“Part of my heart is still in Ecuador with my friends and the children, and it always will be. I pray that one day God will send me back there with whatever plan He has for me.”
Back in 2011, during the fall of my sophomore year, I had an incredible opportunity to study abroad in Quito, Ecuador. I grew to love the people that I spent every day with and the children I spent time with for my internship. A couple days after I came back to the States and went to see friends at school I jotted down some of my thoughts. The quote above is what I wrote at the end of my journaling. All of my prayers are finally coming true! When I was writing those words down 2 years ago it was all just a dream for me and I had no idea how I was going to make it back to Ecuador. But God knew all along:)
Ever since I gave my life to Christ back in middle school I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in ministries. Back then it never crossed my mind that whatever you do, God will use that to bring glory to His name. In high school I was planning on going to a Christian College, study ministries, and become a youth pastor in the States. Well, I’m graduating in May from Trinity Christian College with a double major in Theology and Church and Ministry Leadership, but with a different passion than I had freshman year.
Why am I going on the World Race? During those 3 short months in Ecuador God used me and changed me. God sent me back to the States with a passion for missions; for leaving the people, town, and culture that I call home and going where “my trust is without borders” and where “my faith could be made stronger”, being the embodiment of the gospel. This past semester I had to write a paper for my Theology capstone class and I chose to write about evangelism. Some of the research I did for this paper was seeing how the Triune God is the framework of missions. The information that I learned is absolutely beautiful, seeing how we are called to participate in God’s mission. The hymn in Philippians 2 shows the image of Christ coming into a new culture and immersing himself in it. Through salvation we become co-heirs with Christ and get the amazing opportunity to participate in God’s redemptive work. The book that I used for research is called Invitation to World Missions by Timothy Tennent. In there he wrote that missionaries are simultaneously messengers and embodiments of the good news. This means that when they immerse themselves in a different culture, learning the language and communicating the gospel, they are solely reflecting the Incarnation. All I can think of is BEAUTIFUL! While my team and I are on the Race, communicating and immersing ourselves in different cultures, we will be reflecting the Incarnation.
I would like to leave you with a song that will hopefully get stuck in your head. I have a lot in mind so I will share with you my favorite and my go-to song for anything and everything. It is my prayer for my squad and myself during this preparation stage and while we are on the Race, and also for you. I pray that God sets a fire in each of our lives and that in everything that we do we want more of HIM.
Peace in Christ,
Hannah
