It is not everyone that copes well with living in a foreign country
I know people who traveled abroad and promptly fell into depression
They had a good job and it was their heart desire to travel
And yet, they found the foreignness of their surroundings too much of a barrier to

function properly in
I have seen people travel with wide smiles on their faces only to return home broken almost beyond repair
Everybody wonders what was wrong with them
You hear friends and relatives say "He or she was offered the job on a platter of Gold and the job came with

an opportunity for him or her to become a citizen. How could such throw away the opportunity to make so much money in the name of loneliness?
Earlier today I spoke with a young lady who was stuck in Kuwait
She traveled down as a nurse but couldn't get a job because of Covid-19

Her husband was a mechanic by profession, the company that employed him in Kuwait kept all their employees camped at a location close to the plant so as not to expose them to the pandemic
She was alone in a foreign country
Her husband was in the camp
She had nobody to talk to or

reason with
She applied for employment online but all her efforts at getting a job had not worked out
She had been in Kuwait for 14 months
According to her, it had been hell
She said she was a nurse in her home country
She was gainfully employed back at home and traveled just to

be with her husband after they got married
She said she realized she was out of her depth from day one but she was determined not to return home empty handed
She kept saying "Everybody knew I traveled, it will be a disgrace if i returned home without achieving anything."
She kept

crying throughout the conversation
She said her husband was making progress while she had been practically retrogressing since the moment she arrived at Kuwait
To make matters worse, she had to live alone and keep herself company every day
Her husband tried his best to provider

her with the basic provisions she needed
He sent her weekly stipends and called her as often as possible but it was not enough
She was losing her mind
I had to calm her down
I have dealt with such cases several times and I can smell disaster right from the moment she sent me the

SOS message
She said she would have felt better if she was in the UK, USA or Canada
I told her that might not be so true
There are people who can live anywhere and there are some who simply cannot thrive far away from home
I know people who live in the USA and are making good

money who cry themselves to sleep every night
I remember having a discussion with Firecracker Toyeen (The lady who recently started sharing her experiences on http://gbengawemimo.com ) about California
She said she sometimes had to drive 12 miles to see another Nigerian!
That for

her was tough!
I remember some brothers of mine who traveled to Dubai in search of greener pastures
They returned home after several months because things didn't go as they were told before they left home
A lady sent me an SOS from Qatar, she was a maid and she had been promised

heaven and earth before she travelled
When she got to her place of employment, she realised the way some Nigerians treat housemaids was the way she was expected to be treated
Plus, the husband of her employer had her international passport and was sleeping with her at will with

the threat that he would throw the passport away if she didn't open her legs willingly
I have seen so much that goes on on the other side of the "Greener pasture"
A woman once wrote to me from Jos
Her husband had three houses, a bakery & some choice plots of land
She was running

a supermarket and they were well off
They had five cars, their three children were in good schools
Suddenly she got bitten by the "abroad bug"
She told her husband they must relocate
Her husband bought her suggestion and they sold everything they had for 18000 dollars
They moved

to the USA as a family
But things didn't turn out as planned at all
Their children fell ill as soon as they got to the country
They had to hospitalize the children
They didn't have health care insurance and had to pay cash
By the time they sorted out the hospital bills and rented

an apartment
They were broke
her husband kept blaming her for their circumstances
She regretted her decision to push him in that direction too
They had become ordinary people who have to struggle and check listings and go searching for employment in America!
They were not used to

that lifestyle
He was a civil engineer at home and he did a lot of contracts with the government
He made his first millions in his twenties and never looked back
He was forty-three by the time they got to America and the whole American dream died within a year!
He eventually left

He returned home to start over again
His wife refused to leave (She was studying to be a nurse by this time)
She believed once she became a nurse, she would make enough money to buy Nigeria
It was not to be
Within a year of returning home, he was back on his feet
His engineering

company had a good reputation and he was awarded some contracts
He kept calling his wife to return home
His wife kept saying No
Eventually, he built a house and married another wife
His wife heard and suddenly realized he was far richer than her even though she was in America

She returned home and ended up as the man's second wife (Senior)
She told me how much she regretted trying to fix what was not broken
Her children were another issue
The first daughter got into the drug habit at the age of 17
Before she knew what was going on, she ran away with a

Jamaican boy
By the time she was eventually found, she was pregnant with a crack baby that died at birth
She knew she could have spared her children that trauma if she didn't tempt fate
It is not all stories of woe and sorrow
Many moved abroad and adapted like a fish to water

Without the power of the Holy Spirit and his direction, we will make the wrong moves and such a move could be too costly to bear
We shouldn't be living our lives purposelessly
Making money is not a purpose and after making it, many of us have come to see that it does not satisfy!

If financial security was the ultimate achievement, many a wealthy man who committed suicide wouldn't do so
We were made for loftier goals
The earlier we discover our purpose and start working towards fulfilling it, the better for us
Does it not strike you as odd that someone in

his late 60s and 70s would be unprepared to die?
Regardless of how wealthy and accomplished, it almost always seems as if they knew there was something they were meant to do that they had failed to do.
A man who has fulfilled purpose will say "I have run my course, I have won the

race"
Are you even in the race?
Do you know your purpose?
it is important to walk with the Holy Spirit and begin to journey on our preordained paths in Christ.
Jesus is not a religion
Jesus is the life, that eternal life that pleases God through us by the power of the Holy Spirit