Prospering while trapped in another country

Stories to Inspire

In a recent post, I asked, “What did you do with 2020?”  You’ll love what my friends have done with 2020.

We’ve all had our 2020 hardships, but in March a great friend of mine and his wife had to go to another country in order to get their visas renewed.  Their home for the last several years has been in a foreign country where they serve as missionary pastors.  But in the day or so that they were out of their home country, Covid restrictions shut everything down.  They couldn’t re-cross the border to return home.  Now they were stuck in a country where they don’t have any friends… and only a casual contact.

But the cool thing is that after nearly a year of being stuck, they currently have a boatload of God-stories… including housing, finances, connections, ministry, etc.  Any normal human response to being trapped in a foreign country would likely be overwhelming discouragement and potentially ‘poisoning’ our future with murmuring and complaining.  But true to their norm, they’ve been actively engaged in listening and responding to God… even in this foreign land… even despite Covid.

BTW – Here’s the latest on their living accommodations: “We’re still stuck in ‘xxxxxxx’, and just got a major upgrade in our living situation.  We’re apartment sitting.  It’s a really nice place.  Eighth floor, beautiful view, great location and reduced rent. It keeps on getting better!”

This next story is about a new area that God caused them to prosper.  God loves to take what the devil means for evil and our destruction… but with our participation,  God turns it around for our good!! This story is a great example of that.
____________________________________________________

Prospering while trapped in another country
“I know everyone is sending you cool ‘traveling in the spirit’ testimonies, however, I want to tell you a cool Divine provision testimony.”

“Earlier last year I felt Papa was leading me into a new area of investing. My wife and I had some extra money in savings, which was new for me. As a single missionary guy living on faith for most of my adult life, I was used to having ‘just enough.’  I was always more than grateful for what I received because it was usually the result of some cool God story of how the money came to me.  My wife and I began discussing what we should do with the extra money until we needed it.”

“I began praying, researching and felt I should look into investing in some companies on the New York Stock Exchange.  I’ve been a Christian most of my life and growing up in the church I had never heard a message or read a book on investing.  It was a little unnerving for me, but I remember working on a project in high school where we did some investing with imaginary money and I did quite well… and really enjoyed it. So this gave me some confidence.”

“In the winter of 2019, I had just finished reading Kris Vallotton’s book ‘Poverty, Riches and Wealth.’  I was really inspired by this book, especially by Jesus’ parable of the ten minas (Luke 19:11-27). I began feeling a ‘nudge’ and soft encouragement by Holy Spirit to look into investing.  However, there was also the strong feeling to wait until Spring to invest.  I did my homework, researched the companies that I wanted to invest in, learned how to invest and was ready to go.”

“But I kept feeling like I was to wait until Spring. I thought, “This must just be fear that’s stopping me from investing.”  But the feeling wouldn’t go away.  So I waited.  Well, as you know, Covid took the world by storm in early March of 2020 and wiped out the stock market.  It dropped big time! I knew this would be a golden opportunity, as I had faith to believe the stock market would come back.  So I began investing.”

“My initial goal was to make 10% on my investments for the year.  I knew the bank would give me less than 3% and I had enough confidence that I could do better than that.  The stock market had its ups and downs but ended up recovering throughout 2020.  I had some disappointments and some victories.  I learned many lessons, took prayerfully calculated risks and exceeded my yearly goal rather significantly.  Like I said, my goal was to make 10%.  Well, I ended up making almost 100%… or close to doubling my investment. I turned my ‘ten minas’ into another ‘ten minas.'”

“This is not a testimony of how “God made me rich,” nor am I saying if you follow God He’ll make you rich, nor am I saying that if you invest God will tell you what to invest in (at least He didn’t tell me).  It’s a testimony of receiving a ‘nudge’, obeying the ‘nudge’, trusting God in a new arena, being faithful with what God has given you and then watching Him bring the multiplication.”

“It was a wild ride and so cool to succeed in a new arena with Papa.  I’m a bit cautious about investing in the current market.  But I’ll carefully and prayerfully move forward with investing if I feel that little ‘nudge’ again.” – DV
— MLH

Advertisement