How I Was Called to the Missions Field

I can’t think of a specific time in my pre-teen/teen years when I was called to the mission field.  One summer when I was in Junior High, I went with some of my dad’s missionary friends to Saltillo, Mexico to help a couple of weeks with Vacation Bible School and then later on that summer I helped my aunt’s church, located in Corpus Christi, Texas, with Vacation Bible School.  In High School, I trained with the Child Evangelism Fellowship and lead summer home camps for one summer.  At that time, I didn’t “feel” God tugging at my heart to help out in VBS or CEF.  I did it because I wanted to have fun.

 

Yet, although I thought I was participating in VBS and CEF for my own enjoyment, God had a more meaningful and bigger plan in mind.  This bigger plan God revealed to me at my home church Solid Rock Worship Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.  One Sunday evening, a Spanish-speaking evangelist and his interpretor came to preach at my church and he began calling people to the front to pray for them or tell them a word that God had laid on his heart to tell them.  I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, but prayed to the Lord that if this was the Lord’s doing then to bless it. After three random people were called and were prayed for, the evangelist looked at me dead-on and called me to the front of the church.  He didn’t say my name but pointed to me and said to come to the front. I was shocked!  I didn’t know what he was going to tell me.  The evangelist put his hand on my head and said in Spanish (the interpretor interpreting): “I have a word for you from the Lord.  The Lord says you will be a missionary, laboring for His kingdom.  You will do great and mighty things in His name.  Many people will come to know Him through your message and testimony.  He has gone before you and prepared the way for you to go.  Follow Him and He will make you a fisher of men.” I was a Sophomore in college at that time, but I didn’t think anything of it until God affirmed His plans for me through my first medical missions trip to Huaraz, Peru in April 2007.

 

I went to Peru for a week to serve as a Spanish Translator
for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and evangelists. It was there, on this medical missions trip, that God made it clear missions was where He wanted me to be.  As Jesus used
His healing ministry to reach the lost, the broken, the spiritually
dying and to point them to the Kingdom of God, God wanted me to follow in my
Savior’s footsteps and use medicine to continue in the ministry to reach
the lost and point them to God’s Kingdom. So in obedience, I further pursued medical missions In September 2007, in February 2008, in June 2008, and in February 2009, going to
Acuna, Mexico with a medical missions group from Hill Country Bible
Church Northwest to serve as a Spanish Translator for doctors and
nurses. It was at the June 2008 missions
trip that I was able to pray individually with children to bring them
to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Then in October 2008, I went to San Blas, Panama, serving again as a
Spanish Translator for doctors, nurses, and dentists and experiencing the beauty found in the Kuna culture and learning their language too.