The Story Continued...

When I said God was persistent with speaking to us over and over, I really meant HE WAS PERSISTENT. At first He kind of showed off a bit with a few small things like we got a bill in the mail with a stamp on it that said "Aloha." One day Aaron was delivering some things to one of his Indian stores he delivers to and a truck pulls up beside him that says "Hawaiian Imports" real big across the side of it. Now how many times do we see Hawaiian imported produce trucks in the Dallas area? Ummmm, not too often. Aaron got a gift card to Jack-In-The-Box for Christmas, and we decided to use it one night, so we pulled up to the drive-thru and there staring at us was a big sign across the menu that said, "NOW SERVING KONA COFFEE." At this point we just started laughing and figured God was probably getting a laugh at our expense too. I can imagine He was having fun with us. Shoot, He's still doing it. I took the kids to Yogurtland today after school and they had, low and behold, "Kona Coffee yogurt"....HA! Just another little wink I think ;) With all these little things happening, I reluctantly agreed to visit Hawaii with Aaron and the Cottles. I say reluctantly because it just still seemed so crazy for me to imagine this was for real, and I wasn't too keen on leaving our children, especially our newly-adopted-not-even-fully-attached-yet-to-me-son. But I thought the Lord had done an awful lot to nudge us so I should take the leap and go, so we booked tickets. I need to back up a bit to set up this next REALLY BIG confirmation we got. About a year and-a-half ago or so, the Lord gave me a dream one night. I was standing in front of a woman from our church named Karen, and Karen was holding a gift out getting ready to hand it to me, and I woke up. That was it, short and sweet. Now I knew Karen, but didn't really know her too well, not enough to call her up and tell her about this dream the Lord had given me with her in it. To me, the dream seemed clear, Karen had a gift for me. I was convinced over the course of the next couple months that when Karen saw me, the Lord was going to speak and give her a prophetic word for me, hence the gift. I would make sure we sat close to Karen at church, and when the service ended I would wait and stand ready for her to approach me, but it never happened. Time went on and I never got a word from Karen, so I forgot about the dream. Well this brings me back to about 2 weeks before our flight was to take off. I was grocery shopping and the memory of that dream of Karen just popped back in my head. I thought to myself, "hmmmm.....is that you God reminding me of that dream?" That very same day Aaron and I and the kids were driving in the car and Aaron says ( I kid you not ) "Hey, do you remember having a dream where Karen was standing in front of you holding a gift?" My eyes got real big, (I can imagine,) and I said something to the effect of... "Shut up! I was just thinking about that today!" We knew then, yes, the Lord was bringing it back up again because He confirmed it to both Aaron and me. So that Sunday in church, my stomach is just in knots. It's two weeks before we leave. All the reasons of why we shouldn't go keep spinning and spinning around in my mind. I am a nervous wreck, and my husband, Mr. Chill, is just as cool and calm as a cucumber totally sure that we are doing what God wants us to do. Yes, we are a great balance. (I told you all that I was that girl that needed to know that I know that I know that I know. Even after all that, I was still asking God if we made the right decision.) So after service, I told Aaron "let's just go to the front and get some prayer for clarity and direction." LOL!{imagining at this point God is rolling up in heaven} We walked up to where about 6-7 couples were standing, waiting to pray with anyone. We started to walk up to one couple and before we made it, someone beat us to them. Oh darn! On to the next couple....same thing....someone beat us to them. This actually happened FOUR times. After the 4th time. I looked at Aaron and said, "well, that's odd, maybe we should just wait til next week. We have one more week before we leave." Yes, that way the prayer is fresh ;) We turned around to walk off and who do you think was standing right there as we turned around????? YES! IT WAS KAREN FROM MY DREAM. Aaron said to me, "I think we should have Karen pray for us." I totally agreed, and so we did. We went and grabbed Karen and her husband, Doug, and asked them to pray for us. We told them what was going on and that we just wanted some prayer to make sure we were doing the right thing. Karen says, " So why do you feel as though I specifically am suppose to pray for you?" So I told her about the dream and God reminding both Aaron and I about it. She and her husband both started crying. I think I heard Doug say, "Wow" a few times. Karen starts saying things like, "Oh Jesus, thank you. The way you speak to your children is so powerful, Praise you!" She was just praising Him and giving Him glory, and Aaron and I were kind of standing there thinking what is she about to say, totally knowing that it was about to get good. So she said, through tears, "well, the gift that I was holding was the gift of faith, because what you are about to do is going to take more faith than you have ever needed." She said, "The truth is that in 1997 Doug and I packed up everything we had, left our life here, and moved our family to Hawaii and went to YWAM DTS in Kona." Aaron and I couldn't think or say anything else other than "WHAT???? You are kidding me!" She wasn't kidding. She told us that it was the scariest move they made, but the sweetest move they made. It took a lot of faith to leave their life and go there, but she said it was the sweetest time they have ever had with the Lord. She said being there and living there surrounded by His beauty everyday felt like such an almost-too-good-to-be-true gift. And she went on about how anointed the YWAM Kona base was and how amazing of an experience it was for their family and they would't have traded it for anything. We had absolutely no idea Karen and Doug had ever gone through YWAM DTS. Ummmm... I think that was pretty big confirmation that yes, we were indeed suppose to go. After Aaron and I picked our jaw up off the ground, we went home and had Misty and Brady over for Taco Delite and to tell them what happened. So that was the night it became really real for us and we started praying seriously together as families about our journey to Kona together. (To be continued) Just wait til you hear about when we got there....it really does get better. God is so amazing!