SEVERAL years ago while at tending medical school and preparing for marriage I came across a statement in The Ministry of Healing, page 365: "The more nearly we come into harmony with God's original plan, the more favorable will be our position to secure health of body, and mind, and soul."
Shortly thereafter my wife and I recognized that in planning for a home we should seek the Lord's guidance and follow His plan. Knowing that God's people are going to face tremendous problems in the future, one of which is buying and selling, we sought counsel concerning the best means to prepare for these crises. "Again and again the Lord has instructed that our people are to take their families away from the cities, into the country, where they can raise their own provisions; for in the future the problem of buying and selling will be a very serious one."— Selected Messages, book 2, p. 141.
As we prayed for guidance, the Lord provided a small home on the outskirts of Loma Linda, where we had fruit trees and a garden plot while attending school. This was a great blessing to us. But when children joined our family, we realized that a more rural environment would be necessary in order to raise children in harmony with God's plan. "My warning is: Keep out of the cities. Build no sanitariums in the cities. Educate our people to get out of the cities into the country, where they can obtain a small piece of land, and make a home for themselves and their children."—Country Living, pp. 10, 11.
We looked for such a sanitarium where we could live in the country and put our skills to work advancing the Lord's cause. By several providential workings, we were led to Georgia. Here we found country living at its best, with six hundred acres of mountainous trails, a rural, missionary-minded hospital and sanitarium, and a home where agriculture could be carried out family style.
"The Lord desires His people to move into the country, where they can settle on the land, and raise their own fruit and vegetables, and where their children can be brought in direct contact with the works of God in nature."—Selected Messages, book 2, p. 357. It was a great blessing to study nature in a country setting and have it all around our home. We learned more names of trees, flowers, and birds than we had learned in all the previous years of our lives. Our children from the time they could walk and talk learned to love the outdoors and to see the Creator's handiwork.
We recognized that in order to teach people the principles of healthful living, we needed to follow God's plan one hundred per cent. Our teaching by precept needed demonstration in actual practice. We also found that living in an outpost center gave us greater spiritual power as well as insight in working the cities through medical missionary lines. Like Enoch, who brought people out to his country outpost, we had a retreat where our careworn city friends could commune with nature and enjoy the simple things of life. "Do not consider it a privation when you are called to leave the cities and move out into the country places. Here there await rich blessings for those who will grasp them. By beholding the scenes of nature, the works of the Creator, by studying God's handiwork, imperceptibly you will be changed into the same image."—Country Living, pp. 14, 15.
It is with gratefulness for our Father's providential workings that we continue our medical missionary work from a rural outpost. We know that God has led us to a place where preparation can be made in earnest for the times of crisis ahead of us. We determine to be ready, with God's help, to give the loud cry and to ascend soon with the saints to our heavenly home, which is also called "a better country" (Heb. 11:16).
