I have grown up in the church and in missions my whole life. When I was 14 I went on my first international mission trip to Honduras. This mission trip really planted in me a love for serving and missions that I didn’t expect to grow the way it has. I proceeded to go to Kenya and Costa Rica a couple of times after that, and I did local missions that made me fall more and more in love with the purity of loving God’s people the way he has called us to.
James 1:27 says “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” To me, this scripture is such a perfect picture of what and who the Lord calls us to be for his people. What’s also cool about this is that there are people to love in every place. In your work environments, at school, and pretty much everywhere you go. He gives so much opportunity, all it takes is leaning in and listening to when and where he wants you to be. When he tells you to do something, do it! It can be hard but placing your trust in him and being bold in his name is always way more rewarding than staying safe and deciding to sit back in insecurity and fear.
I always dreamt that I would go serve when I graduated but I never imagined the Lord would lead me on the World Race Gap year. Its crazy and sometimes I can’t believe that he’s giving me the privilege to do this. It will undoubtedly be the most challenging and rewarding thing I will ever do and I am more than ecstatic to see how the Lord will mold and change my heart while I’m gone.
God is so worthy of praise, and he is so so good and faithful. So I don’t ever want to waiver in the way I serve and love him. I want to glorify him and serve his broken and lost children. As we are all lost and broken and in need of his unfailing love. I once heard somebody say “God doesn’t call the equipped; he equips the called.” And though I don’t feel prepared, God’s gonna give me what I need.
