Good question. First of all, it’s important to say that I most assuredly know I am called to this mission trip. How I got here isn’t as straight forward and simple. This entry is a little long and I apologize, but so is my road to this trip.
This time last year I was a little over halfway through my one year graduate program at Alabama and pretty much hating it. I loved being able to live with my brother and being a real student for Alabama football games, but I had already figured out I had no desire to use my degree. The desire to be a teacher had been growing in me for several years, but for various reasons I had never acted upon it. It was about Christmas a little over a year ago when I knew for sure that teaching is what I wanted to do with my life, and I just wanted to get out of this program and go get my degree to teach. But with only 5 months or so left, I was encouraged to stick it out at Alabama and did.
School’s hard enough to get excited about as it is, but let me tell you it’s basically impossible when you know you’re not going to use anything you learn. It got so bad that the last day of my spring minimester, I was sitting in my apartment trying to edit all my projects for my portfolio due that afternoon and everything that could go wrong did, so I did the math and found out if I
didn’t turn it in at all I still got a B, and decided I just had to leave. I had never just not done an assignment in my life, but I couldn’t stay. So I left all my stuff scattered on the floor, threw a bunch of food and clothes in a bag, grabbed a road atlas and just drove. For those who read my about me, you’ll know I’ve been to Houston and San Antonio in the last year. Well this is when those two cities got visited. Luckily, we had a four day break before summer school started, so I made it to the beach for a day and then saw the Alamo (as you can see I didn’t bring a camera so I had to recreate my trip there and the excitement it brought me) all while spending two nights in my car at rest stops (the one in Lake Charles, LA is quite nice if you’re ever driving through). I didn’t talk to anyone for about 3 days except God, and trust me there is plenty of time to talk when driving across Texas. It was awesome. But I discovered there was no way I could graduate in August and jump right back into grad school again a couple of weeks after that. It was official I was burnt out on school and needed a break.
didn’t turn it in at all I still got a B, and decided I just had to leave. I had never just not done an assignment in my life, but I couldn’t stay. So I left all my stuff scattered on the floor, threw a bunch of food and clothes in a bag, grabbed a road atlas and just drove. For those who read my about me, you’ll know I’ve been to Houston and San Antonio in the last year. Well this is when those two cities got visited. Luckily, we had a four day break before summer school started, so I made it to the beach for a day and then saw the Alamo (as you can see I didn’t bring a camera so I had to recreate my trip there and the excitement it brought me) all while spending two nights in my car at rest stops (the one in Lake Charles, LA is quite nice if you’re ever driving through). I didn’t talk to anyone for about 3 days except God, and trust me there is plenty of time to talk when driving across Texas. It was awesome. But I discovered there was no way I could graduate in August and jump right back into grad school again a couple of weeks after that. It was official I was burnt out on school and needed a break.
So after I figured out I had a year off, God very quietly began to tug on my heart and tell me to use this time wisely (aka for Him) because I’ll never have a time like this again in my life. So I told a small handful of people I thought I would work some fall semester and then might do extended mission work the next semester. I had been to Costa Rica the previous summer for only a week and loved it, was changed by it and wanted to do something like that again. But by extended mission work I thought I meant a month or two. I still intended to go to grad school starting in August, so I applied to a really awesome program that I really wanted to get into. My grades and test scores were well above the averages they had for the past year’s admittance, so while I didn’t think I was a shoe-in I figured I’d make it and start in the fall. Before this I had also even applied for a couple of jobs. Well, obviously I was rejected by all of them, and today I praise the Lord I was, or I wouldn’t be here.
I had been looking for mission trips and found a few good ones that really had nothing wrong with them, but they just didn’t feel right. So sometime in December I was on Facebook, and I have no idea what the ad was on the side of my screen but it said “Interested in a mission trip?”, and I said well yes actually I am Facebook ad. So like I said, I have no idea what site that took me to, but after a few random clicks I saw something called the World Race. It immediately grabbed my attention. My life dream has always been to be on the Amazing Race, and I’ve basically never missed an episode because I have an overwhelming desire to see the world and thought that might be the closest I ever came. I mean God created it, why shouldn’t I see all He has to offer?
I was in the middle of reading through Acts and Romans at the time reading about Paul forming the churches and spreading the news of Jesus everywhere, and so I was sold immediately after I read about this opportunity for me to do similarly. For about a week, I read blog after blog soaking up the incredible things God was doing through these people, and without a doubt I knew it was for me. I prayed about it for a good month and told a few people who were all super encouraging and told me to go for it. So finally after not acting on it for a little while, I turned my application in 2 weeks ago, and now bam! here I am leaving everything behind for nearly a year in a mere 4 months. That is unless somebody wakes me up because I’m still 50/50 this is a dream.
