Ok everybody, I don’t really know how to say this any other way so here it goes. I still have $6,615 to raise or I will not be able to finish my World Race. I have trusted God this far and I know that he will provide a way for me. So I am asking that if you are reading this post to please support me. I think it’s so weird to ask people for money, but I am stepping out of my comfort zone to ask for ministry support. The way I raised most of my money was through works. I hosted bake sales and sports tournaments, but I always shied away from just asking people to support me as a missionary. Since I’m in Thailand right now I cannot bake a dozen sugar cookies or make pumpkin bread to “earn” your support. I can simply ask for it through faith.
At training camp, one of the sessions we had was about fundraising for the race. There are actually a lot of people like me that try to earn their way on this race even though God has already called us to be here. Just like that quote we see on t-shirts, God doesn’t call the qualified but qualifies the called. At training camp they tried to tell me that most people cannot pick up their lives and become missionaries or help the hurting people of the world themselves, but they can support those who are called to the mission field. I didn’t see myself as a missionary so I didn’t pay attention, and I certainly didn’t take this advise to heart. In my head this is what I hear, “I know you’ve worked hard to earn this money, but I am asking you for it so that I can travel the world.”
But even as I write that down I look back over my 3 months in Asia and see how strongly God is moving here and through me and my team. I know that this trip I’m on is not just to see the world, but to see how God is moving in so many ways in so many countries. I’ve learned so much about Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. They are hungry for something, they just don’t know what because they have been fed lies since their birth. It’s so beautiful to hear the stories of their past and how God sought them out. Our host in Thailand told us how he couldn’t afford the building they are doing ministry in now, but God worked through his Buddhist mother. Like the mother who calls the school to get her child out of trouble, she called the owner of the building and got him to lower the price. God works in the weirdest ways ever and I’ve been a part of it!
When we were in Bali we tried to visit a refugee camp, but it just wouldn’t work out. Until God showed up and our host got a random call from an old friend in a little village who was looking for English teachers, aka us! Those 3 days were the craziest I have had yet in Asia. I saw a glimpse of God’s plan. He wants us to be available to bring his good news everywhere from the tiniest villages in the middle of an island in Indonesia to the middle of Bangkok. Just as God has sought me out so fervently, he wants to seek out each individual person on this planet. Not just the African orphans, but also the little old lady who had shredded coconut her whole life in a wet and stinky market. He has a plan to reach my heart so that I can speak into their hearts.
I have taken this step of faith to follow God’s voice across the world. I hear him speaking in the trash dumps in the Philippines, the beaches of Bali, and night markets in Bangkok. God is ready to move across the world and we only need to be available to listen to that voice. Trust me when I say that it is so crazy trying to follow a voice that it seems nobody else around you can hear. But I need your help. I need your continued prayers for our health, safety, and provision. I know it’s easier to close this blog down and tell yourself that someone else will support her, and it is a hassle to go find your debit card and type in all those numbers. But I am asking you to take those two minutes and ask God what he is speaking into you today. I need your support and literally every amount helps.
I’ve had $2 donations and $1,400 donations. They both had the same impact on me. Just like the lady who gave her last coin to the church, a little girl in my children’s church gave me her whole piggy bank’s savings. That $2 gave me just as much joy as the last minute $1,400 donation the night before I needed it to leave for my world race. So many of the missionaries I have met out here have all said the same thing. If you want to see God move mountains, then fundraise for missions. He will come through in the oddest ways possible. Sometimes its through a little girl who gave everything or through a wife who bugs her husband until he gives $1,400 the night before the deadline.
I love all of you who have been following my journey here across the world. Sometimes my blogs are fun and sometimes my blogs reflect my feelings of how lost and lonely I can be here in Asia. But I strive to always be true. Just as much as I love my comfy little home in Missouri, here comes a reference from the Hobbit, I miss my books and movies, my lazy boy, and my comfy Christian community. See that’s where I belong, that’s my home. But that’s why I’m here in Asia, because they don’t have that here. They are persecuted here for following Jesus. Most of them must be cut off from their family, heritage, and ancestors to follow Jesus. Its hard living over here, but its also fulfilling, hilarious, crazy, unexpected, and beautiful here.
I can only say thank you a thousand times for all the help that you have been to me on this journey. Thank you Kathleen for cooking for days with me. Thank you Lauren for always believing for me when I didn’t believe it myself. Thank you Kristi for encouraging me spiritually. Thank you everybody who gave a lot or a little. Thank you for believing that God might choose to work through a 24 year old pastry chef…
