My Personal Exodus

My Exodus Motivators: Despair, Disillusionment, and Dismay

“Lord, I can’t stay here! I cannot stand this any longer!”

My heart cried out to the Lord in genuine despair and desperation as I exited the shower. I’d been waging a guerilla-warfare style campaign from my Facebook account against fellow Christians in the midst of the Covid lockdown. I’d become so thoroughly disillusioned with the viewpoints of many of my brothers and sisters in Christ that it left me feeling completely alienated and unseen. The members of the Baptist church which I’d attended for the previous twenty years of my life felt like strangers and aliens to me. I felt alone and misunderstood. Grateful for the excuse of limiting the spread of disease, my family and I had begun to separate in mind, soul, and body from our long standing church community.

A short time before, I’d received a not so veiled death threat from a friend of one of my fellow church members online. The reason given for why I should be eliminated from the earth: I dared to vocalize a dissenting point of view about yet another story of racial violence in the United States. 

In response to the violent message I received, I’d asked the person, “Are you a Christian?” 

Their reply back to me was telling, “What does that have to do with anything?”  

I thought to myself, “It has everything to do with everything. If this person’s heart is reflective of conservative Christians in America, then I’d rather live among non-believers somewhere else.”

Tensions were flaring from coast to coast, marked by massive conflict and disagreements about every topic under the sun. I had discerned more hate-fueled rationalizations from my fellow Christian’s opinions and stances than I did the love of God we all claimed to serve. That realization left me shaken, confused, and eventually drove me into the virtual office of a Christian counseling center. 

I could not make sense of what I was seeing in other believers. Easily offended and emotionally wounded, I was also completely blinded by my own pride, and sense of rightness, and unrighteous judgment of others.

It was in those counseling sessions that the wild idea to run away to Switzerland first entered my mind. I’d only visited one time before, more than ten years previously. Shortly after Martin and I had gotten married, we’d visited the alpine country during the Christmas holidays. I’d vowed never to come back during the winter season. The cold weather was an affront to my native Texan blood. 

However, for the previous two or three years from our home in Houston, I’d stumbled across a certain organization’s ranking of the best places to live in the world. Switzerland was always at the very top of that list. Martin was Swiss by birth. The idea that we could exit the United States and leave all the racial, policial, and religious turmoil behind burrowed in my mind and refused to leave. What initially seemed like the wildest, most outrageous idea I could ever dream up slowly began to take on shape.

Unbeknownst to me, our transition to Switzerland was the very beginning of what God was shaping up to be a most dramatic personal encounter with Him.

An Unlikely Plan Hatched: Our Personal Exodus from America

One day, I worked up the nerve to broach the subject of transitioning out of the United States with Martin. “Hey, babe. I know this is going to sound crazy, but how would you feel about us relocating to Switzerland?”

Not surprisingly, my idea was immediately dismissed.

 “What? Babe, are you serious!? Switzerland is nothing like the United States. All your friends and family are here. You’ll be miserable there.”

“Yes, I’m serious. I want us to consider the idea for real”.

It took me three months to convince Martin that I was totally committed and bought into the idea of leaving the States for good. We lived in a nice-sized, two-story home in a master planned community in northwest Houston. We’d had every amenity possible available to us and lived quite comfortably. Martin explained carefully that everything about how we lived would have to change. I’d actually have to cook all our meals instead of ordering delivery and takeout.

I made commitments and promises to do whatever I had to do. I didn’t care what we had to give up to make it happen. I was all in and I desperately wanted out.

Once Martin realized I had my heart set on moving forward with the idea, he told me frankly, “Babe, this really is a long shot. In order to make this happen for real, the planets will have to align perfectly, from me finding a job to us selling the house all within a certain window. There are a lot of moving parts that will have to fall into place.”

“Ok,” I said nonchalantly. It didn’t matter to me what the hurdles would be, or what I would have to do to bring this wild idea I’d hatched into reality. I was determined to get us out of the country as quickly as possible. I sat down at my computer, opened up Excel and made a first draft of our project plan to transition out of the country. I called it, “Operation Willem Tell”. Carefully and thoughtfully, I noted every single task, activity, and milestone that would have to be completed to bring this outrageous idea into fruition.

Martin and I had bought into the recommendations to completely limit human interaction during the lockdown. We’d been doing virtual school for two years and our kids hadn’t been around their friends or any family members their age during that time. 

Neither of us were sure if they’d be open to the idea of moving to Switzerland. We decided we’d bring it up in casual conversation to see how they reacted. We’d agreed upfront that if either of them were vehemently opposed to the idea of moving that we wouldn’t pursue the idea any further.

