Dubai or not Dubai - that was the question

How the adventure started

Quick background: my husband and I met in 2010, started dating in 2013 and got married in 2015. Last year we were living in Paarl, where I had been a teacher for four years, when we made the shift to move to Durbanville. This was an incredibly hard decision for me as I loved the town, I loved my job and I had made a lot of very good friends. Even though Durbanville is only a 30 minute drive from Paarl, I felt as though my whole life had changed. I had to make new friends, start a new job, find my way around a new town. Little did I know what God was preparing me for.

After a few months in Durbanville, I was starting to really enjoy living there. I loved the community, loved my new school, and we had made some good friends. I was really glad that we trusted God and moved even though at the time it seemed really scary.

So in April when Morné was offered an opportunity to apply for a job in Dubai, I didn't even give it a second thought. I mean, I had just started feeling at home in Durbanville - why would God want us to move now? After a while though, I started to think about it more. Normally when there is something that really, really scares me, I know there is a good chance that it is something that God wants me to do.

I really struggled with this. Why would God let us move to Durbanville, and just when we got setlled in, ask us to move again? Did we make a mistake in coming to Durbanville? What would everyone say when we leave after only 7 months? Are we making this decision for the right reasons or are we just chasing money?

One morning when I was driving to school, I was talking to God about all these questions running through my head. I pulled away at a stop sign and as I was changing gears, I had a thought that I felt was His response. To pull away, I need to be in first gear. However, that does not mean that I should stay in first gear for the rest of my journey. And just because I am changing over to second gear, doesn't mean that pulling away in first gear was wrong. This simple parable just gave me so much peace. I realised that I would never have been able to move to Dubai from Paarl - my mindset wasn't ready. Making the small shift to move to Durbanville made it easier to take on the massive shift to move to Dubai.

So we took the leap, and on the 30th of June I got on a plane with nothing but clothes and faith, to start this adventure.