June 19, 2014
It’s been really hard for me to begin this blog. I’m sorry that I am starting this so late! This is all pretty new to me. I had tried to start a blog while I was in Saipan, and the result was two entries in two years, ha ha. So this blog may change; it may get more creative (hopefully), I will talk about different things, and sometimes I will write a lot…and sometimes I won’t 
. So whatever this becomes, the purpose of this blog is for people to be connected to my journey before and during the World Race. And through this connection, my hope is that Jesus shines through these words and this adventure, and that we will partner with each other in support and prayer!
Here is a brief explanation of the World Race for those who don’t know what it is. The World Race is an 11 month Christian Mission’s trip to 11 countries around the world, and it will also serve as an intensive discipleship program for my team members and I. Through the World Race, we will serve in partnership with churches and ministries in the country to build churches, work in orphanages, minister to women and children caught in prostitution through sex trafficking, teach in schools, and bring the hope and love of the gospel to those who have never heard it and who desperately need it. The countries that I will be going to (unless there are unforeseen circumstances and I am switched to another team) are the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Romania.
So I am going to start with a devotion that I gave to the student youth group leaders in Saipan. It was my last devotion there, and it will be my first one here. God seems to do that often with me! Things that I’ve heard for most of my life will suddenly ambush me with their truth later on! The devotion was on how God will use anyone and everyone who is willing to put their lives in His hands. If you don’t think that God can use you because of your past mistakes, health problems, personalities, or weaknesses, just look at the people He used in the Bible! (I first heard this list when I was in college, and it is always good to think about!)
~ Noah was a drunk
~ Abraham was too old
~ Isaac was a daydreamer
~ Jacob was a liar
~ Leah was ugly
~ Joseph was abused
~ Moses had a stuttering problem
~ Gideon was afraid
~ Samson had long hair and was a womanizer
~ Rahab was a prostitute
~ Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
~ David was an adulterer and a murderer
~ Elijah was suicidal
~ Isaiah preached naked
~ Jonah ran from God
~ Naomi was a widow
~ Job went bankrupt
~ John the Baptist ate bugs
~ Peter denied Christ
~ The disciples fell asleep while praying
~ Martha worried about everything
~ The Samaritan woman was divorced (more than once)
~ Zacchaeus was too small
~ Paul was too religious
~ Timothy had an ulcer
~ Lazarus was dead!
I’ve had to look back on this list often, especially now for the World Race. Even though it’s something I have always wanted to do, the lack of money, the health issues that I am dealing with right now, and even my more introverted personality all seem like less than an ideal fits for such an endeavor. But the Bible shows us time and time again of how God chooses the people that we would never choose for His purpose!
That’s why I love stories like The Lord of the Rings, where the main protagonists, the hobbits, are the smallest and weakest of the group (at least in physical strength), and yet they are the ones that are chosen for the hardest trials. And they succeed, even when most around them doubt their abilities. In the movie The Hobbit, the soon to be King Thorin and his second in command are talking about the men that they have for their mission (Yes, I used this in the devotion too 
). His Second in command says “The odds were always against us. After all, what are we? Merchants, miners, tinkerers, toy-makers. Hardly the stuff of legend.”
And Thorin replies “I would take each and every one of these men over an army… For when I called upon them, they answered. Loyalty. Honor. A willing heart… I can ask no more than that.”
I love that because that is all God requires of us as well: a willing heart! A readiness to be placed in His hands and to be used however He wants to use us
!
1 Corinthians 1:26-31 The Message “Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”
As I was filling out the medical section of my application to the world race, I listed a bunch of health issues and medications. The first Captain America was on, and my whole family was watching it in our living room. I stared at the list for a while, starting to feel myself slip into discouragement, and then I had a random thought. Steve Roger’s medical list was longer than mine before he was changed into the superhero that is Captain America! I’m not saying that this is what God will do for me. He may heal me on this trip, and He may not, but He called me to go! And it is so exciting to see what He will do! The scientist, who chose Steve Rogers for his experiment, chose him not based on his military qualifications, but on his character and his eagerness to serve! He chose him not on what he was, but what he could be!
I think a lot of the time, we think that God only chooses the really religious, the really strong, and the really qualified, and we forget that He is the Master Potter—and He loves working with His clay. It’s not about us, it’s about Him, His glory, and His rescue plan. When we know we are weak, that it is not us that are making a ministry succeed, then we can get out of our own way, and let Jesus’ power, wisdom, and love work through us. Then His glory and His beacon of hope will shine, and not our egos.
Even though I know this, I find myself struggling with the concept often 
! I hope this reminder blessed you, and I would ask that you continue to pray for my team and I as God is preparing us for this January. God bless!
~Tori
2 Corinthians 12:9, NLT “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”
1 Peter 4:10, NIV “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
Philippians 4:13, NKJV “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
“He who trusts in his own heart is a fool….” Proverbs 28:26
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” 1 Corinthians 3:19
