OH for just a year, and moved to Charlotte, NC after my wedding in August 2009. In 1999 there was a call for some to migrate to Charlotte and my husband, and his ex-wife, answered that call. After our marriage, we felt to stay in Charlotte until his children (who are not in the church life) are either in college or able to live on their own. At this juncture, we are again seeking the Lord concerning where He wants us to be. I consider it a privilege untold to have been sent by the Lord into the field and want to live this way for the rest of my life.