What would you have done?

My new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir, begins this way:

My husband, Dave, burst through the front door of our Seattle home and, with a boyish grin and outstretched arms, announced, “We’re moving to Lomalinda! I’m going to teach there!” 

A few seconds passed before I could wheeze in enough air to speak. “Where is Lomalinda?”  

“Colombia, South America!”  

I collapsed to the floor.  

I’d always expected we’d live a normal, predictable, all-American life but, without warning, my husband declared he had other ideas.  

It was February 1975 and, as youth director for our church, Dave had taken college kids to a Wycliffe BibleTranslators’ event hoping some would consider missions work. 

The meeting failed to persuade any of his young people but, when Dave learned Wycliffe needed teachers for their missionaries’ kids in Lomalinda, he was hooked. He wanted to move the four of us, including our preschoolers, Matt and Karen, to a dinky outpost in the middle of nowhere. . . .  

The thought of living in Colombia scared me out of my wits. And that was before I’d learned about guerrillas and kidnappings. But, like Abraham, Dave had heard God’s voice, “Leave your homeland.”  

I begged in prayer, “Please, God, don’t make me go!”  

Dave longed to hear me say, “Sure, let’s go!” But I didn’t like his idea. Not at all. The plans I’d made for my life did not include living in Lomalinda. The thought of moving to a patch of grassland in South America made me choke. Uttering the word “yes” was unthinkable.

If you’d been in my place, what would you have done?

Dave’s new plan interrupted the dreams and plans I had for myself as his wife and as the mother of his children.

I don’t appreciate interruptions in general—but this interruption was a doozie . . . . Moving to rural South America?!

And this was not just an interruption, it was a surprise—shocking, traumatic. Dave had given no hints that he’d been thinking along those lines. His desire to teach missionaries’ kids in Colombia left me stunned—as evidenced by my reaction: collapsing to the floor.

What would you have done? 

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Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger's Memoir is on special right now at Barnes and Noble for $14.84! That’s an 18% savings! The memoir will be published on June 4, but you can pre-order it now.

You can also pre-order the memoir through your independent bookseller, or Powell’s Books in Portland, Books-A-Million, and Amazon. Those in the UK can order it through Eden Co UK.

Any day now it will be available as an ebook.