God in the Waiting

 

Hello everyone, my name is Margaret Stafford I am an Officer in the Salvation Army.  I have been an Officer in the Army for over 30 years.  I have four amazing children and married to Jeff for 35 years (in August).  

I have to take you back to 2020 (I know it was a dreadful, exciting, horrible, amazing confusion of a year) but Jeff and I felt really challenged when we heard about a need for Officers in the Middle East – more specifically Kuwait.

my 4 amazing children

Firstly, we felt way too old.  That’s a bit different from many Bible Characters who felt too young.  We had both just turned 60!  But we felt that if this is God’s will for our lives then what a way to do our ministry in The Salvation Army for the last few years of active service but in a far distant country that h
ad not featured on our radar at all.

We put in our application for missionary service.  We did not hold our breaths because we know a few things:

1.    South Africa has a shortage of Officers – why would the TC even allow us to consider this

2.   We were coming near to the end of our Officership.

But we handed everything in.  We were called into the TC’s office and we were told that the TC Colonel Daniel Kasuso had prayed about our offer and had decided that if this was of God he would not stand in our way.  We had to do a whole lot of medicals, we had to explain our calling.  We had to wait.

In August we got the good news that IHQ were happy for us to take up the position of Corps Officers of Kuwait Corps and Asst. Regional Directors of the Salvation Army in the Middle East Region.

Wow, we were a little in shock but we knew this was a God moment.  We had a problem our Passports needed to be renewed.  Here’s another mountain God – we prayed.

We took our letter of appointment and went to Home Affairs and were given special compensation to have new Passports.  God miraculously opened the door for us to get our Passports at a time when no Passports were being handed out.  We got a police clearance certificate as well and in record time.

Then we went to the Kuwait embassy and found out exactly what we needed to do to make sure the visas were not a problem.  We had to get our documentation – our marriage certificate and our police clearances attested and legalised by the Department of International relations and communication.  We sent them the documentation and were given a date in January to collect the documentation we needed.   And we waited. And we waited.  Little by little all the formalities were done and we are now literally just waiting for Kuwait to open up so that our sponsors can hand in our visa request and we can get this emailed to us.

But it is in the waiting that the real challenge lies.  In Psalm 23 David sings:

The Lord is my Shepherd I lack nothing.  We hold onto that with all that we are.  The Lord is the one leading here.  I truly believe we have heard His voice and because of that, we lack nothing in trust and in a willingness to do what He has called us to do.

But David continues:  He makes me lie down in green pastures.  I guess people like sheep don’t know when we should lie down when all we want to do is go, go, go.  He leads me beside quiet waters – Lord this is a boring place.  I don’t want to be here.  But lessons are learned in quiet places.  Sheep cannot drink from a fast-running stream it has to be a quiet place.  OK, I’ll wait.

He restores my soul.  That’s what has been happening in no man’s land.  I have found myself waking up wondering will today be the day we get our visas.  But it’s Covid and Kuwait has not opened yet, I hear an echo in my mind “nothing is too difficult for Me coming from Scripture. 

I love that God guides me in the paths of righteousness – for His name's sake.  Listen to this in the Message: “True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send in the right direction."

Then things began to get really serious and for the Kuwait visa we had to do a medical this included blood tests and a chest Xray.  When they did our chest x-ray it was noted that Jeff’s trachea was bending slightly to the right.  So he had to go for a sonar.  The sonar revealed that the left thyroid was larger than the right and there seemed to be a large mass in the left thyroid. 

So we had to make an appointment with a surgeon to make a decision regarding the thyroid.  Jeff had to have more blood taken and it was decided that it would be prudent to remove the left thyroid if not the entire thyroid – the decision would be made in theatre. 

This was going to happen the following Monday.  We heard nothing from the Doctor and at last, we managed to track him down and discovered that he was at home with covid.  “give me two weeks” – he said but just as this waiting time came to an end we discovered that he had been booked into high care at the hospital.  So the decision was made by our Dr. to go to another surgeon.  He was fully booked until the middle of February but they managed to squeeze us in earlier. 

In amongst all of this, we discovered that Jeff had become a diabetic with this sugar jumping to over 23.  I have to believe that the devil was really trying everything he could to prevent us from getting to Kuwait.  But we take heart in the scripture that – when God opens a door NO ONE and NOTHING will close it. 

Revelation  3:7-8  These are the words of Him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David.  What He opens no one can shut and what He shuts no one can open.  I know your good deeds.  See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.”

Jeff went to his new surgeon on the 5^th of February and hopefully, the operation can be scheduled soon after that.  But in the waiting I, we have had to learn the true meaning of trusting as the moments fly.  We have learned to be still in His presence and to trust that if ministry in the middle east is His design for us than nothing including a virus will prevent us from being there at the moment we need to be there. 

Shalom is a beautiful Hebrew greeting it is a Hebrew word meaning peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare, and tranquility and can be used idiomatically to mean both hello and goodbye.

I am pleased to report that Jeff did not need the operation after all.  The Dr. was convinced that the nodule in his thyroid was not malignant and that the size of the nodule would just have to be monitored.  He had Jeff take a fine needle biopsy which that the nodule was most likely not malignant.  

So now we are waiting again.  This time in a beautiful home in Emmerentia. So may I say Shalom as we wait together for God to move a few more mountains. 

Amanda and Mark and baby Daniel.