We were asked to write a blog about how we were called to this mission. Here is my story…
As a child, when asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, my answer varied from being an attorney to the President of the United States to being a missionary to Minnesota. At 22 years of age, I have no idea why Minnesota made such an impression on me as a child. One of my good college friends (Amy) is from this Midwestern state, but I did not know her in my elementary school years.
Since a young age, I have been aware of missionaries through my home church (Naperville Presbyterian Church) and their generous support of missionaries throughout the years. Additionally, I have been involved in domestic missional work since I was eleven and at nineteen, I moved to Spain to study and be a part of a CMFI missionary team that developed and ran a campus ministry at the Universidad de Salamanca, which is about 2.5 hours west of Madrid. Through these intense months, I was broken and reconstructed by God and I have never been the same. It was through this nine-month experience that I learned how to really love others in His name and to accept love from God, my team, and the students we worked and served. A simple lesson–to learn how to love, but an invaluable one that has been an intricate part of my life in recent years and I have no plans to stop caring and loving others for the rest of my life, wherever I may be or with whoever I am “doing life” with.
Old and new sinful habits remain and I am often ashamed of how broken and sinful I am, but my perspective on life and my passions have shifted. My eyes were opened to the work of international ministry like never before and a part of me began to grow that I had not been aware of beforehand. After my return to the States, I knew that I could not let this be my only international missional experience and I was practically on the search for another opportunity since my return from Spain in May of 2006.
God blessed me with finding out about The World Race online and since then, I decided to become more active with Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) while I attended Belmont University in Nashville. I found out about The World Race while I was still in school and my interest and excitement boarded on uncontrollable excitement at times (AND IT STILL DOES!), as well as impatience to finish up grad school planning and support raising.
With more domestic ministry experiences in Long Beach, California with Cru during the summer of 2007–which taught me the importance of being an obvious Christian at my place of employment as well as to love the loved-less (especially the poor); being a part of the leadership team with Cru at Belmont; volunteering in various venues with underprivileged children, the homeless, the poor, recent immigrants, AIDS patients, disabled students, pregnant teenagers, and others-throughout the cities I have lived in and visited in recent years.
I have come to realize one of the dynamic passions that fuel me: serving others in need and attempting to live like Jesus. I enjoy being a part of a missionary team to further His kingdom, while being adventurous, along with traveling. I look forward to seeing these three components fit into TWR and the role that I will be playing-and soon!
Siempre in Him,
Hannah
