I have been in debt for the last 2 1/2 years. I am almost done paying it off, and for about the last 6-8 months I have just had this feeling in my heart that I would no longer be here, as if God will be placing me somewhere else for a season of my life. In February of 2011 I went to Redding, California for a week to stay with a girlfriend that was going to the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. I really felt the word "ministry" being written on my heart, and so I have been praying into what God has for me. Was it a school of ministry that I was being called to? I have also been praying for God to break my heart for what breaks His.
On April 1, Max Fetisov came to our church to speak to us and share his testimony. Max is a 24 yr old lawyer from the Ukraine that has an incredible ministry working with the orphans. What touched me most about his testimony was the abjet poverty that he grew up in, He shared of how he and his brother shared one pair of shoes and had to take turns going to school in them. Of how they had food stamps, but the grocery store in his village never had any food on the shelves. And when they heard that food was coming to the store, the whole village would line up overnight in hopes of getting some to feed their families, He and his brother would stand in line for hours, only to get into the store to find the shelves picked clean. Of how they would work all day in the fields for a man gathering onions,and at the end of the day he would pay them with onions, as many as they could carry home. He said for the longest time all they had to at was onions.
His story broke my heart, and it stayed with me for weeks to come. I have never known a life like that before, never known what it was like to go without shoes, or food. My family has never been rich by North American standards, but I have never gone hungry. I continued to pray for revelation from God into where He wanted me. If it was to be school of ministry I would need to be applying soon, but I want His will for my life not my own. On April 4th I felt God telling me that I was supposed to do a 21 day fast. No meat, no sugar, and no alcohol. Doesn't sound easy (especially the sugar part) but because it was God's will and he was there with me the whole time it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Halfway through my fast God broke y heart even more. On April 13th one of our youth, Amanda, an amazing 16 year old that is living her life passionately for God, returned and shared her experiences from a 2 week missions trip to Africa with our youth group. She shared about her experiences with treating "jiggers" which are insects that get into your hands and feet and lay eggs, when the larva hach they eat your flesh from the inside out. Here I am getting manicure/pedicures, and people are having their hands and feet destroyed by insects. She shared about the lack of food and hunger, how one day a little girl was walking with her bowl of rice and beans and goat, the 1 meal that she gets a day, and she tripped and spilled it all in the dirt. She was lost it, Amanda tried to calm her down, "its okay, we'll get you more, it's not a big deal" But in her reality, there is no more. She eats once every 24 hrs, and now she will go hungry for 48 hrs, and she's 3 years old. Or how in one town they stopped in all the street kids walked around with bottles of glue, they sniffed the glue because it numbed the pains of hunger that they felt. These kids were literally frying their brain cells because it was the only thing they could do to rid themselves of the pain of hunger.
Now here I am in the middle of a fast, but I'm not hungry. I wake up in the morning and I eat a mango. We don't even grow mango's here!!! We import them from countries where people are starving!!! Oh how rich we are, and yet so poor at the same time. We have everything we could possibly need, and yet are never satisfied. The more we have the more we want. This is our North American lifestyle. And the more I see of it, the less I want to live this way.
2 days later I got a facebook message with a link for the world race.
11 countries in 11 months. Give up everything in persuit of God and what He has for my life, or stay home and live in relative safety and securiety, always knowing that God has more for me, but too scared to ever actually step into it. Talk about a school of ministry! Learning to minister to poeple through actual practical ministry.
May 26 2012, I officially submitted my application! Thanks be to God for bringing me to this point and for constantly being by my side.
xx
