Being a senior in high school something I hear all the time is “Where are you going to college?” When I respond I’m not going next year, I get a lot of crazy looks and blank stares. I just thought I would share why I am not going to college next year and what I’ll be doing instead.
As senior year was approaching I was unsure what to do about the whole “after high school thing”. I knew what I was supposed to do but I really was struggling with the “supposed to” thing. I didn’t want to do something just because I was supposed to. I even considered not going to college at all. But one night it hit me, I was trying to sleep but I just wasn’t able, as I lay awake at night thinking I realized not going to college would be a mistake. God has blessed me to be intelligent and he wants me to use that, it would be a waste for me not to go to college. I said “Alright God, I see where you’re coming from and I’ll go to college”, but that night I felt Him telling me something else as well.
Go to college, but not right now.
Not right now? What do you mean not right now, when else would I go to college? I wrestled with that question for a while trying to figure out what God wanted with me. After a few internet searches I found out about a gap year, to be honest at first I thought a gap year was for people who couldn’t get into a school or didn’t have enough money to go to school right away. But it made sense, I finally understood what God meant when he said not right now, he wanted me to take a gap year.
The summer before junior year I took a mission trip to Haiti, and somewhere in the midst of that week someone mentioned this mission trip program where you spend one month in eleven different countries. Somehow in the summer before senior year I remembered this mission trip and so I looked it up. When I found out about the World Race, I also found out about the World Race Gap Year, and it was PERFECT! I felt it was exactly what God was calling me to, He was calling for me to take a year off and just serve Him, to be His hands and feet.
I applied to the World Race and waited anxiously for a few weeks until I received the call, I was accepted! I am so excited and blessed to have the opportunity to go on this trip. We will leave in August of 2016 and spend 9 months serving in Guatemala, Lesotho and Cambodia! So yes, I am going to college, just not right now.
