Gratitude #7: Trusting the God who provided 97 beds
Just days from now, I have to move to a place I haven’t yet found. As I just found out today, I can no longer hope for funding from a second grant I applied for. Interestingly, it was two years ago today that I landed in London for the first of more than a hundred connections between trains and buses during the 17-month, 41-country trip that followed. The trip whose research I still hope to write up, even as a book seems more uncertain than ever.
My initial hopes to blog frequently during this pandemic have sputtered to the halting pace of a trickle. But one thing I’ve learned nonetheless: Gratitude refocuses you from lack to provision, shifting the eyes of your heart from things you want or think you need to what you have in the present. This also entails a form of remembering, since nearly all of the present provision came into your life at an earlier time.
It seems apt, therefore, to let today’s anniversary news remind me of how much God has already provided for me and this research. Just how much?
97 beds
I’m a list nerd, a planner and a details person, so partway through the trip I added a sheet to one of my Google workbooks just for capturing statistics like the number of currencies used (34) and how many churches i visited or worked with (65).
I didn’t raise funds to do my research (though a few folks contributed before and during my travels). And as a former non-profit employee who’d lived in one of the United States’ most expensive regions, I didn’t have a massive savings.
But God provided so generously that I took the whole trip for less than half a year’s salary — and even without the cost of insurance and my storage unit, housing on the road cost less than 7 percent of my travel budget. That owes to the extraordinary generosity and hospitality of Christians all over the world who welcomed this stranger into their homes.
Albania* - My parents let me share their hotel room during a family wedding (1 bed).
Switzerland - The friend of a sister of a housemate whose mother heard about my trip helped me find an older couple to stay with, working on only a couple week’s notice. Further south, a last-minute speaking gig at L’Abri included a room to stay in (2).
Germany* - My brother and his wife put me up on several occasions throughout the trip, though thanks to varied circumstances, I used a different room each time (3).
Austria* - After I couldn’t get a seat on the train I wanted, I had to find a last-minute AirBnb, using the gift card friends had given me. The host turned out to be a Christian, giving me a special time of fellowship in my limited German (1).
Night train: 1.Romania - This housing didn’t come through until the morning my sister-in-law was driving me to the train, but the friend of a friend connected me to a pastor in Bucharest, who very kindly housed me in their building that week. If you or your church ever plan to visit Bucharest in the future, the church rents rooms to help support its costs and the pastor speaks fluent English. Message them/him through Facebook (1 bed).
Turkey* - AirBnb with a host who gave me an unexpected tour of his city, er, the Bosphorus (1).
Ukraine - Friends of a contact of a friend in the States graciously put me up, recalling how many times Americans had warmly welcomed and housed them during their visits here (1).
Night train: 1Russia - This stop almost didn’t happen (see link for details), but after I cold-contacted a City to City network church there, the pastor found an American in his church who ended up letting me stay on three different visits to Moscow (1).
Night train: 1Finland - Friends from the Bay Area originally planned to host me for just a quick overnight stop, but graciously extended that to a week after plans in Sweden hit a snag (1).
Night ferry: 1Sweden - Friends of a friend of a San Francisco friend let me stay a few nights, despite my arrival during summer holidays (1).
United Kingdom (England) - AirBnb + friends of a writer friend, the latter of whom let me stay there again on a follow-up visit in January. I also got to visit former housemates in Bristol both times. My notes include one new bed on the second visit, but I can’t recall the details (4).
Spain - A friend of the above host let me stay for several days in a place her parents owned. When that ended, I found new housing with a woman I’d never met before, who attended an international church I cold contacted. Definitely one of the more dramatic housing stories from the trip! The final night, I stayed in a small hostel near my departure station (3).
North Africa (country not disclosed for source protection) - Hostel in the old city + friend of a friend of a friend (2).
Nigeria - Friend of a pastor friend of a man I met and interviewed in Kiev + a woman who “just happened” to discover my website shortly before I reached Nigeria, and reached out to me. An airport meet-up the day I was supposed to fly to Ghana led to her instead taking me home that night, after visa issues derailed my departure plans. When my problems continued, she let me stay almost a week (2)!
Ethiopia - First visit: AirBnb close enough to a medical conference that started my trip that I could WALK to and from each day’s meetings. A far cry from the restrictions on movement I experienced in Lagos and some other cities I visited. On the second visit, I stayed at first a hotel, then an AirBnb, the host of whom proved a very key connection (3). Initially, I felt let down by having to go with AirBnbs, but boy, did God have good intended. The second host even ended up being a five-minute walk from the office of the man who was a primary reason I returned to Addis Ababa! I had no idea when I booked it.
