Tag Archive for: Journey

Written by: Debbie Phenix

Our journey to Scotland

My story might be a bit different from some, it is all about trust in God, so here it goes. Our journey started before 2014 but culminated in coming to Seamill to do the fall DTS in mid-September 2014.  We knew we were supposed to be in Scotland at that time but in June of 2014 we still didn’t know how we were going to get there. Much less what we were going to do once we did!  

In a series of miraculous events, we ended up finding out about YWAM, Seamill and the date of the DTS.  It’s much more exciting than the way I just phrased this but I don’t have that much space! We applied in July and because we weren’t the normal “age” they questioned us several times. They asked if we wanted to do a Crossroads DTS. Honestly we didn’t know what a DTS was, we just wanted to get to Scotland. So we said no – “if you want us we’ll come, if you don’t we’re coming to Scotland anyway!”. I guess they knew we were serious and that’s exactly what they wanted to hear, so we came.

A change in pace

Through a lot more miraculous events, we got to YWAM Seamill and completed most of the DTS. With two weeks left to go on our outreach to Cyprus, I lost the use of my hands and feet. We had established some wonderful relationships with the local church in Larnaca and my friend took me to her doctor. That doctor then referred me to a neurologist. They did an MRI on my brain and found a tumour which was pressing on my brain stem. I had to go back to the States right away and have brain surgery.  

You may think – this isn’t very uplifting – where is the Lord in all of this? I also had my own questions, “God, why did you tell us to be here and have all these miraculous things happen? What is the point, why don’t you heal me, why am I going through all this?”

Well I had the surgery, the tumour was benign and I began my recovery process. I couldn’t walk, couldn’t feed myself for awhile and went through depression, frustration, etc. But I came through it and 10 months later we finished up the last two weeks of our DTS in Louisville, Kentucky.  

The call of God remains

You see as my husband and I came home from Cyprus, we just knew that God still wanted us to be in Scotland. We didn’t know what was ahead of us but we knew we had a word from the Lord. We needed to finish well so we could go back to Scotland when this was all over. I wasn’t sure if I could – the surgery changed things. Physically I wasn’t the same but I had a trust in God that I didn’t have before. 

I thought I had a lot of trust in God before, I mean didn’t we change everything in our lives – quit our jobs, sell our house,  move away from our family, blindly move to a new country without knowing anything about what we would be doing? But God remains so good and so trustworthy! When you are facing death and you have no fear, there is a trust there that is supernatural and I thank God for that. He is everything He says He is and He is worthy of our trust (and everything else we could possibly give Him).  

An unshakeable trust

I wanted to tell this story because only God knows what He wants to do with our lives. Only He knows how He will lead us. Proverbs 16:9  “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.”

We’ve been here 4 years and the Lord is still directing us step by step.  We still don’t know exactly why we had to be here when He said but we trust Him – now more than ever. None of us know the impact of the small or big things we do, but if we listen and have a trust in God, we can rest secure in His outcome.