Part 2 (Sent: Wed, June 4, 2003 10:09 pm)

2001

Sometime late in the year I got a feeling that God was going to move me on. Sort of a gut feeling that you know something is going to happen but there is no sense of timing or detail to it. So I didn't know where or when and figured that it would be a fair while away too. Therefore I simply kept these thoughts in mind but kept going with what was in front of me to do. There was no need to dwell on it greatly at the time.

2002 Early

After wanting to learn a language for a long time I decided to take a language course at University. Having considered German and Japanese first I finally rested on a course that included Spanish, French and German in a combined degree. I thought that by taking this course I could concentrate on the languages I wanted (being part-time) and therefore learn them faster. However this was not to be.

Just after this, I started making plans to visit Japan. My younger brother, Brodie, was living there and during a phone conversation the previous year I had promised him that I would visit. So without the funds to do so I was making good on my promise and looking forward to spending time over there with Brodie and John, our eldest brother, who also decided to join us.

With the feeling that God was going to move me on soon and not knowing where, I considered this trip to be a great opportunity to see what Asia was like in case this was where I would be going. So I made plans to visit China and Thailand on the way back but never made it there. It was too difficult or too expensive to work in with our planned trip, so Japan was it.

After returning home from Japan, my interest in the place had increased dramatically to the point of considering living there. I started looking for opportunities to go. I found none, but was in no rush.

One day as I was driving to work, I was thinking through the money I owed in various areas. As I was praying, I had a distinct feeling of urgency to pay out all of these debts. Although it took a while to start this process, once I became serious with it a strange thing happened. Instead of only wondering if I was moving on and if so then where, I started to get some definite directions about it all, and it happened very quickly too.