The Right Decision

Day 20--After leaving Sioux Falls, South Dakota, we drove to the Dutch town of Orange City to spend time with our friend Anita.

We first met Anita 14 years ago when we were in a church care group together. We learned that she was wrestling with a decision. She loved Oregon and enjoyed her job at a nearby Christian college but felt called to return to South Dakota in order to be closer to her family. So, Anita accepted a position at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, about an hour from her family in South Dakota.

Even though Anita left Oregon, we remained friends. She remembered our birthdays with handwritten letters, wrote to us at Christmas, and always let us know when she was returning to Oregon for some vacation time so that we could see each other.

In Orange City, Anita bought and fixed up a home, planted a garden, and invested in a town noted for its Dutch roots and annual Dutch tulip festival. Anita, a German-Latvian, even bought a Dutch costume and her own pair of wooden shoes so that she could help out at festival time. 

We remembered Anita's struggle to quit her job and leave Oregon so that she could engage more fully with her family. Twelve years later, as we sat on the porch of her beautiful home and heard her talk about her life in Orange City, her job, her church, her friends, her involvement with her two nephews, her daily contact with her 93-year-old dad, who had moved to Orange City to be near her, we asked her if she had made the right decision. 

She looked at us with a smile on her face and said, "Yes. God is faithful. It was the right decision."

We only had one night at Anita's home. Not long enough to truly catch up. But we take comfort in the promise that we will be together in heaven, where time will be no more and where we will enjoy each other's companionship forever.