South Africa - Friends of a writer friend, who graciously hosted me not once but twice! They even let me extend my first stay by at least a week (1).
Kenya - Parents of a man I met at L’Abri + a writer friend spending the year with her family in Nairobi (3, because I visited both of my first hosts’ homes, the second one in Nakuru, a few hours north).
Tanzania - Over this whirlwind 10-day visit, I stayed with a pastor and his family (friends of a doctor I’d met through some leadership training); a hotel in Dar es Salaam; the wonderful Neema guest house in Iringa — accessible via long bus ride or an expensive flight, but well worth seeing; and the pastor who helped me so much in Dar es Salaam (4).
Egypt - New setting, in the home of some American friends I met through a stranger in a Facebook group, but the same cot I’d packed for emergencies and used once already.
Lebanon - Relative of a writer acquaintance (1).
Stopover: 1.Israel - Friend of an employee of a church to which I was directed by the friend of a writer friend (1).
Palestinian Territories - None, but I got connected to my interviews there through a friend of a friend of an interviewee I met through my second Addis Ababa AirBnb host.
China - Friend of a writer friend, an arrangement that I recall coming together not that far in advance. Because she let me share her room, I used the cot. On a later visit to Hong Kong, I stayed in the home of a long-time family friend (1).
South Korea - Two different friends of my brother, the first of whom agreed to host me on something like 24 hours’ notice! Truly grateful for the hospitality I received in Seoul. When the second host went to visit a friend after a late-night meeting, she let me crash on the floor there, too (3).
Japan - Woman I met on an earlier visit there and had taken to a jazz concert when she visited California + a friend of hers (2).
Taiwan* - Hotel - short stopover only (1).
Italy - AirBnb (1).
India - Parents of a musician I’d sung with in the Bay Area; friends of a pastor at the church of the second family I stayed with in Seoul, and later an elderly friend/relative (?) of these friends, whom I also ended up interviewing. When I hit snags booking my long-delayed departure, I stayed at first an AirBnb, then the home of a friend of one of the people I’d interviewed in the prior city — all of this arranged very much at the last minute (5)
Singapore - Friend of a friend of my London hosts, whom I met at a January dinner party that proved important for both Singapore and Ghana stops (1).
Philippines - Samaritana guesthouse in Quezon City, thanks to a connection through Bay Area friends, and a Scottish woman who kindly agreed to let me share her room (1).
Australia - Relatives of a Bay Area friend + friends of a New York friend (2).
Ghana - Relative of a client of my sister’s + a doctor I met through some leadership meetings I’d helped with. This months-delayed trip would not have happened without a second woman I met at that London dinner party, who connected me to someone in immigration (2).
Brazil - Two different friends of my sister-in-law, one of whom I’d met in Albania + a friend of a friend of a friend I made the night of a long-ago burlesque show in New York City (3).
Argentina - Parishioners at a church to which I was connected by a friend of a woman I met and interviewed in Jerusalem + plus the sister of someone who interviewed me in London + an AirBnb (3).
Peru - Family of a friend from church (1).
Colombia - Two different relatives of an American woman I randomly met at a City to City church service in Rome one Sunday (2).
Panama - AirBnbs, the second of which provided me with a desperately needed sewing machine. The relative who let me into the second place also “just happened” to work with a Catholic radio station in the city, through which I got all my interviews for the country (2).
Cuba - Friends of friends of a brother of an acquaintance from my California church. It’s a “casa particular,” for Americans who need to make sure their stay supports the local people, but I need to find the link.
Mexico - AIrBnb + relative of a friend of a friend (2).
Canada - Writer friend in Toronto + Vancouver friend of a friend of a friend based in Tennessee (2).
United States:
San Antonio - My sister (1)
Dallas stopover - Two different relatives (2)
Knoxville stopover - A cousin (1)Nashville - Relative of the friend who also helped me find Mexico City housing (1)
Atlanta - Friends from my New York days (1)
McLean stopover - Friend from my New York days and his family (1)Dover - Former housemates (1)
New York City - Friend (1)
Des Moines - Friend of former housemates (1)
Chicago stopover - Siblings of Bay Area friends, who’ve become the Chicago friends I usually crash with (1)
Seattle stopover - Friends from my New York days (1)Anchorage - Former housemate of the sister of my former worship pastor (1) - the woman who also became my first housemate/landlord here.
