Heading South - The Abbreviated Version

Some of you are already aware of my impending change of scenery.  In January, I will be heading to Ecuador to labor.  A number of people have asked me if I'm excited.  In all honesty, that's not the word I would use.  I think a more accurate word would be "content."  Some friends of mine wrote that they will be thinking of me as I prepare to leave what I love and go to what I love.  That seems to say it best of all.

Here's a skeletal summary of how it's all taken place.  (At least the part that I know about it!)

• In January of this year, I received an e-mail from the LeRoy, the brother who oversees the Work in Ecuador.  He told me about several home visits that would take place in 2015 and ended that paragraph by saying something like this.  "Maybe we could get you to come and fill in?"
• In March, I talked to Jeff, the overseer here in "Illiana", about LeRoy's e-mail and said that I would be willing to go if it seemed appropriate to make such plans.
• The end of April, Jeff informed me that things were being set in motion.  I would likely head to Ecuador in January 2015 for at least three months.
• In August, I learned that plans are for me to spend six months in Ecuador beginning in January.  It was a "done deal."  
• October 1, 2015 - Jeff and his co-worker came to where Jane and I were staying to have lunch with us and a visit about plans.  When Jeff began our visit by saying, "It seems like plans have changed a bit since the last time we talked," my immediate thought was, "I'm not going now."  Instead, Jeff informed me that there was a need for someone to stay on in Ecuador on a more permanent basis.  Would I be willing? 
• And that brings us about up to date.  Since that day I've been trying to wrap my own mind around it all and get ready to go inasmuch as I know how.  Though I do not yet have a ticket, I am "scheduled" to arrive in Quito on January 13, 2014.  

I will add this.  I waited for seven years to offer for this Work because I wanted to be 100% sure that God was the One who was calling me to give my life in that way.  I had always pictured that offering to go to another country would happen the same way, but that's not how it worked.  I never really offered to go in the manner that I had always thought about offering.  A month or so, I was reading in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke and came across this verse.  "And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.  And the angel departed from her."  And in that moment, I knew without a doubt that this was right.  Mary did not offer to be the mother of Jesus, but when God's plan was revealed to her, she was willing.  Her answer put her completely in the hands of God.  Yielding to His will brought rich blessing into her own life and also prospered God's kingdom.  And so I am content as I prepare to leave what I love and go to what I love.