There is this one question that seemingly every new ministry position requires.. “What brought you here?”
Rewind about 13 years, and my parents’ boss at the time will brag about my answers to his questions. He asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and my answer was that I wanted to be just like my mommy. For those of you who have read my “About Me” section, you would remember that I was raised on the foreign mission field. So as a bold, people-pleasing 10 year old, I knew the best way to make people happy was to be a missionary too.
For a brief 3 years I decided that was a horrible idea, before God started to put the calling into my heart when I was in High School, for reals this time! But I was very convinced that this calling was specifically to North American missions..only..
In college I started to pursue that calling, doing just about any missions opportunity I could afford, spending everything from 3 days to 3 months in places all over the US. And I loved it!
All the while, however, God prodded my heart towards an East Asia trip that my school took every year. I pushed it away every year, “reminding” God that he called me to N.A. missions, not overseas, and certainly not any fancy/scary place like Asia or Africa. Finally, my last year of school, I caved and went to East Asia… I survived, and it was great…. and I swore that was the end of it!
After graduating from College, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area for a year of Urban/Youth missions. I was thrilled to start my long term missions career here in North America. I couldn’t wait to see where God would send me next.
And then it happened… God finally lol-ed at me…
