Things started to heat up.  A couple who had been meeting with us were being threatened.  They were told they would lose their jobs.  Some labourers were told the same thing.  There were lots of prayers going up.

Ali’s time with us was up.  We dropped her in Dehra Dun and I sobbed all the way back to Mussoorie.  I cried for days.  I really missed her company.

There were times when Asha and Zoë took strain with our busy lives, especially when we had overseas visitors.  There was always so much to talk about.  They loved the company but we weren’t taking time to be with them.  They were so good with all the moving around and they loved being surrounded by lots of people.  They had learnt to sleep everywhere and anywhere; which made things easy for us but we were constantly reminding ourselves to slow down to just be with them.  It was also difficult to be consistent with their discipline.  Our lack of attention made them more demanding which made us more irritated which led to more tension.  It was a real battle.

We were also constantly aware of the battle for our marriage.  One night when I fell into bed after a long day, God whispered in my ear, “Don’t withhold affection from your husband.” Another time, I woke up in the middle of the night.  I couldn’t sleep so I started praying.  For some reason, Tony also woke up and started getting amorous.  I felt irritated and in my mind I said to God, “Now what?”  He said, “Love your husband.”  He kept reminding me of the importance of prioritising my family.

It was so easy to be nice and kind to everyone else.  We loved spending time with new people and could spend hours chatting and praying with them.  Tony and I needed to do the same with each other.  Our lives were so focused on building the community that we sometimes lost touch with each other.

God knew our dreams better than we did.  He put them there.  He knew our passion for the lost.  It came from Him.  We knew we were living our dream but needed to be careful how we lived it.

During a particularly difficult time for us,  God once again came to our rescue and gave us something to think about.  His words to us were, “Don’t let your dream become a nightmare.”  We knew that the biggest nightmare for us would be to lose each other.  Even if we won the whole world we would have lost everything.