We’d just visited with some close family friends from Louisiana, having had lunch together in the open air in one of our neighborhood parks. As we walked back to our car, I asked, “Hey guys, Daddy and I were talking about the possibility of our family leaving Houston and moving to Switzerland. How would you guys feel about that? Is it something you’d be open to?”

I’d fully expected the idea to be outright rejected, but the exact opposite happened. 

Not only were our kids open to the idea, they were both delighted by it! 

Snow was what I remembered them both being the most excited over. 

It didn’t matter to me what their reasons were for being on board with the idea. 

We’d passed our first major hurdle: being totally united in opinion as a family of four. We took it as a sign that we were on the right track and began to initiate the next steps in our transition plan.

By the grace of God, we’d renewed both kids' Swiss passports in Atlanta just months before the outbreak shut everything down. It was a vital and important part of our immigration requirements which might not have been possible to bring about during the lockdown. God had gone before us and sorted everything out before the idea of moving had ever entered into our minds.

I decided to enroll the kids and myself into online German classes almost immediately to begin making preparations in earnest.

“Babe, you’re going to have to be the primary driver behind making this happen if we’re going to move ahead.” Martin explained candidly. “I need to focus on work, and there is a lot you’re going to have to do on your own.”

I would have agreed to anything Martin asked to keep moving forward with the plan. I had purposed in my heart that it was the right thing to do, and I fully intended to see it through no matter what.

Sitting in our living room one afternoon, Martin turned to me and asked, “Should I tell my Mom our plans? Are we really going to move forward with this?”

“Absolutely,” I smiled affirmatively. “Let’s do it!” 

We hadn’t seen much of Martin’s mom for the previous few years for various reasons. As she was getting older, Martin’s concern for being able to be near and support her had steadily grown. The unspoken worry was that a need might arise that he wouldn’t be near enough to address.

Martin dialed his Mom’s telephone number and before anything was said, he began weeping to the point that He could hardly speak.

It surprised me so much and was so out of character for Martin. It was at that moment that I realized how much our move meant to him, not only me. I began to see how it would open doors for rebuilding the family ties that he’d missed out on because of his choice to build his life with me in another country.

The Parting of Our Red Sea

From that point on, things began to unfold rapidly. 

Every single milestone that was necessary to move forward fell into place without the slightest interference. 

God’s favor and invisible hand guided our every step.

In January 2021, we began executing our personal Exodus plan in earnest. Here’s how the Lord moved on our behalf:

• Martin hadn’t updated his resume in more than fifteen years. Over the Christmas break, we sat down at our dining room table and spent a day updating it and polishing it up. The first Monday in January, Martin posted his CV to a job board in Switzerland to start to feel out potential opportunities. We had expected the job search to take three months. Instead, it took three days! The company that would hire Martin put together an offer which was signed within two weeks.

• We had worked up a budget of exactly what we needed to live in Switzerland. The job offer came in slightly under what we had planned, but once we factored in the supplement provided directly by the Swiss government for each child, the total income amount was the exact amount we needed to meet our monthly needs.

• After settling on a real estate agent, we set a date to put our house up for sale. The day before the house officially went on the market, we received an offer above asking price! Even though there were a few repairs needed, the young couple who purchased the house from us were incredibly flexible and amenable. The whole process was effortless.

• Once the house was sold, I focused on selling all our belongings. We’d decided to essentially get rid of everything and start from scratch in Switzerland. I’d never sold anything online before, but I had the idea to use the professional photos from the real estate agent to market all of our household items and furniture. Within a few hours after posting on Facebook, I had thousands of inquiries. I had to request assistance from a friend to log into my account and answer all the messages. Within three days, I’d sold everything in our house.

• Martin’s family found us a beautiful apartment in the small town where we now live. They took care of the interview process, paid all of the upfront fees, and rallied family and friends to temporarily donate furniture so that we could live comfortably while we got ourselves situated. When we arrived in country, we walked into a fully furnished and fully stocked apartment. 

• Martin’s Mom donated all the frequent flyer miles needed to cover all of our flights to Switzerland, and then made arrangements for us to have a car cost free until we were able to purchase one of our own. 

• A few days before we arrived in Switzerland, the Health Department lifted the mandatory quarantine requirements.

It was as if God himself had rolled out the red carpet for us! 

I felt like the most blessed person in the world, and I was. 

Little did I know that within a year the bottom of my life would fall out. 

But before that happened, there was a very important barrier in my life that God would break down first. God had taken me out of my spiritual Egypt, but he still needed to get Egypt out of me. 

What happened next was the beginning of that process.