Some of you recognize this picture and remember my first call to a mission trip, but for those of you who don’t, this is a picture from my very first mission trip ever to Russia!
The church home that I grew up in exclusively focused on local missions so the opportunity to travel internationally was never presented to me. Not to say that local missions are bad, in fact, I love local missions! However, the desire to do something more was within me and I just didn’t know how to do so while at my home church.
When I finally flew the nest and began my first semester of college in the Spring of 2011 this strong urge to do something much bigger than myself vastly expanded. As the Lord began to teach me to really tune into the Spirit and listen to His voice, it became evident that I was to go on an international mission trip. So I began to ask God things like “Well where am I going to go?” and “How in the world am I going to afford to do this?” I clearly heard the Lord telling me to “just wait and see.”
I kid you not, the following Monday in Chapel an organization called ” Buckner International ” came to chapel and they had several representatives that spoke about the mission trips they had been on throughout the summer.
I immediately knew that the following summer I would be going on my first ever mission trip.
As I walked out of chapel and picked up a flyer that had several different countries on it I began to read about the each country and what the primary focus of ministry was. 2 countries immediately caught my eye- Africa and Russia. Both countries had a primary focus on working with orphans, and working with children most of my life and having volunteered in children’s ministry for about five years at that point, I knew God was calling me to continue loving on and serving kids.
At the next chapel, an opportunity to serve in England arose so it was added to the list of countries I might serve in. For the next week I continued to pray over and have several friends and mentors pray with me about which country God was calling me to. As majority of my friends suggested I go to England because it was the ‘safer’ country to be in, my heart continued to long for more than taking the safe route and Russia became the country I began to pray about the most.
By the next week I had already sent in my application and began the process of getting a passport! Within the next three months God proved himself faithful time and time again as donations began to come in from the most generous of hearts! Professors, classmates, a roommate, old church members, and even strangers heard what God had placed in my heart and made the $5,500 trip possible! (again, a HUGE thank you to those who were a part of that journey!!)
Every single person whether they gave $1 or $500 allowed me to be a vessel for God’s love and light to over a hundred orphans! Each cent paved the way for me to hug, play cards with, pray over, give piggy back rides to, blow bubbles with, and MANY other things to children who only knew a world of darkness. They were children who didn’t know the love of a mother or father, who only found identity in their abandonment, and raised to only believe that the only person who cared about them was themselves.
Christ through my team and I that June got to put away those lies and speak love and life over each of them! PRAISE GOD!!
To say that experience changed my life would be an understatement.
That experience changed my eternity.
I learned more about the character and power of God in that one month than I had ever learned in the church.
Never before had the Holy Spirit felt so real within me as it did when I was with those children.
James 1:27
English Standard Version (ESV)
27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
This verse and that experience sparked something within me that can never be undone and will only grow as I press deeper into the Father’s will for my life, and it began with a conversation I had with one of my team mates while in Russia…
