“Never tell me to be a missionary”, was a statement I once told God back when I was in middle school.
I thought the timing to write this entry couldn’t be more perfect, celebrating Christmas is more than just Jesus being born – it’s also about His heart.
The Lords heart is to seek and save the lost, to go to the least of these – to love. He showed that through sending Jesus.
Regardless of my middle school self-attempts to tell God how I wanted life to go, He has changed my heart and desires more and more to match His own. I used to be a very hard hearted person, one that just sought out what would benefit me because I didn’t care how it affected you and I’m glad to say that this is no longer my outlook on life haha.
I think the big initial crack Jesus made on my heart was for those being sexually exploited … I’ve always been one to hate inequality and to defend the underdog no matter how unlikely the win. I learned about sex trafficking like anybody else over the past couple years, but for me it went further than a sad thought – it felt personal. I’d spend hours researching, reading articles, watching YouTube clips, scouring organizations trying to find out what they were doing to stop this injustice. For that first year, it’s safe to say that 85% of my thoughts were on these individuals. Their stories broke through so many of my own walls that I had built – I fell apart when I heard them.
He must have known that this would be the issue to break down my defenses enough for me to feel for the rest of the world.
I remember sitting in my dorm room sophomore year of college, I had just finished watching a short clip about one girl’s story and I was in tears, I sat back in my chair trying to regain composure – I felt the deep pain in my heart.
I asked God “What am I supposed to do?”
Help
“But how? What do I have to give? I’m just me!”
Yourself
“Give myself?! What do I have …how?…why? I don’t know if I can do that…”
He then reminded me of my past and my story ….all of the emotions I felt, moments of fear, pain….everything. I may not have the same story as these girls but I’ve felt some of what they have felt and lived with some of the lies that they face. And that was the beginning of what He meant when He said, yourself.
Through working with ministries that reach out to these women I encountered more than just sexual exploitation and perversion- I saw drug abuse and addiction, poverty, loss of purpose and identity….I saw brokenness that reached a lot further than I ever cared to acknowledge. I mean…let’s be real: a bum on the street carrying a bottle in a brown paper bag with torn up clothing, awful BO and asking for money….obviously it’s all his fault- why doesn’t he clean up his act and get a job and do something with his life and for crying out loud quit drinking because I know that’s where the change I hand you goes. Or take for example the pimp or trafficker using the girls for their own profit…they are just messed up guys right? Perverted, evil people right?
Maybe not.
Maybe they have their own tragic stories just like the girls….maybe they didn’t have a mom or a dad growing up …maybe they weren’t loved or given attention….maybe they were abused…maybe they cried out for help and no one answered, maybe they were trying to just survive and turned to drugs…maybe they felt so alone that they ran from home…maybe they never finished high school…maybe they have never worked a job…maybe they are just as broken as the girls … maybe they are just as broken as me.
When that revelation came to me, my heart felt for more than just the ones being sexually exploited … my heart hurt and broke for the rest too.
I’m not sure when it came about but my heart is really for the nations and I hope to one day live in many different countries doing ministry. Put all of this together and something like the World Race looks like Disney land to me. I initially was looking into the summer 2014 routes and I kept asking the Lord and I couldn’t get an answer for about 2 months when finally He told me, not yet.
I dropped it, knowing that He is good and knows the desires of my heart and also stays true to His word. A few weeks later (maybe 2) the September 2014 routes were posted and I thought…what’s the harm in looking?
Route 1: India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Vietnam, China, Japan, Philippines.
I’m not sure if the word ‘excited’ adequately describes my reaction haha …I freaked out and I’m fairly certain I started crying and asked again, “can I go?”. I know He answered me right then and there and said, yea, go for it- but I still told Him…”if I’m supposed to go, you have to confirm it like CRAZY because $15,500 is no easy money”. Within the next week and a half I had no doubts, three different people that had no idea I was even thinking about applying told me that they heard the Lord speak about it. At which point the Lord reminded me that He owns the bank.
The Lord has been confirming it sense that time and I know He will continue.
To spend 11 months on the World Race is nothing short of a dream to me that still doesn’t seem real … Jesus is blessing this time even now and I can’t imagine how much more amazingly He will move once me and my team hit the field…both in how we serve others and share the heart of the Father but also within ourselves… I mentioned that my healing still is a long way coming and it’s a process, I fully expect the Lord to have me in the spiritual surgical room and rehab center in the time I prepare for the Race and also while I’m out on the field… But that just means more freedom and more Jesus, both for myself and those I get to love on while on the Race and that makes me more than willing.
If you would like to send me on the World Race please click the link – I can’t do it without you J
https://www.adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=worldrace&desc=For%20Julie%20Sliwinski
