As many of you may know (and by ‘may’ I mean ‘you should at least be semi-aware since you’re on my blog’, but hey, if not it’s okay. I’m here to give you the 411), in September I’m launching out on a nine-month missions trip to spread the love of Jesus in Central America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, spending three months in each section of the world. And you may be wondering (as I kind of am), “Sam, how on earth did you get into such a position?” Well let me tell you, it’s been a trip.
I tried to go to college. Really I did. But I had made it through about half a semester before it was glaringly apparent to me that college was not where I was supposed to be.
“But Sam, how can college not be where you were supposed to be? You just graduated high school, of COURSE college is where you’re supposed to be! You’re supposed to go to college and get a cool degree so you can get a cool job and be successful and make lots of money and be a productive member of society!”
I know you did not probably say that. But I did. My brain whispered words very similar to those to me each night as I lay in my dark little cement cell of a dorm room and wrestled with the opposing tugs in my heart. I felt like God was calling out to me in a VERY LOUD VOICE. I kept hearing sermons about trusting the Lord and about how how much money you make does not necessarily make you “successful” (I’ll probably get back to this later, as equating financial gain to the overall success of a being is something that really gets to me). Every where I turned I kept hearing things like “It’s hard to get your heart broken on the couch” and “we are not called to be settled, we are called to be sent”. My resolve to follow the traditional path of higher education that had been laid out before me was wavering. I prayed. I told God that I would follow wherever He wanted to lead, and He took me very literally.
I decided that since I had enough AP credits to put me almost a whole semester ahead, it wouldn’t be too terribly terrible if I took a semester off and did a missions trip or something. And thus I began my search. I quested all over the internet in search of a two or three week (or month) trip, something that shouldn’t be all too difficult, right? Go travel to cool places showing God’s love to the broken? So easy. Update: it was not easy. Every single trip I looked at would have been great, would have been beneficial, would have been life-altering. But not one of them ~spoke~ to me. None of them called out and said “Sam! Take a semester off college and adventure with me!”. I was starting to think that maybe I was wrong, maybe missions wasn’t God’s plan for me. But then a remarkable thing happened disguised as an unremarkable thing: my beautiful and intensely kind friend Jenna posted a link on Facebook to a thing entitled The World Race: Gap Year. I had came across the World Race during my Mission Quest, but it was for people 21 and up. Which I am not. But this Gap Year trip was for people aged 18-22. Which I just so happen to be. I read the trip description and fell in love. This was my trip, I could just feel it.
There was just one problem (or two or three). But as I thought and prayed about this more and more, God started opening up doors left and right and all over the place. It was CRAZY. So I applied for this Gap Year trip. The wait between when I sent in my app and my interview (which had to be rescheduled THREE TIMES) was stressful, but it was NOTHING compared to the wait between my interview and waiting for the call that would tell me whether or not I was accepted. That was excruciating.
The point of this story is that God opened up door after door. And that is why I’m here. I am here, poised to go sleep in tents and eat questionable food in third world countries because God put me here. And who am I to say no?
“Simon says ‘Pat your head’ and we pat our heads. Jesus says ‘GO and make disciples’ and we memorize that verse.” -Francis Chan
