When Life Doesn’t Go as Planned
One couple finds that in God’s economy one plus one can equal whatever He wants.
Jorge Balza and his wife Karen had it all together. They were Christians, had lucrative careers, and financial stability. By their early 30s, they were jumping from one adventure to the next.
But their lives were mostly built for themselves focused on financial security and worldwide travel. After a run-in with a group focused on radical generosity, they began to sense God nudging them to shift their attention from their own “little kingdom” to a greater one.
Karen moved from Colombia with her parents and sister when she was 11. By the time she was ready to enter college, she was immersed in numbers, logic, and spreadsheets. As a CPA, she had her sights set on a well-planned life that did not include children—something she told Jorge when they first began dating.
Jorge had grown up in Venezuela, where he started a job in accounting, before moving to the United States as an adult. In Florida, he went to school for project management.
“I had been praying for a good man, and God matched me with Jorge,” said Karen, as the couple shared their story at the 2025 Celebration of Generosity conference held in Austin, Texas, last April.
“When you have a skill set clearly given by God, it’s really easy to limit God to calculations and justify your lack of giving because it doesn’t make mathematical sense,” she said. “I think the journey has been about this connection between my mind and my heart…I’m prone to looking at and running the numbers, creating spreadsheets, and then saying, ‘God, this doesn’t make sense.’ I also have to remember that I am a limited human being with limited knowledge, but I serve a God who is unlimited.”
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After getting married, the couple started traveling, visiting more than 45 countries.
“There was a lot of pride in the fact that we had accomplished a lot of things,” Karen said. “We were saving for our retirement. We had money in the bank. We had investment properties. We had just bought this home. And we were still in our early 30s.”
For Karen’s 30th birthday, the couple decided to hike the Mount Everest Base Camp. They traveled with another couple. They also had a guide, Soren, who was native to the area and confided that his dream was to one day see the ocean. Knowing what it meant to live below the poverty level, both Karen and Jorge knew the chances of Soren ever traveling to Dubai were next to impossible.
They returned home, planning for the next adventure.
“I don’t even know how, but I found the website for a Journey of Generosity (JOG),” said Karen, talking about the weekend mini retreats hosted in people’s homes. “I signed up to do the JOG virtually, and that was the first time I realized there are people who are creating wealth, not for themselves, but to give it away.”
That was a big shift for the financially secure couple.
“At the very end, there’s a moment of silence where you have to reflect and try to listen to what God and the Holy Spirit are telling you. To see what is in your heart,” said Karen.
“During that time, she wrote this whole essay,” said Jorge teasingly. “And I just wrote one thing. The name Soren.”
They decided to take Soren to the ocean..
“It wasn’t just a gift for him. It was a gift for us,” Karen said. “I cried every single night because it felt like God kept telling me, ‘This is what it looks like. This is what it feels like. Allow yourself to be open to giving and receiving.’ It felt like this big shell had broken off from my heart.”
After the trip with Soren, the couple returned to life as normal. But they began to feel something was missing and started talking about starting a family.
It was a joy-filled moment when Karen told Jorge the news that they were expecting. After their son, Felipe, was born, they noticed he didn’t respond to sound.
“He failed the hearing test twice,’ said Jorge. “Suddenly, the doctor comes and drops the news that he has permanent hearing loss.”
The couple determined they would respond in faith.
“I’m going to worship, and I’m going to go to the word of God,” Karen recalled. “A year prior to that, I remember having looked at my Bible, and I had written,’ God, I want to be a worker for the Great Commission. I want to see this fulfilled.’ So I started doing research and found that the deaf are one of the largest unreached people groups in the world. One of the statistics I found said that 98% of the deaf don’t know Jesus.”
Karen and Jorge hope that people will respond to the needs of those impacted by hearing loss.
“As they hear our story, they come alongside us and they want to know how they can help,” said Jorge.
“We took a trip last year to Colombia, and met some leaders from Bible translation for the deaf, and Young Life,” said Karen. “While we were there, we met Aleja, who is profoundly deaf. She had grown up without access to sign language. But when she did, she went to the school, met Jesus there, and finally was able to connect to the Christian faith. During our lunch on this trip, she shared with us that she had a scholarship through Young Life to attend a university for four years. Still, she couldn’t do that because she couldn’t afford a full-time interpreter.”
When Karen and Jorge returned to the United States, one of the couples they traveled with committed to paying for two years of Aleja’s interpreter.
“Walking through Felipe’s diagnosis has been the hardest thing that we’ve had to go through as a family and in our marriage,” Karen said. “But it is also the most beautiful and the most redemptive situation where we have seen God at work in miraculous ways. Part of adventure is embracing things that don’t go as planned. Plus, learning that one plus one does not equal two. One plus one equals whatever He wants.”
In God’s economy, everything makes sense.
