By Sandra Bost
In October 1998, only 19 months after we moved from Auburn, Alabama to our beloved Gallatin, Tennessee to begin our professional careers, me as a speech-language pathologist and my husband as a studio drummer, our little family of three packed up and moved to the other side of the world. My dad had been running a carpet factory in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for a sheikh. It didn’t take Momma long after her first grandbaby arrived in 1996 to convince my daddy that he needed a hand-crafted rug division, and that my husband would be a perfect fit to start that plant. At least that is how I think the story went.
I will never forget the moment we stepped off of the plane onto the steaming tarmac. I said to my husband, “Wow, those engines really put out a lot of heat.” The only problem is that the heat and humidity were not coming from the airplane. It was the Saudi sun baking down on the black pavement, reminiscent of an Alabama July. Even in Autumn, the temperature in Jeddah could hover in the upper 90s Fahrenheit. From the tarmac, my husband, my pregnant self, and our three-year-old world traveler, boarded a bus that drove us to baggage claim to begin our life as an expat family in the middle east.
Besides the stifling heat, it didn’t take long to adapt to our new way of life. Since my parents had already lived there for almost five years, they were eager to show us around and help us get settled in. I am sure that all of my history books from high school did not prepare me for the hustle and bustle of the 21st century Jeddah we found ourselves in. It was a far cry from the camel clad desert I imagined. We are talking about state-of-the-art shopping malls and hospitals, ornate buildings, manicured landscapes with sculptures in every roundabout, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Within a span of 20 miles, the scenery could shift from city skyline to mountains to deserts to seaside views. I was not prepared for the amount of date palm trees and colorful bougainvilleas that adorned every corner, not to mention the fragrant jasmine draping the high walls surrounding each home. Neither was I ready for the wildlife: birds, sheep, camels, goats, and baboons. Yes! Baboons run wild in the mountains! And that is just on the land. The Red Sea is heralded by divers everywhere as one of the top diving destinations in the world. With its crystal-clear waters and warm temperatures, combined with its diverse underwater topography, the Red Sea is home to some of the most spectacular marine life in the world. My parents were already divers when we arrived, and my husband and I were fortunate enough to get certified and take our maiden dive on a wreck somewhere off the coast of Jeddah.
My husband, who we lovingly refer to as Forrest Gump sometimes, set up a thriving plant and taught his Indian and Pakistani workers how to carve beautiful designs in the carpet that was manufactured in the plants my dad ran. As a professional drummer, the whole “starving artist” mantra led him to learn many trades (thus the Forrest Gump comparison). Carving rugs was a skill he learned in Northwest Georgia before we met. However, it wasn’t carpet or rugs that would be the focus of our time in Jeddah.
As Christians, we understood the assignment. We had already reconciled the fact (back in Tennessee) that God had other plans for our family than for us to become successful in our chosen careers and live the American Dream. Like He has so many of you, He challenged us with the question, “Do you trust Me?” It wasn’t until we both lost our minds, I mean, came to our senses by fully trusting Him, that The Lord began to show us what He had in mind.
There are dozens of exciting experiences and travels that I will tell you about in time, but the highlight of our Jeddah Journey is marked by the sweet way the Lord messed up our plans and allowed us to walk beside Him in a foreign land to learn more about who He is, and bring a few friends with us along the way.
Perhaps next week I will tell you about the time we went searching for the gold of Exodus and ended up stranded on a beach.
