How to hear God's voice: Our Gideon Moment

Jun 11, 2024

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Our Gideon Moment

Continued Learning on hearing God’s Voice

We confess, we used to view Gideon as a bit… dense.

In Judges 6-7 Gideon asked for a sign that the message was from the Lord. After that miracle, he asks for another one involving a fleece. He then digs in one more time and asks for the same miracle, but in reverse.

Seems like he could have just listed to God a little closer...at least that’s what we thought until this past spring.

We desperately wanted to hear from the Lord regarding our next term.

We sought confirmation, welcoming OPEN or CLOSED doors. The Lord gave gentle direction. However, the answers never seemed quite as dramatic as Gideon… Until the 4th answered prayer.

It finally clicked. God patiently and gracefully lead us in this transition.

Now, we confidently know the Lord is leading, affirmed that we clearly hear His voice.

What steps did we take in our decision making?

As a region we collectively do a 40 day fast early in the year.

During these 40 days, we put our fleece before the Lord. We asked what He wanted us to do in this next term. Sometimes asking for signs. Sometimes asking for clear closed or open doors.

He answered with some clarity… mostly in the form of slowly closing doors.

We sought insight from other leaders and friends around the world - think Proverbs 15:22.

In these conversations, we received love and support along with wisdom. Some offered insight from their own similar experiences. And several offered invitations to pray about joining teams or projects they were leading - needing helping hands and willing hearts.

We weighed many elements and options:

• Team/leadership dynamics

• Vision for the city/country/region

• Our love for the local people of each area

• Schooling options for kids

• Access to good medical care

• Language and cultural acquisition

• and many others…

It was a lot to process, but between these practical things, wisdom from counselors and gentle (patient) nudges from the Lord, we feel peace in our direction.

The kids in our favorite rug shop and artisanal partner in Marrakech.

We value the importance of Leaving Well with people…

Our team has gone through many changes this year.

Important meetings with leadership at the LiveDead Winter conference, in January, put changes in motion. With direction from our Area Director, the trajectory of our team was set on a whole new course.

Our team leaders, the Ww’s, are transitioning to Germany, another couple, the M’s, are taking a role with Builders International based in Missouri, homeschool teachers - ours and the Ww’s - finished up their terms in April, our interns returned early to the states in late spring and we were asked to return Stateside for our home assignment this summer.

That leaves the L’s to handle things on the ground until the new team leaders, the W’s, land in late summer or early fall.

We made it our priority to set the L’s up for success in the city with relationships and business systems (more on this in the next section).

Pic 1: Our family with our team leads, the Ww’s. We’ve worked alongside them in Morocco since 2018.

Pic 2: Most of our team this past year, L’s not pictured. Pic 3: AirBnb Crew send off - L’s and our local employee.

The community of workers in our city was life giving for us.

We have deep friendships with other families who have kids our age. We would gather on Saturdays around our large wood farm table to break bread and play games. These relationships helped us and the kids sustain life in our challenging context.

We took individual time with each of those families to say goodbye.

Each of those moments were full of hugs and tears - for both grownups and kids alike. We’re grateful it has allowed space for healthy closure.

YTH prayer and send off for Dirk & Blake

Ryan & Zack’s Goodbye “Meating” with the guys

Ladies Goodbye Gathering for Mandie

Goodbyes with close family friends.

Saying goodbye to our local friends and employees was a hard on a different level.

Hugs and tears all around - just like with our like-minded friends. However, there’s no plan or likelihood to see them again. We’ll try to keep connected on WhatsApp but in all honestly, it isn’t the same. It’s easier with our Believing friends - knowing they can lean on Jesus. But for those that aren’t, there’s a deeper heart ache.

Please pray and trust with us that they will keep connected with other workers we’ve introduced … and ultimately, that they will choose to follow Jesus.

A few of our close local friends and business partners. These were just a few of the “hard good-byes”.

Please hold these beautiful people in your prayers. They will forever be etched on our hearts.

…and Leaving Well with work.

Our leadership asked us to build something that had not been built before.

As you may remember, we were asked to build an Airbnb (short term rental) operation in Agadir, Morocco. We were asked for it to be profitable, systemized and duplicatable. We worked to achieve these three measures with excellence.

The foundation we’ve built will help dozens of workers obtain residency visas to stay long term for the bigger vision for the country of Morocco.

MENA Goods was a vision the Lord gave us to begin our work in Morocco.

The Airbnb project took precedence for the sake of the country vision. So, at the winter conference, our leadership asked that it be tabled and shut down by this summer. However, the original vision for using our business for the sake of the gospel lives on in our Marketplace Discipleship Frameworks. We created and lived that out through our work with MENA Goods.

More on that in our video announcement call on July 9th. We are so eager to share with you.

We want you to be with us on the call, live.

Click here to sign up for the video call.

So that all may hear,

Ryan & Mandie Buesgens

P.S. Next week we will get into how we are feeling with the change and what we will be doing while in the states. But for the most in depth on all of this, make sure to join us for the call on July 9th.

P.S.S. Scroll to the bottom for pics of our kids and a few of their dear friends this past season.

Pray with us for:

Transition: Pray for our family as we balance between joy of being back with American family/friends and grieving the loss of our Morocco based family/friends. Pray Ryan and Mandie have wisdom to walk through this themselves and alongside the kids. Pray for family unity.
Health: Jetlag no longer has us in a choke hold, but we’re definitely feeling it. Pray for our energy and our physical health.
Safe Travels: The family will travel on Sunday to Springfield, MO for AGWM training & connection. We will have time to process our transition stateside as well as connect with new colleagues and leadership. Pray for road safety and our time there as a family. We return to MN on June 28th.