It was Saturday morning, and we were due to fly to the other side of the world—to Toronto—Tuesday evening. This was my second day of feeling sick with all the symptoms of a bad case of flu, or perhaps COVID: fever, sore throat, cough, runny nose, and weakness. I felt miserable. On top of that, a few days earlier, our office had asked me if we could delay our departure for a week. They had been working on our visa and they wanted more time to get our paperwork pending with the government completed. If we left before our paperwork was complete, we could expect to pay an overstay fine of $750 and deal with unpredictable immigration officials while exiting the country. On the other hand, delaying our flight would mean that we would miss a scheduled presentation at a large church, leaving them in a lurch.

I was in a quandary and needed to hear from the Lord. I prayed and the answer I received was, “Don’t change the plan.”

Later that day over lunch, some colleagues asked me, “Aren’t you worried? You don’t have a visa and you are leaving on Tuesday?”

I didn’t know how to answer that question. I wasn’t worried, but I certainly did not know how things would turn out. All I knew was that I had asked the Lord a question and received an answer. My duty now was to obey. Over the next two days, I rapidly recovered from the illness. Then on Monday evening our government liaison officer texted me to say that we had received our visas. I can’t remember ever seeing documents processed so quickly.

I was so thankful that I had listened to the Lord and didn’t change Tuesday’s flight. In case you are wondering, I did get tested for COVID, and the result was negative.

Photo by Kit on Unsplash