“Your time here is finished”. Ian and I looked at one another, shocked and disbelieving. We had worked as missionaries to Romania for twenty-five years, and fully expected to live there until we turned up out toes…. what was God talking about??
We had recently returned to Romania after over two months away – the longest period away from our Beloved Country for many years. The time we had recently spent in the U..S. had felt like a “time out of time”, and we knew that God Himself had arranged the trip for our good.
Back in October 2015, we had attended a three-night holiday in Krakow, Poland, arranged for missionaries by Christian Hospitality Network, and much appreciated it was; breaks of any kind happened rarely whilst serving on the mission field, and a few days in a five star hotel was nothing short of a miracle! The dates of this holiday “just happened” to coincide with our planned visit to the U.K., which meant we could get to Calais by a circuitous route (via Poland!) and still catch the train we had booked to take us through the Tunnel to Blighty in early November.
In the weeks running up to our holiday, Ian and I were talking and praying, yet again, about my long-lived problems with depression and anxiety and Ian suggested I talk to a counsellor while we were in Krakow. In the thirty-five years I had been depressed and anxious, I had been adamant on two points: one, that nobody but Ian should know about my state of mind, and two, that this situation would never stop me from doing God’s will. In all that time I had not seen a counsellor, due in a large part to lack of funds. So, on the first morning of our stay, I booked an appointment with a counsellor – what did I have to lose?
The break was exactly what we needed, and I duly turned up for my appointment, which “happened” to be with Pastor John Nordstrom. Within five minutes of entering the room, John had diagnosed PTSD, originally caused by a motorcycle accident when I was twenty, and invited me to travel out to Illinois for counselling and therapy with an expert in that field. I came out of the room changed, aware that there was hope after so many years. Ian said he could see a change in me as I met up with him for dinner, and told him what had happened during my half-hour chat with John.
In July 2016, Ian and I flew to O’Hare airport in Chicago, to be met by John and welcomed warmly by his family and the church he pastors in Ottawa, Christ Community Church. We were hosted by John and his wife Glenda in a lovely apartment attached to their house, and quickly became involved in church life. My treatment began a few days after we arrived, and, although traumatic at times, proved to be an amazing path to healing; within a couple of weeks, I was driving for the first time in over twenty-five years! In addition to the therapy with the PTSD counsellor, I was also attending counselling sessions with John, which brought about still more healing of hurts I had experienced at the hands of various Christian leaders over the years.
During our stay in Illinois, we took time to pray about our work in Romania, and felt God saying that there were changes ahead. This excited us, and we were very enthusiastic about our return to the Beloved Country in early September.
Due to the fact that my brother, Peter, had died two days before we flew to the States in July, we spent a couple of weeks visiting family, etc., before setting off to drive the well-known route to north east Romania. Once on the road, however, we were both astonished not to be excited to be returning to what had been our home for many years. Even when we passed the border, our usual enthusiasm of being back in the country was absent, and the whole journey went by without any real emotion of any kind.
Ian and I had not shared with each other this feeling of “blankness”, as each of us thought the other was feeling their usual delight and excitement as we travelled east. A few days after we arrived back at our rented house, however, we started to tentatively discuss how we felt – this was the first time in well over twenty years that we had not been super excited about getting back home.
That was when we prayed together, and God spoke clearly to us both, “Your time here is finished”. Although profoundly shocked, we were both certain that we were hearing His voice (although whether that voice was audible, we can’t say). It explained the strange journey we had just taken, 2,000 miles when we had both felt disconnected to Romania, and unable to dredge up any enthusiasm for what had been our meat and drink, practically and spiritually, for twenty-five years!