Casting Off

My wife Laurie and I have decided to join a growing trend of people who sell everything and relocate to a warm, inexpensive country overseas and become “digital nomads.” But not so trendy is the way we’re NOT doing it. There are two basic groups of “nomads”: Young people who have little to get rid of and pack their lives into a backpack and travel the world, financing their journeys through on-line blogs. The second group consists of older people who sell their considerable possessions and house and buy condos in places like Panama or the Bahamas and live off their retirement money.
We don’t exactly belong to either group. Like the young people, we loaded up our backpacks and sold everything (or gave it away). But unlike the young people, we will be living off my Social Security. Our life’s accumulation of worldly wealth sold for a paltry $1,267, and that included two cars and my pastoral library. And unlike the older folks, we don’t have a house to sell and will be renting furnished apartments.
Years ago, I promised my wife, who was born in the Caribbean, that I would take her back there, and so we plan to settle on the Caribbean island of Cozumel, off the Mexican, Yucatan Peninsula. She will snorkel and I will write and market my first novel. And so, we leave in two days each with one back pack and one check in duffel bag full of meds and a CPAP machine.
We are not going just for the less expensive living. We also need a spiritual shakeup. After burning out on American “churchianity,” we find ourselves spiritually depleted and are hoping to attach ourselves to a Christian group that is doing something for God. Having been South African missionaries, we feel we have a lot to offer and are looking for God to open doors of opportunities for us.
And so, I will be blogging our experiences, with pictures, and perhaps paving the way for other seniors to make similar lifestyle changes. Scary, you ask? Everyone we talk to about what we’re doing is excited for us, but I can read the fear on some of their faces. Yes, if it wasn’t a little scary, it wouldn’t be an adventure. But do you know what would be scarier? Staying where we’re at and becoming spiritually, mentally, and physically comatose. Paul said in Eph.6:10, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” Fear immobilizes its victims. Faith pushes beyond and looks for God on the other side. The outcome of our battle rests on God’s performance, not on our strength and abilities.
“Everyone is a hero if you catch them at the right moment.”

Author: Changing from Glory to Glory

I was saved in the "Jesus People Movement". We were the last revival America has seen, other than the recent one that broke out at Asbury University in Kentucky. Many of us "Jesus People" converts became preachers, including myself. In 30 years, my family and I planted churches in Canada and South Africa. We saw many conversions and healing miracles, especially in South Africa. Before salvation in 1976, I fought in the Vietnam War, a bronze star, and then like many disillusioned young people of my generation, I became a hippie. Vietnam wasn’t just about giving us hippies an excuse to get high and medicate our anger, but it was an attempt at stopping Communism’s aggression in Southeast Asia. We failed, and millions of innocent Vietnamese and Cambodian people died, the eventual result of all tyrannical takeovers. Now, in my latter years, I find myself fighting again, here at home, only this time it’s a global takeover, where even our own nation is against our freedoms. God impressed on me as a young convert that I would see the Rapture of the church, and now we are very certainly living in those days just before the Tribulation Period, also called “Daniel’s Seventieth Week,” and “Jacob’s Troubles,” a time when God’s wrath will be poured out upon the unbelieving world. This judgment is not for the Church, the Bride of Christ. We’re going up in the First Resurrection. Paul says to “encourage one another with this hope.” In these final days of the Church Age, the Age of the Gentiles, where there's been a big uptick in Jewish conversions and a diminishing of Gentile conversions, the Rapture seems more imminent than ever. View all posts by Changing from Glory to Glory