How I Was Called to the Mission Field

How I was called to the mission field.

We were asked to write a blog about how we were called to this mission trip. Here is my story…

I grew up going to church and enjoyed it. My family left the church I had been attending since 2^nd grade when I was in 9^th. I don’t love change but I adapt pretty well. We moved to a much larger church and I was very hesitant to fit in or ever make friends. I truly loved the sermons though. I would rather stay with my parents then go to whatever they offered for the students.

After high school, I went to the community college for one semester then took the next off to be a nanny and figure out what I wanted to do. I remember that spring one of the sermons at church was all about missions. I guess the season for trips was about to start so the pastor was trying to put the focus there. I knew I loved medicine and kids, and there was a trip going to Mexico to an orphanage with day trips to other villages to do clinics. I had a friend that said she was going on that trip also so I signed up. My friend ended up not going but I went anyway…and fell in love. I fell in love with the people in the villages, with the kids, and the work.

The hardest thing about that trip was coming home and trying to explain it to people; people who have never been on a mission trip. I didn’t really get the support I was hoping and so when the next year came around I “just never got around” to signing up to go again. It broke my heart to not go. I felt like I let the devil win that one by keeping me away. I promised myself and God that wouldn’t happen again. The next summer I was one of the first sign-up for that trip, and when June rolled around I was back in Mexico (my second home now) for the second time.

The following year I was blessed to be able to take two of my cousins back for the third trip. I finally had someone with whom I could share the amazing, life and heart-changing experience. That summer I also had the amazing opportunity to go to Romania. Words cannot express what happened in my heart, but I knew it was just the beginning for me. These small summer trips I had been taking over the past few years were just the intro to something much larger.

Last summer was my fourth trip to Mexico, and I also led my first trip to West Virginia to lead a VBS with an amazing team of teens from the children’s department of my church. It was a blessing to me to be able to take those young souls to do the Lord’s work; to see them teaching the generation coming up right behind them. I got to be a witness to their first trip and hopefully it was a trip that grabbed their hearts for missions. The biggest blessing on that trip was that my mom and younger brother were able to join me which was a huge step towards this trip on which we are all about to embark.

Just before leaving for the trips last summer I left my nannying job (different from the first) to be able to pursue missions with more focus. When I got back I had no job and still no idea what I was doing or where I was supposed to do. One of my teammates from my Romania trip offered me a job at his Chick-fil-A until I could figure out where the Lord wanted me.

Over a year ago I began searching the internet for missions’ organizations. This would be the first time I came across Adventures in Missions and heard about the World Race. I thought, “oh that sounds cool” and that was about as far as that went…until April.

My brother got married in April to someone my family has known for many years. I was talking on the phone with my new sister-in-law about life. What she and my brother were going to be doing and what I was doing. We were talking about my confusion to go back to school into the pre-med program I had been accepted into or just go directly into the mission field. I had been hearing God saying, “go” since Romania but I had questions. Do I go back to school and go through medical school first? Do I just forget that, but I can’t, I love medicine. It was an argument between my wants and God’s. Well, He always wins. When I told sister-in-law about this she was searching the computer I guess, and said, “hey, have you ever heard of the World Race?” Wow, I didn’t tell her or anyone about my searches a few months prior. Knowing me, she went ahead and filled out the basic information for me to get the ball rolling on the application. All I had to do was go in, fill in the personal information and hit “submit.” Two months went by and I was still questioning everything. I was lying in bed one night with that same argument in my head again when I heard God say, “I Am the Great Physician, be my assistant.” That’s all it took.

A friend of mine once told me, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” I had those words in my head for a long time, but that night they truly sunk in. I knew that I don’t need a medical degree for the Lord to use me; all I have to be is willing and obedient. The next day I finished the application and had so much peace when I finally pressed “submit.”

I am so excited to see how the Lord will grow me throughout the next year. All I can think about is Isaiah:

“So here am I  Lord, send me.”