By Kayla DeKraker
Country star Thomas Rhett and his wife Lauren Akins moved to Uganda temporally in an act of faith and trust in God, recently opening up about how they navigated uncertainty in the process.
Rhett shared on Annie F. Downs’ podcast that he believed he had a vision during church of his family living in Uganda but was nervous about telling his wife.
“Should I tell my wife this? Because, like, when you tell Lauren anything, she’s gonna pressure you to keep praying about it, and that’s — I’m just like, I’m good,” he said.
Rhett continued, “I love our comforts. That sounds so bad. So about a week later, I was like, ‘Hey, so I had this vision in church. It probably doesn’t mean anything.’ And she was like, ‘Well, let’s, let’s start praying about that’…We started praying about it, and we kind of felt like that we should, we should take our kids to Uganda. We didn’t know how long, whatever.”
Related: Thomas Rhett Recalls Moment He, His Wife Decided to Adopt Daughter
Akins emphasized that they prayed very intentionally about the decision.
“We prayed [for] like very clear open doors, very clear closed doors. Opportunities would come up, and we would pray about it be like, ‘Is this what you’re asking us to do?’ Because we really had no direction other than he knew it was for a season. He was like, ‘I feel like it was us living there.’”
Rhett admitted that those words made him feel like saying, “Can I just reverse it?”
Even though the couple believed God was leading them, they admitted that they still struggled with their own questions.
“To be honest, there were moments where it was tough,” Akins recalled. “It would turn into a stressful argument for him and I, because I would be like ‘but if the Lord’s calling us to do it.’ He’s like, ‘but what if I didn’t see it the right way?’”
Ultimately, the couple did move to Uganda for about six weeks in 2025, and their story is a reminder to trust God even when it doesn’t make sense. During their trip, they considered adoption but decided not to pursue it. Afterwards, Lauren became pregnant with their fifth child and announced the exciting news on Instagram last August.
“Here we go again! We’ve got some really excited big sisters in our house. God is so good,” she captioned the post.
If you’re facing a dilemma like Rhett and Akins, take heart in God’s words found in Isaiah 55:8-9: “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”
Even when we don’t understand God’s ways, we can trust them.
Read Next: ‘I Had a Falling Apart’: Thomas Rhett’s Wife Lauren Opens Up About Postpartum Depression
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