Jason and Angie Bechtel Bringing Hope to Unreached People Groups 
We were getting down to the wire. The excitement was building. Financial gifts for my trip to Indonesia were beginning to come in. Even with our third child due to arrive the end of March, I was going ahead with my plans to be in Indonesia for two weeks the end of February. It hadn’t sunk in yet for Delena that I would be missing her birthday, the one that she has been talking about since forever — she is going to start school after she turns four, don’t you know!
As much as I wanted to go to Indonesia, as much as I wanted to be there for the Bible dedication, for a Bible I have helped prepare for the last two years, I didn’t have a peace that passes all understanding. I just didn’t have a peace.
So I put a condition on my trip. I wouldn’t travel alone. If the Lord didn’t provide someone to travel with me, I wouldn’t go. I approached one of my best friends. He wanted to come. His wife was okay with it. His work was okay with it. It was just a matter of the finances, for him and for myself.
While salvation is free, bringing the gospel to the unreached can be very expensive, especially when the people who need to hear live in hard-to-reach places. Our trip into the Lauje tribe will cost each of us more than $2,500. Not only do we have international flights to Jakarta, but domestic flights, and then renting a helicopter to fly into the tribe.
As we got down to the wire, needing to make some decisions and commitments, neither of us had a peace, but we pressed on. Why wouldn’t God want us to be a part of this once-in-a-lifetime celebration?
Then I got the call. An email actually. The decision to go or stay was not actually ours to make. The Bible translator learned from the printer that the Bibles won’t be ready in time. The Bible dedication has been postponed till April or May.
The relief I felt was quickly followed by regret and dread.
I was relieved that I didn’t have to say no. That I wouldn’t be seen as unwilling to trust God for the money. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to make a hard choice between going and staying. But I also realized that I was very close to making a bad choice. Actually, I was very close to being disobedient. I didn’t have a peace with going, and I knew it.
So why didn’t I have a peace? Was it simply that the timing was off, and the Lord knew it? Was I just being told not to buy the tickets for February? Or am I not to go at all? I don’t know.
While the pressure is currently off, my friend and I still have to decide if we should move ahead with going to Indonesia in April. For both of us, the deciding factors will have changed. There will be no risk of me missing the birth of my 3rd child, but I will be leaving Angie with two preschoolers and a 4-week-old.
I covet your prayers. Not only that I would have a sense of the Lord’s leading, but that I would have the boldness to listen.
Another fun thing this month has been taking Delena to swimming lessons. It’s her first time and there are 5 kids in her little class with 2 instructors. The lessons are at the Durham wading pool, which is up to Delena’s chest almost, in the deep end. She’s done very well. She didn’t want to put her head under the water at all on the second day (which was their first time) but now she’s the only one who will do it without the instructor’s ‘help’. 
She’s good at floating on her back and will attempt to swim forward, but hasn’t quite figured out how to kick your legs, move your arms AND put your face in the water! Thursday and Friday of this past week she told the instructors that she “was tired of yessons”. Today she was wanting to do them again, so hopefully this long weekend was a long enough break for her and she can finish off this last week of lessons with a bang.
I, on the other hand, got to stay the night at a friend’s house from college and stayed up until 1am talking with her. Good thing the girls were with grandparents because I would have been way too tired to get up with them in the morning.
