I just graduated from UW-Madison with an engineering degree. So when I tell people that I have no job lined up and that I am planning on going on The World Race- a common question that my friends and family have is, “How did you end up deciding to do this?” I can’t really explain exactly what my processing with the Lord was like but if I had to sum it up with one word it would be ironic.
I have been thinking about doing missionary work for awhile now. Last year, around this time, I filled out an application to do STINT in East Asia with Campus Crusades for Christ for a year. I filled it all out, had all of my references turn in their part and it came down to the day it was due…me sitting in front of my computer with the mouse hovering over the submit button. I did not click submit. The idea of doing STINT or something of that sort never left the back of my mind.
There’s this conference in the twin cities that I have never gone to. I didn’t go the last few years because of two reasons: money and family issues that came up. I had absolutely no intentions of going this December because I graduated and it is a college student conference…so why on earth would I go? Well, about three days before the sign up deadline for that…I signed up for some reason. I went to TCX and didn’t know why until the last speaker. Earlier that day we had a speaker talk about idolatry. The message hit me kind of hard, but in the back of my mind I was thinking…hmm next week I am traveling to Milwaukee and then after that I have no plans, so I could just pack a tent and drive down south from there and find some place to camp out, just me and God. That night, John Piper spoke on finding your holy ambition, your calling. Convenient since this was my biggest struggle at the time. And even more convenient…he said that in order to find out what your calling is you have to read the Bible. He said, “guys, you can’t just go into the woods and look up and open your arms and cry out, ‘God speak to me'”. So I did not go camping with God after Milwaukee, I spent time with my nose in the Bible and in prayer. There was a girl that got up and spoke about Ghana and doing STINT there as well. I decided that her and I should be friends and that I should go to Ghana with her.
The day I got home from TCX, I went to the coffee shop with my Bible and my journal all ready to do some processing with the Lord. A girl from my high school comes in to say hi and to tell me about a dream she had the week before. She had a dream that I stopped at her house to say goodbye to her on my way to the airport…on my way to Peru to do missionary work. Ironic because I was there praying about going to Ghana to do missionary work.
Well I kept on praying and reading my Bible just like John Piper told me to do and began researching programs online so I had some options. I felt like with STINT and a few other options- the people doing it were specifically called to that location. I didn’t have that luxury. I knew I wanted to get up and go, I knew that I wanted to be sent but I had no idea where. I stumbled upon The World Race website…fell in love…prayed about it….and here I am.
