When Two People Don't Dream Alike

 

I recently had the opportunity to write a post on the World Relief Spokane blog page. You can check it out here! 

I think it’s clear from my blog post there, and also from numerous Facebook posts, that I’m pretty crazy about World Relief and the people who work there. I love their heart, their vision, their passion, and their compassion. I adore the World Relief Spokane employees my husband works with. They love so well. I’ve watched them show love to the refugees they serve, to my husband as their employee and coworker, and to our family. 

But Jordan and I didn’t always live in Spokane, and Jordan didn’t always work for World Relief. In fact, three years ago we hadn’t even heard of the organization. I want to tell you the story of how God set Jordan up with this job, because it’s one of my favorite stories. It’s a love story, really.

When I first met Jordan, circa 2002, I was only fifteen years old, and he was eighteen. At that time, he was passionate about Scotland and spicy food, both of which foreshadowed his future passion for world cultures. At that time, Jordan’s dreams of traveling and trying food from all over the globe seemed intriguing and fun to me, but cloaked in his general enthusiasm for all of life, they didn’t seem all that serious. Fast forward a few years, and Jordan had, in fact, fallen fast and hard in love with missions work and with people from cultures around the world. And I’d fallen fast and hard in love with him. But the whole missionary thing?  No, thanks.  I’d been on a few uncomfortable trips to other countries, and while the memories I had of loving and learning from people around the world were precious, each trip reminded me how much I really loved my own country. My homesickness always seemed to outweigh my delight in the culture I was currently experiencing. I wanted to stay close to family; I wanted to pursue ministry, counseling, writing, teaching, all from the comfort of home. 

This fresh-faced baby was Jordan in Nepal, shortly before we got engaged. Nothing gets that guy more excited than meeting people from all over the world. That and eating their food. 

This disparity between Jordan’s dreams and my own were frightening to me. I knew I wanted to marry this man, and he wanted to marry me. But why would God have placed us together if one of us would have to sacrifice our dream, our happiness, for the other? I remember crying on the floor of my friend’s dorm room in college, afraid that God was asking me to make a sacrifice I was unable to make. I wasn’t sure if that sacrifice was my own dreams, or whether it was Jordan himself. I didn’t really find a lot of answers that night, but I did find peace. Over time, I felt God saying “Yes” to my relationship with Jordan, and saying “Yes,” to our future together, although I still had no idea what that would look like. 

In college, we and some of our best friends would have "International Dinner Nights" where we would all make a dish from a different country, and with our (very) limited resources, dress like that country. I think Jordan is mixing Hawaii and Nepal here. I'm feeling confused about this. 

This is shortly after we were married and traveled to Uganda together on a mission trip. I am loving the sweet girl in my arms and seeing the beauty around me, but I am simultaneously longing for home.

For the first few years of our marriage, Jordan and I finished our bachelors and masters degrees, my focus in teaching and Jordan’s in cross-cultural communication. His heart for cross-cultural ministry had only grown stronger, and as we had our first son, my desire to stay in the U.S. had never been stronger, either. As Jordan neared the end of his masters program, he began pursuing options for his final internship. It was kind of by accident that a friend of ours, with no connection to Jordan’s school, told him about this non-profit organization that his dad’s friend worked for.  Some organization called World Relief that focused on helping refugees assimilate into the United States. That sounded cool, and none of the other internships had panned out, so he went for it. He spent the next nine months working in a tiny local office with two Armenian women who were the only two employees, driving all over L.A. and meeting people from all over the world. And he couldn’t have loved it more. 

To make this already too-long story a little bit shorter, when Jordan graduated, he applied to almost every World Relief office in the U.S., for every job opening. He got the job in Spokane, and we packed up our tiny apartment and moved, both of us giddy with joy. 

In case God’s kindness to us is not already obvious, I would love to spell it out for you (honestly, I love talking about it!). Jordan wanted to work with people from all over the world, and I wanted to stay in the U.S. As a case manager for World Relief, the world comes to Jordan. He still gets to work cross-culturally, from the comfort of home. Jordan could never settle on one culture that he loved the most, so he could never get a clear picture on where he would want to do missions. World Relief works with cultures from all over.  He gets to taste it all (I mean this literally; every week he comes home bragging about how his clients feed him delicious food from their native countries). Jordan is also the most welcoming, disarmingly friendly person, perhaps in the world. His job at World Relief is to welcome people who have fled their own countries, and to help them find a home in his own country. His personality is so wired for that. There are countless other ways that it seems this job was custom created for Jordan – for both of us, really. It is almost three years later, and we are both still giddy with joy. 

God is for your dreams. He is for your biggest, best dreams, and even more. “God…is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of – infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts or hopes.” (Eph. 3:20).  Dream big, and dream with God, because He can dream even bigger than you can. I had no idea how God would fulfill Jordan’s dreams and my own, but He knew, and He did. 

God is for marriages. For those of you who are married: If you have sought and followed God’s leading in your relationship, obeyed Him as best as you know how, then He will fight to keep you and your spouse together. He will join your callings. He will unite your dreams. He will take even the most inharmonious of your separate desires and will craft them into a sweet song that has never been heard before. The kingdom of God will be stronger for the two of you being and dreaming together. If you trust him, if you keep listening, keep praying for strength to obey, and love your spouse with all of your ability, I am here to tell you that He can make it work.  

And the exciting part is that God isn’t finished dreaming yet. My heartbeat is getting stronger for the world, and for these diverse, courageous, big-spirited people that my husband welcomes into our country. The thought of living overseas doesn’t horrify me as much. Sometimes I start getting a little excited about Scotland and spicy food. Who knows where we’ll be in ten years?  God does.  And He has promised that it will be good. 

You can rest in his promises, friends, and you can trust Him with your dreams.