I have a confession to make. When it comes to hearing God’s voice, I apparently have a thing for toiletries.

Let me explain.

The year is 1995, and I’m in between college and well, whatever’s next, working as a cashier at the local Wal-Mart.

One day, I receive a newsletter from Youth With A Mission Hong Kong. I had been in Hong Kong back in 1990 for my very first missions trip overseas, and had pretty much sworn off of missions. It’s not that the trip was so bad, it was great, actually, but I was only 17, it was my first time away from home for more than two weeks, first time overseas, etc. You can imagine. So, I had come home form that trip in 1990 and decided that I wouldn’t go into missions; I would go to college, get a good job and make lots of money and support missions.

Well, as I said previously, I was no longer in college at this point in 1995 and wondering what God had in store for me, so that whole thing obviously didn’t work out for me. And then I get this newsletter from Hong Kong. In the newsletter, they mentioned they were looking for people to come and help. Nothing special, what missions organization doesn’t mention that in almost every newsletter they send out, right? However, that one, simple sentence umped off the page and punched me in the gut.

It was clear at that moment that that was “what was next for me”. However, I apparently needed a lot of reassurance because strange things started happening in that Wal-Mart check-out line.

Every time any kind of toiletry product would come by, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. I would start thinking about one particular drug store I had been in my first time in Hong Kong back in 1990. And not just thinking about it, longing for it to the point of being homesick. So much so, I could hardly do my job.

Now, don’t think I’m off the deep end, here. I would, of course never make such a large life-decision as quitting my job, leaving family, home and friends and taking off to Hong Kong based on toiletries alone.

However, in the grand scheme of things, and amidst all the other avenues and wise people God was using to speak to me. God’s still, small voice was coming to me through toiletries.

So why am I writing about this now? The last few weeks, every-time I use toiletries of some kind or another, I think about Budapest and the fact that toiletries are so much cheaper there than here in The Netherlands.

Is that really God once again speaking to me through toiletries, or is it just my shampoo?

Let me know what you think in the comments.