San Jose stopover - Relatives (1)
El Cerrito stopovers - Two different guest rooms in the (former) convent where I lived before my trip (2)Los Angeles area - My parents and then a former housemate (2)
That’s a lot of housing. But God hasn’t just provided in the course of this research (as hopeful as that makes me for the goal of a book, despite today’s grant disappointment).
6 other key provisions
No, His history of provision extends about as far back as I can remember.
New York bed - When I moved to the city at 24, I took a church elder’s advice to do so as leanly as I could. That meant just a few boxes and some suitcases. For the first few months, I slept on the floor. Then a couple I met at church offered me the loan of a twin bed on which I spent the rest of my four years there — including the months I wrote my memoir, Sexless in the City (1).
California launch pad - When I made the cautious decision to move back west, good friends from my college days offered their literal couch for what turned out to be five weeks while I looked for work and figured out my plans (1).
Interim housing - When I had to move on, mid-December, a couple from my then-newfound church let me stay in their house for a week. After they returned, a pastor in my church and his wife let me visit then housesit for them — a two-week stay that birthed one of my most-treasured and long-lasting friendships. Over the years as they’ve had kids, we established an annual pumpkin-carving tradition and have recently started sharing some Zoom dinners. Last night, their kids offered very wise advice on how I might distribute the not-entirely needed stimulus check I got from the U.S. government (2).
Dream housing - Those short-term provisions got me through November and December 2006 in California — but I had to find a place to put the belongings my movers had let me leave in storage for two months. Things weren’t looking very good until around Christmas Eve, when a woman I knew slightly from a Bible study contacted me. God had given her a dream, she said. When she woke up, she realized that my housing search might be the answer to her prayer request for someone to split her large master bedroom in a shared four-bedroom house. Just over a week later, I moved into the house where I spent nearly seven years with a rotating cast of housemates — some of whom remain dear friends.
The convent — Several weeks into a 2015 biting-mite plague that proved one of the most harrowing seasons of my life (think: bed bugs crossed with lice), a man from my church contacted me about a communal house he ran. Was I interested in joining them, or know others who might want to? Just a month before, I would have said no. But by that point in my fruitless quest to expel the mites, I’d begun to accept that I might have to leave an otherwise gorgeous and spacious apartment in a late-20s Victorian farmhouse. A few weeks later, I moved into the former convent for what became the richest and most life-changing housing experience of my life.
New convent bed - Since my bed had been ground zero of the mite plague, I left the original mattress (and one from a “couch” I’d slept on as a backup) down in the garage for several months. In the interim, the convent had an extra bed I could sleep on. When I finally re-tried my original bed almost one year after the mite plague started, I made the dreadful discovery that, whatever kind of bug they were, they could live a very long time without a blood meal. Out when the mattress for the final time. In the midst of immense discouragement over what to do, a married couple in the house said they felt prompted by God to buy me a new mattress for my wood futon frame. Sometime later, after I felt safe enough to risk a new mattress in my room, I finally had a comfortable, bug-free bed of my own to sleep on (2, if you count the initial loaner bed).
Anchorage housing - Seventeen months after I left the convent, I faced a decision of where to move, at least for the writing year. Most unexpectedly, Alaska beckoned. But the reasons were such that I’m not sure if I’d have risked the move without confirmation. It came in the form of a room vacating the day I left town, in the very home where I had enjoyed some a comfortable stay with a small family. The woman even agreed to hold it open for me the better part of two months.
Anchorage bed - Like my New York move so many years before, I came here with few possessions: this time, just what I could fit into my car, while leaving some room for the drive buddy who didn’t commit until several days after I left California (thanks, Mom!). So at first I slept on my cot up here. That didn’t suit my spine and hips, however. So I found a broken but free futon frame on Craigslist, and turned an abandoned piece of foam into a mattress. I only fell out of the bed once when it tipped over, and it lasted me at least a month, but then I started to feel the cross-boards against my pelvis. I asked the ladies at my Bible study. Within days, a woman had offered up the twin bed that she usually used for guests just a few weeks out of the year. I’ve been sleeping on it ever since — and with the pandemic, may have its use longer than either of us expected.
Depending on how you count it, that’s something like 105 beds God has provided in part of my adult life. I didn’t mean to write such a long list, but somehow it didn’t seem right to leave off some, when God certainly hasn’t grown tired of providing such a basic need!
Am I daunted by the practical needs before me? Yes. But if God could move to the extent of giving another person a dream about me, I don’t think providing mid-pandemic housing is too much for Him after all He’s done. I look forward to seeing what and how He provides this time.