In less than four months I will be in Southeast Asia.
WHAT?
Let’s start at the beginning. Last January, I had influenza A, pneumonia and sepsis, which caused me to medically withdraw from my sophomore year of college. Since it was so early in the semester when I withdrew, I was left with a lot of time on my hands. I dedicated my life to pursuing the lord during this and was really praying for answers on what I should do with my life. I felt like God was calling me to missions. This was strange because I am a complete homebody. I figured I was coming up with this on my own since missions are so trendy right now. So I set it to the side.
My college ministry was going on a trip to Guatemala, and strangely it never even crossed my mind to go. A lot of my friends were going but I decided if I did a mission I would want to do it “alone” with people I didn’t know. (eye roll).
Anyway.
If you medically withdraw by a certain point in the semester you can get your money back. And for whatever reason, I changed my mind about the Guatemala trip and joined the group, way late. I used the money I got back from school to fund it and we were off. I was hoping God would make it clear that this was what I was supposed to do with my life.
By the third day in Guatemala, I felt so defeated. Everyone was having these amazing breakthroughs and I just wasn’t. If I’m totally honest I wanted to just go home. “Well, I guess this isn’t what I am meant to do.” I was sad because I mean who doesn’t want to travel the world?
On day four I was voicing my frustrations to some friends, saying I came for the wrong reasons and that God wasn’t really showing me what I expected. Probably an hour after saying this we went to pray over a woman. We didn’t know any backstory, we didn’t even know what was wrong. As soon as we walked into that room, something struck me deep. I was bawling uncontrollably, my heart was broken. This thirty-something woman lay in her bed, struggling to cling to any kind of comfort. She had Hepatitis B. I was moved so deeply. We went out of her house after praying and I was still struggling to gather myself. One of our leaders came to pray over me, to hopefully calm me down. He began speaking affirmation after affirmation over me. Saying “this is what you are meant to do” “you will be immense healing in your life.” I felt like God was speaking right to me, answering all the prayers I had been praying for months.
After that encounter, the entire mission was flipped upside down. I felt so full of energy and full of such purpose.
So about this Thailand/Cambodia trip.
I decided I wasn’t going to go back to school. At least not right now. I came across the WR semsters trip on Instagram. I applied and gave it over to God. Pretty much “God if you want me to go, I’ll go.” I received word I was selected a couple of months ago.
I will leave in January and come back at the very end of April. (just in time for ice cream season!) I feel like God put this opportunity in front of me and I’m so excited to see what He plans on doing with it!
This is my blog that I’ll be posting on leading up to and during the trip.
