Everything we did in the time we were back in South Africa, was for a purpose. A purpose to go to the UK as individuals who are economically viable. Everything we owned and could do, would go with us and prepare us to go and plant a church in Yeovil in Somerset. Apart from having to find a Vineyard in England that would accept us, believe in us and prepare us until it was time for us to move to Yeovil, we also had to find work. Hendrik spent all his time studying to get a wider variety of computer and programming skills under his belt.

 

On the 28th of July 2000, I had a dream that I was pregnant, and we were going to have a baby. Of course, that would be a baby in the Spiritual sense. I could feel the baby in my womb as it was moving around. The fact that I was forty-nine years old and the danger of having a baby at my age crossed my mind, but we were so excited, and I knew it was right. I wrote next to the dream I jotted down in my journal, ‘Mark this date plus 9 months = APRIL 2001.’ That was just as Carey had prophesied. We knew the time to move to England was creeping up on us.

 

Hendrik started looking at work opportunities advertised on the Internet. We once counted that he applied for over 200 positions. It was always a catch-twenty-two situation with finding work in England. To find work in England, you needed a work permit. However, you cannot apply for a work permit without having a firm job. Only companies inside the UK can apply for a permit, and they must abide by strict rules to get one.

We soon learned that the Internet was a waste of time. During December 2000, Hendrik did some extra work for a company in Johannesburg in his free time and managed to earn some extra cash. We knew we had to put this money aside as we may need it.

 

Anthony and Julia, the couple from Birmingham whom we met in South Africa, returned to England for a period. He informed Hendrik that it would be better to book a ticket to England so he could search for jobs in person. The money we put aside in December was exactly the amount Hendrik needed for a plane ticket and in February Hendrik went to England.

 

We arranged through the Vineyard in Southend-on-Sea, to accommodate Hendrik for the 10 days. A friend of ours also arranged an interview for Hendrik, the day he arrived in London. It was the only interview he had lined up. The interview was a mere formality and the job was certain. But during the interview, Hendrik felt God said “No!” and he decided not to pursue that avenue. It was now over to God to guide him.

 

Hendrik said that while walking down the street in Southend, an overwhelming feeling struck him that he was invisible. He said he realised later it was because he was now in a place where most people were white, compared to where we are from in Africa. But, on the work front, he soon found out that it was the catch twenty-two story again: you could not call on the help of agencies for work without a National Insurance Number, and you cannot get a National Insurance number without a work permit and/or a job offer. At the end of the week, Hendrik packed his bags again to return home, being no further than what he was when he arrived there.

However, there was one crucial piece in the puzzle that was about to change events and our destiny. During this week in Southend-on-Sea, he attended one of the home groups and someone he had never met walked in, and handed him a Sainsbury’s carrier bag with a few newspapers. All he told Hendrik was that he may find what he was looking for in those newspapers. It is in the little naturally supernatural things we do that we change the destiny of people’s lives. For some unknown reason, Hendrik did not look at the newspapers but threw them in his suitcase and took them back to South Africa.

 

The first thing back at home, he started scanning the newspapers and found some jobs advertised that he could apply for and on a Sunday night, applied for quite a few. On Monday he got a reply from one of the companies in London, inviting him to come for an interview. He wrote to them and asked them if it was at all possible to do a telephone interview as he arrived back in South Africa a day ago. On Tuesday night, he entered a three-way telephonic interview between him in South Africa, two people in England and one person in America.

 

On Wednesday, he received an email that invited him to fly back to England, with all expenses covered, for a second interview. Three days later, on Friday, I drove him back to the airport. On Monday after his interview, he called me from England to say he got the job. The company now had to apply for the necessary work permit which will take about six weeks. Once that is through, we can apply for a special visa for me to work in the UK and book our flights to London. By the way; all expenses paid including moving our furniture and paying our accommodation at a B&B for a week to help us get settled! Hendrik told me at this point that he felt certain we would be flying Business Class when we flew over. “Yeah right!” was my sniggering reply.

We also received the counteroffer, a situation we began to recognize that occurs often when God starts moving. At the point he accepted the job offer, Hendrik immediately received a very good job offer in South Africa, a position he had wanted from the day we arrived back from America.

 

It felt as if we shifted suddenly from fourth gear to first gear, and I now faced the massive task of packing our belongings. Even though Carey informed us that we would move in April, I didn’t take it that seriously and then felt regret for not doing so. We had to arrange to pack up everything for shipping and dispose of what we would leave behind. It was a massive task. We also had to let the Tax man know we won’t be financially supporting him any-more. Not something they like to hear. I could have avoided so much stress if I'd done that earlier and sorted the belongings we amassed over the last three years.